Psychology Edition PDF

Psychology
Basics
This page intentionally left blank
MAGILL’S C H O I C E
Psychology
Basics
Volume 1
Abnormality: Psychological Models—
Learning Disorders
Editor
Nancy A. Piotrowski, Ph.D.
University of California, Berkeley
Salem Press
Pasadena, California
Hackensack, New Jersey
Copyright © 2005, by Salem Press, Inc.
All rights in this book are reserved. No part of this work may be used or
reproduced in any manner whatsoever or transmitted in any form or
by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, record-
ing, or any information storage and retrieval system, without written
permission from the copyright owner except in the case of brief quo-
tations embodied in critical articles and reviews. For information ad-
dress the publisher, Salem Press, Inc., P.O. Box 50062, Pasadena, Cali-
fornia 91115.
∞ The paper used in these volumes conforms to the American Na-

tional Standard for Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Mate-
rials, Z39.48-1992 (R1997).
The essays in this work originally appeared in Magill’s Encyclopedia of

Social Science: Psychology, 2003; new material has been added.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Psychology basics / editor, Nancy A. Piotrowski.— Rev. ed.
p. cm. — (Magill’s choice)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 1-58765-199-8 (set : alk. paper) — ISBN 1-58765-200-5 (v. 1 :
alk. paper) — ISBN 1-58765-201-3 (v. 2 : alk. paper)
1. Psychology—Encyclopedias. I. Piotrowski, Nancy A. II. Series
BF31.P765 2004
150′.3—dc22
2004016637
First Printing
printed in the united states of america

Table of Contents
Publisher’s Note. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . vii

Contributors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ix
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Abnormality: Psychological Models . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

Adolescence: Cognitive Skills. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
Adolescence: Sexuality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
Affiliation and Friendship . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
Aggression. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
Aging: Cognitive Changes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
Alzheimer’s Disease . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
Amnesia and Fugue . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
Analytic Psychology: Jacques Lacan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
Analytical Psychology: Carl Jung . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72
Analytical Psychotherapy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78
Animal Experimentation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84
Anxiety Disorders . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92
Attachment and Bonding in Infancy and Childhood . . . . . . . . . . . 99
Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). . . . . . . . . . . . 106
Attraction Theories . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113
Autism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121
Behaviorism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 128
Bipolar Disorder . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135
Brain Structure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141
Case-Study Methodologies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151

Clinical Depression . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157
Cognitive Behavior Therapy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165
Cognitive Development: Jean Piaget . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 172
Cognitive Psychology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 179
Cognitive Social Learning: Walter Mischel. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 188
Cognitive Therapy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 194
Conditioning. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 200
Consciousness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 210
Consciousness: Altered States . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 216
Creativity and Intelligence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 224
Crowd Behavior . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 230
v
Psychology Basics
Death and Dying. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 236

Dementia. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 242
Depression . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 247
Development. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 254
Developmental Disabilities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 260
Diagnosis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 270
Domestic Violence. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 277
Dreams . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 285
Drives. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 292
Drug Therapies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 299
Eating Disorders . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 306

Ego Psychology: Erik Erikson . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 314
Emotions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 323
Endocrine System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 330
Experimentation: Independent, Dependent,
and Control Variables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 337
Field Theory: Kurt Lewin . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 344
Gender-Identity Formation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 349

Giftedness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 356
Groups . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 364
Habituation and Sensitization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 372

Helping . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 379
Homosexuality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 386
Hormones and Behavior . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 393
Humanistic Trait Models: Gordon Allport . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 402
Hunger . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 408
Identity Crises . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 416

Imprinting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 423
Individual Psychology: Alfred Adler . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 430
Industrial/Organizational Psychology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 438
Instinct Theory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 444
Intelligence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 450
Intelligence Tests . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 457
Language. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 465
Learned Helplessness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 477
Learning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 483
Learning Disorders . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 493
vi
Publisher’s Note
The first edition of Psychology Basics, drawn from the six-volume Survey of So-
cial Science: Psychology (1993), has been a popular, accessible, and affordable
source of information about important theories and issues in this dynamic
field. Since the publication of Psychology Basics in 1998, the larger set has un-
dergone a substantial redesign, revision, and update as the four-volume
Magill’s Encyclopedia of Social Science: Psychology (2003), which was named a
2004 Outstanding Reference Source by RUSA. Essays in the two-volume Psy-
chology Basics, Revised Edition, are taken from this award-winning work.
This revised title in the Magill’s Choice series features 127 essays. One-
third of these topics did not appear in the previous edition of Psychology Ba-
sics. The remaining two-thirds have the same or similar titles but were either
newly commissioned for the revision of the larger encyclopedia or feature
both updated text—bringing them in line with the most recent edition of
the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of
Mental Disorders: DSM-IV-TR (2000)—and new “Sources for Further Study”
sections that offer the latest editions and scholarship. Additions to the Re-
vised Edition include new top matter, tailored subheadings guiding readers
through the text, photographs and medical drawings, helpful lists of diag-
nostic criteria from the DSM-IV-TR, and two appendices: a Biographical List
of Psychologists with brief profiles of major figures in the field, both past
and present, and an annotated Web Site Directory for support groups, orga-
nizations, and on-line sources of information on this field. As a result, Psy-
chology Basics, Revised Edition, supersedes the previous Psychology Basics and
should prove to be even more valuable.
Arranged in an A-Z format, Psychology Basics, Revised Edition, highlights
theories and concepts in the following areas:
• aging • language
• childhood and adolescence • learning
• cognition • memory
• conditioning • methodology
• consciousness • motivation
• depression • origin and definition of
• development psychology
• diagnosis • personality
• emotions • psychobiology
• experimentation • psychopathology
• intelligence • psychotherapy
vii
Psychology Basics
• sensation and perception • stress

• sexuality • thought
• social psychology • treatments
Entries range from four to eight pages in length. Every entry begins with
standard information for “Type of psychology” and “Fields of study.” An ab-
stract briefly defines the subject, summarizing its importance to psychology,
and “Key concepts” lists five to ten of the most important issues to be dis-
cussed in the essay that follows. The text of each article offers a clear and
concise discussion of the topic. An entry on a mental illness addresses its
cause, diagnosis, treatment, and impact. An entry on a theory or school ex-
amines its origin, history, and current status. Informative, descriptive sub-
headings divide the text. All terminology is explained, and context is pro-
vided to make the information accessible to general readers. Every entry
includes a bibliography of secondary sources with annotations discussing
their content and value; for this revision, all bibliographies have been up-
dated from the 2003 source set. Every essay is signed by the author and con-
cludes with a list of cross-references to related articles within Psychology Ba-
sics, Revised Edition. At the end of volume 2 are a Glossary of crucial terms
with concise definitions, the Biographical List of Psychologists, the Web Site
Directory, a Categorized List of Entries divided into thirty-seven subjects,
and a comprehensive Index.
We wish to express our thanks to the Editor, Nancy A. Piotrowski, Ph.D.,
of the University of California, Berkeley; her insightful Introduction can be
found at the beginning of volume 1. We also thank the contributors—acade-
micians from psychology, medicine, and other disciplines in the social and
life sciences—for sharing their expertise with general readers; a list of their
names and affiliations follows.
viii
Contributors
Christopher M. Aanstoos Dennis Bull

State University of West Georgia Dallas Theological Seminary
Richard Adler Joan Bartczak Cannon

University of Michigan—Dearborn University of Lowell
Mark B. Alcorn Paul J. Chara, Jr.

University of Northern Colorado Northwestern College
Jeffrey B. Allen Judith M. Chertoff

University of Mississippi Baltimore-Washington Institute for
Psychoanalysis
Tara Anthony
Syracuse University Rebecca M. Chesire
University of Hawaii—Manoa
Richard P. Atkinson
Fort Hays State University James R. Deni
Appalachian State University
Bryan C. Auday
Gordon College Thomas E. DeWolfe
Hampden-Sydney College
Stephen M. Auerbach
Virginia Commonwealth University Ronna F. Dillon
Southern Illinois University
Stephen R. H. Beach
University of Georgia Robert J. Drummond
University of North Florida
Donald G. Beal
Eastern Kentucky University Christopher A. Duva
Eastern Oregon University
Brett L. Beck
Bloomsbury University Carolyn Zerbe Enns
Cornell College
Susan E. Beers
Sweet Briar College Lawrence A. Fehr
Widener University
Tanja Bekhuis
TCB Research Margaret M. Frailey
American Association of Counseling
Mary Brabeck and Development
Boston College
Robin Franck
Lillian J. Breckenridge Southwestern College
Oral Roberts University
Cynthia McPherson Frantz
T. L. Brink Amherst College
Crafton Hills College
ix
Psychology Basics
Donna Frick-Horbury David Wason Hollar, Jr.

Appalachian State University Rockingham Community College
Lisa Friedenberg Sigmund Hsiao

University of North Carolina University of Arizona
at Asheville
Timothy L. Hubbard
R. G. Gaddis Eastern Oregon State College
Gardner-Webb College
Loring J. Ingraham
Albert R. Gilgen George Washington University
University of Northern Iowa
Tiffany A. Ito
Virginia L. Goetsch University of Southern California
West Virginia University
Jay W. Jackson
Doyle R. Goff Indiana University—Purdue University,
Lee College Fort Wayne
Sanford Golin Robert Jensen

University of Pittsburgh California State University, Sacramento
Diane C. Gooding Eugene R. Johnson

University of Wisconsin—Madison Central Washington University
Laurence Grimm William B. King

University of Illinois at Chicago Edison Community College
Lonnie J. Guralnick Debra A. King-Johnson

Western Oregon State College Clemson University
Regan A. R. Gurung Terry J. Knapp

University of Wisconsin—Green Bay University of Nevada, Las Vegas
Ruth T. Hannon Gabrielle Kowalski

Bridgewater State College Cardinal Stritch University
Carol A. Heintzelman R. Eric Landrum

Millersville University Boise State University
James Taylor Henderson Kevin T. Larkin

Wingate College West Virginia University
Lindsey L. Henninger Joseph C. LaVoie

Independent Scholar University of Nebraska at Omaha
Oliver W. Hill, Jr. Leon Lewis

Virginia State University Appalachian State University
Robert A. Hock Martha Oehmke Loustaunau

Xavier University New Mexico State University
x
Contributors
Deborah R. McDonald Nancy A. Piotrowski

New Mexico State University University of California, Berkeley
David S. McDougal Anthony R. Pratkanis

Plymouth State College of the University University of California, Santa Cruz
System of New Hampshire
Frank J. Prerost
Linda Mealey Midwestern University
College of St. Benedict
Timothy S. Rampey
Norman Miller Victoria College
University of Southern California
Lillian M. Range
Todd Miller University of Southern Mississippi
University of St. Thomas
Loretta A. Rieser-Danner
Robin Kamienny Montvilo Pennsylvania State University, Ogontz
Rhode Island College
Denise S. St. Cyr
Brian Mullen New Hampshire Technical College
Syracuse University
Frank A. Salamone
Donald J. Nash Iona College
Colorado State University—Lamar
Rosemary Scheirer
Elizabeth M. McGhee Nelson Chestnut Hill College
Christian Brothers University
Rebecca Lovell Scott
John W. Nichols College of Health Sciences
Tulsa Junior College
Felicisima C. Serafica
Steve A. Nida The Ohio State University
Franklin University
Matthew J. Sharps
Cynthia O’Dell California State University, Fresno
Indiana University Northwest
R. Baird Shuman
Amy L. Odum University of Illinois at Urbana-
University of New Hampshire Champaign
Janine T. Ogden Sanford S. Singer

Marist College University of Dayton
Randall E. Osborne Virginia Slaughter

Phillips University University of Queensland
Gerard O’Sullivan Lesley A. Slavin

Felician College Virginia Commonwealth University
Vicky Phares Sheldon Solomon

University of South Florida Skidmore College
xi
Psychology Basics
Frank J. Sparzo Elaine F. Walker

Ball State University Emory University
Sharon Wallace Stark Mary L. Wandrei

Monmouth University Marquette University
Michael A. Steele Daniel L. Wann

Wilkes University Murray State University
University of Kansas
Joseph E. Steinmetz
Indiana University, Bloomington Jennifer A. Sanders Wann
Murray State University
Richard G. Tedeschi
University of North Carolina at Charlotte Allyson M. Washburn
Institute on Aging/Jewish Home
Linda R. Tennison
College of Saint Benedict Ann L. Weber
Saint John’s University University of North Carolina
at Asheville
Harry A. Tiemann, Jr.
Mesa State College Michael Wierzbicki
Marquette University
Derise E. Tolliver
DePaul University April Michele Williams
Drury University
Marlene E. Turner
San Jose State University Karen Wolford
State University of New York, Oswego
Susana P. Urbina
University of North Florida Edelgard Wulfert
State University of New York, Albany
Lois Veltum
University of North Dakota Frederic Wynn
County College of Morris
Scott R. Vrana
Purdue University Ling-Yi Zhou
University of St. Francis
John F. Wakefield
University of North Alabama
xii
Psychology
Basics
MAGILL’S C H O I C E
Psychology
Basics
Volume 2
Logic and Reasoning—
Women’s Psychology: Sigmund Freud
Index
Editor
University of California, Berkeley
Salem Press
Pasadena, California
Hackensack, New Jersey
Copyright © 2005, by Salem Press, Inc.
All rights in this book are reserved. No part of this work may be used or
reproduced in any manner whatsoever or transmitted in any form or
by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, record-
ing, or any information storage and retrieval system, without written
permission from the copyright owner except in the case of brief quo-
tations embodied in critical articles and reviews. For information ad-
dress the publisher, Salem Press, Inc., P.O. Box 50062, Pasadena, Cali-
fornia 91115.
∞ The paper used in these volumes conforms to the American Na-

tional Standard for Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Mate-
rials, Z39.48-1992 (R1997).
The essays in this work originally appeared in Magill’s Encyclopedia of

Social Science: Psychology, 2003; new material has been added.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Psychology basics / editor, Nancy A. Piotrowski.— Rev. ed.
p. cm. — (Magill’s choice)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 1-58765-199-8 (set : alk. paper) — ISBN 1-58765-200-5 (v. 1 :
alk. paper) — ISBN 1-58765-201-3 (v. 2 : alk. paper)
1. Psychology—Encyclopedias. I. Piotrowski, Nancy A. II. Series
BF31.P765 2004
150′.3—dc22
2004016637
First Printing
printed in the united states of america

Table of Contents
Logic and Reasoning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 499
Madness: Historical Concepts. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 507

Memory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 516
Memory: Animal Research . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 524
Mental Retardation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 532
Mood Disorders . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 539
Moral Development . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 546
Motivation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 552
Multiple Personality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 559
Nervous System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 565

Neuropsychology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 571
Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 577
Parkinson’s Disease . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 584

Pavlovian Conditioning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 589
Personal Constructs: George A. Kelly . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 596
Personality Disorders . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 602
Personality: Psychophysiological Measures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 610
Personality Theory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 617
Personology: Henry A. Murray . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 624
Phobias . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 630
Psychoanalysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 638
Psychoanalytic Psychology. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 647
Psychoanalytic Psychology and Personality: Sigmund Freud . . . . . . 655
Psychology: Definition. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 662
Psychology: Fields of Specialization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 667
Psychopathology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 674
Psychosomatic Disorders . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 683
Psychosurgery . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 691
Psychotherapy: Goals and Techniques . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 698
Race and Intelligence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 704

Radical Behaviorism: B. F. Skinner . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 711
Reflexes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 719
S-R Theory: Neal E. Miller and John Dollard . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 725

Schizophrenia: Background, Types, and Symptoms . . . . . . . . . . . 731
xix
Psychology Basics
Schizophrenia: Theoretical Explanations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 738

Self . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 746
Self-Esteem. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 754
Sensation and Perception . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 760
Senses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 767
Sexual Variants and Paraphilias. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 774
Sleep . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 780
Social Learning: Albert Bandura . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 787
Social Psychological Models: Erich Fromm . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 794
Social Psychological Models: Karen Horney . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 801
Speech Disorders . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 807
Stress . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 813
Stress: Behavioral and Psychological Responses . . . . . . . . . . . . . 819
Stress: Physiological Responses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 828
Stress-Related Diseases . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 835
Structuralism and Functionalism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 843
Substance Use Disorders . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 851
Suicide . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 858
Support Groups . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 864
Survey Research: Questionnaires and Interviews . . . . . . . . . . . . 869
Thirst . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 876
Thought: Study and Measurement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 880
Women’s Psychology: Carol Gilligan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 886

Women’s Psychology: Karen Horney . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 894
Women’s Psychology: Sigmund Freud . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 900
Glossary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 908
Biographical List of Psychologists. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 946
Web Site Directory. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 956
Categorized List of Entries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 969

Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 975
xx
Psychology
Basics
Introduction
Many different ideas may come to mind when people hear the word “psychol-
ogy.” For some, word associations may be first: psychic, psychedelic, psychotic,
psychogenic, psychosomatic, psychopath—words that have associations to
psychology in one way or another. Others might think of concepts, such as the
psyche, referring to the self and the soul. They may think of getting psyched,
or prepared for action, with psyched up being good and psyched out being
bad. Some may think about Alfred Hitchcock’s classic 1960 film Psycho, a story
about a murderous and odd man—which, sadly, added stigma to the tragedy
of mental illness and suffering by reinforcing stereotypes of the mentally ill as
violent and dangerous individuals.
When people think of psychology, they often think of clinicians, such as
those portrayed on television and in films or heard on the radio—people
who work with or otherwise counsel the troubled and mentally ill. Ideas
about Sigmund Freud and his theories of the id, ego, and superego are also
common associations with the field. Still others will ponder whether psy-
chology is really about consciousness, the mind, psyche, or brain—and won-
der how these entities are different and similar. Somewhat less frequently,
people might think not about human psychology but instead about rats run-
ning mazes, pigeons operating machinery, monkeys using sign language,
salivating dogs and ringing bells, and even the mating habits of ducks and
other animals. A few people might see psychology as related to machines,
for indeed there is psychology involved in the design of artificial intelli-
gence systems and in the interface shared by humans and machines, such as
when hands type on a computer, fly a plane, or perform microsurgery with
the use of virtual reality-type cameras. All these examples reflect psychology
and its research.
Indeed, what people think of when they hear the word “psychology” can
vary widely by their personal experience. For some, their first exposure to
the term may be through an elective course taken in high school or college.
Others may first encounter it in their jobs, when they learn that there may
be business value in considering psychological angles to advertising, prod-
uct development, sales, or business organization management. Similarly,
others may learn about it in careers such as medicine or law, when they find
that it can enhance performance or improve communication with clients,
colleagues, and trainees. Artists might approach the field as a means of
learning more about creativity and how to foster it. Some may come to know
psychology through a personal or family crisis, possibly through exposure to
a counselor or self-help book. Others may learn about the concept through
films, songs, current events, or advertising portraying psychological princi-
ples or themes.
Most commonly, though, psychology is recognized as the study of human
behavior. The field is advanced by the work of many individuals applying the
1
Psychology Basics
principles of psychology in diverse settings for the purposes of teaching, re-

search, clinical work, organizational management, administration, advo-
cacy, data analysis, and consultation. Psychologists work in many different
settings, such as universities, colleges, clinics, forensics units, the armed ser-
vices, social service agencies, hospitals, research groups, laboratories, gov-
ernment bodies, businesses, wilderness areas, and even space. The work of
psychologists has far-reaching effects for diverse peoples and in diverse set-
tings, contributing much in terms of practical solutions to both the large
and small questions of daily life.
Psychology has deep roots in applications related to military defense,
medicine, and teaching. In terms of military defense, psychology assisted
the U.S. government with organizational decisions determining job assign-
ments in the early 1900’s via its development of intelligence testing strate-
gies. As a result of creating ways of ranking soldiers for assignment from very
basic to very complex work tasks, increases in efficiency were gained. Princi-
ples of psychology are also useful for the military in terms of fostering cohe-
sion among soldiers, training and teaching them what they need to know in
an efficient manner, and helping soldiers (and their families) deal with the
stresses of active military duty. Additionally, the field has made contribu-
tions to understanding the psychological aspects of warfare, such as per-
suading one’s enemies to provide information and debriefing those who
have been prisoners of war.
The roots of psychology in medicine are obvious. Basic applications be-
gan as the treatment of those who were considered ill, feebleminded, or pos-
sessed by spirits. With regard to spirituality, there should be no surprise in
finding a strong historical thread linking psychology and religion when it
comes to healing. This link spans at least from William James’s classic book
The Varieties of Religious Experience (1902) to current efforts in the field exam-
ining spirituality as it relates to illness, healing, diagnosis, resilience against
stress, and various types of group support. Historically, those not cured by
other methods of medicine were usually sent to healers of the mind and
spirit. At some point, psychologists were enlisted to help count and catego-
rize such individuals. As the field developed, methods such as behavioral
pharmacology grew in prominence with the discovery of new drugs to treat
mental disorders. More recently, the effect of psychology in the treatment
and prevention of stress-related, lifestyle-related, chronic, and terminal
health problems has been noteworthy. As examples, psychological interven-
tions related to stress management have been found useful for preventing
heart disease and stroke. Obesity is often treated with behavioral inter-
ventions designed to modify lifestyle from a biopsychosocial perspective.
Chronic pain is often addressed with cognitive interventions for pain per-
ception and management. Even conditions such as cancer may be better
managed with psychological interventions such as group support, family
therapy, and mood-enhancing interventions that facilitate adherence to
medical interventions for the body.
2
Introduction
With regard to teaching, psychology has played a large role in the struc-
ture and design of academic settings, the development of educational cur-
ricula, achievement and intelligence testing, and career advisement and
placement. It has also touched practices such as preschool for young chil-
dren, the learning of new career skills later in life, retraining after injuries
to the body or brain, and behavioral learning (such as how one might learn
to shoot a basketball or play the piano). More recently, studies have exam-
ined Internet-based learning and how it differs from face-to-face learning.
Whether online learning formats can be effective and whether the socializa-
tion aspects of learning can take place online are some of the questions pur-
sued.
In the United States, psychology has gained a foothold in government,
with psychologists being elected and appointed to public offices and serving
in high-level decision-making bodies. One example is the placement of psy-
chologists in the National Institutes of Health (NIH), where they have been
able to influence government spending related to research, health care, and
problem prevention on many fronts. In 1995, an office was established in the
NIH called the Office of Behavioral and Social Science Research (OBSSR),
with a designated role of advancing behavioral science knowledge and appli-
cations in the activities fostered and otherwise supported by the NIH.
As these many examples illustrate, psychology has become a diverse field.
In looking to the future, it is clear that the role of psychology in the work-
place and in international communications and relationships will expand.
Notable growth has been seen, for instance, in the numbers of studies exam-
ining cultural differences among groups defined in terms of age, gender,
ethnicity, race, sexual orientation, socioeconomic status, and other markers
of culture. Pick virtually any area of psychological study and look at the
number of references for cultural variation or differences since the mid-
twentieth century, and it will be easy to spot a trend of increasing publica-
tions by year over time. This trend has been inspired by a desire to create
better understanding among different cultures, as well as to assist efforts in
providing more culturally appropriate and culturally sensitive training, edu-
cation, and medical care. No doubt, this area of study will increase in impor-
tance as the field of psychology continues to evolve and as humans, as a
group, continue to understand the ideas of conflict and cooperation as we
approach nearly seven billion in number.
I hope that these volumes on psychology allow the diversity and capability
of this vibrant and valuable field to shine. I also hope that it encourages its
readers to be inspired, curious, and mindful observers of human behavior
more and more each day, as there is much to be learned.
University of California at Berkeley
3
Abnormality
Psychological Models
Type of psychology: Psychopathology; psychotherapy
Fields of study: Behavioral and cognitive models; evaluating
psychotherapy; humanistic-phenomenological models; models of
abnormality
Abnormal behavior is typically defined as behavior that is harmful to the self or others
or that is dysfunctional. Three models of abnormality stress medical or biological roots;
psychological aspects, such as unconscious conflicts, inappropriate learning, blocking
of full development, or maladaptive thoughts; and social and cultural context.
Key concepts
• behavioral model
• cognitive model
• humanistic model
• medical model
• psychoanalytic model
• sociocultural model
Prehistoric humans believed that evil spirits, witchcraft, the full moon, or
other supernatural forces caused mental disorders. In modern times, peo-
ple have more naturalistic ideas. The models of abnormality can be divided
into three types: medical, psychological, and cultural. Medical models hold
that mental disorders take on a psychological appearance, but the underly-
ing problems are physical in nature. Psychological models hold that mental
disorders are caused and then maintained by a person’s past and present life
experiences, which can result in inner conflicts, learned responses that are
problematic, blocked efforts to grow and achieve self-actualization, or pessi-
mistic, distorted thinking. Cultural models stress the sociocultural context
of stress.
Medical Models of Abnormality

Medical or biological models of abnormality stem back to Greek physician
Hippocrates (c. 470-c. 377 b.c.e.), who proposed that psychological disor-
ders are caused by body-fluid imbalances. Greeks believed that the uterus
could move around a woman’s body, attaching itself at different places and
causing the symptoms of hysteria, a disorder in which a person has physical
symptoms without the usual organic causes.
The medical model gained support when people realized that some bi-
zarre behaviors were due to brain damage or other identifiable physical
causes. For example, people with scars in certain areas of the brain may have
seizures. Also, people who contract the sexually transmitted disease syphilis,
which is caused by microorganisms, can develop aberrant behavior ten to
5
Psychology Basics
twenty years after the initial infection. Syphilis moves through the body and
attacks different organs, sometimes the brain.
In modern times, biological researchers use research techniques to ex-
plore the brain chemistries of mentally disturbed people. They suspect that
changes in the workings of neurotransmitters may contribute to many psy-
chological disorders. For example, depression can be associated with abnor-
mally low levels of norepinephrine and serotonin.
The medical model of abnormality is pervasive and can be seen in the
language that is often used to describe mental problems. In this language, a
patient is diagnosed with a mental disorder. This illness requires treatment
that might include hospitalization and therapy to relieve symptoms and pro-
duce a cure.
The medical model ushered in humane treatment for people who hith-
erto had been persecuted as agents of the devil. Some of the advances in
treatment for psychological problems include antipsychotic medication,
which can reduce hallucinations and help a person with schizophrenia
avoid hospitalization; lithium, which can moderate the debilitating mood
extremes of bipolar disorder; antidepressants, which can relieve the chronic
pain of depression; and antianxiety drugs, which can relieve the acute stress
of anxiety disorders. These kinds of advances help the day-to-day lives of
many people.
Also, the medical model has focused research attention on the genetic in-
heritance of mental illness. One way to study the genetic basis of behavior is
to compare identical twins with fraternal twins. An identical twin of a schizo-
phrenic who was adopted into an entirely different family and never even
met the other twin is still twice as likely to be schizophrenic as a person iden-
tified randomly from the general population. Another way to study the ge-
netic basis of behavior is to compare adopted children to their adoptive par-
ents and to their biological parents. Using these types of research, scientists
have implicated heredity in a number of mental disorders, including schizo-
phrenia, depression, and alcoholism.
However, it may not be appropriate to view all psychological disorders in
medical terms. Some disorders can be directly tied to life experiences. Also,
the medical model has promoted the idea that people who behave abnor-
mally are not responsible for their actions. They are mentally sick, therefore
not in control of themselves. Some people disagree with this notion. In The
Myth of Mental Illness (1961), American psychiatrist Thomas Szasz argued
that mental illness is a socially defined, relative concept that is used to cast
aside people who are different. In 1987 Szasz charged psychologists, psychi-
atrists, and other mental health professionals with being too quick to guard
society’s norms and values and too slow to take care of the people who are in
some way different. Further, Szasz claimed that the label “sick” invites those
with problems to become passively dependent on doctors and drugs rather
than relying on their own inner strengths.
6
Abnormality: Psychological Models
Psychological Models of Abnormality

The psychological model of abnormality also stems from ancient Greece. In
the second century c.e., the Greek physician Galen described a patient
whose symptoms were caused either by an inflammation of the uterus or by
something about which she was troubled but which she was not willing to
discuss. He tested these two hypotheses and concluded that the patient’s
problem was psychological in origin.
The psychological model gained support when French physician Jean-
Martin Charcot (1825-1893) used hypnosis to distinguish hysterical paralysis
(with no organic cause) from neurologically based paralysis. When Charcot
hypnotized patients, those with hysterical paralysis could use their suppos-
edly paralyzed body part. One of his students, Austrian physician Sigmund
Freud (1856-1939), expanded this approach. Freud and others believed
that mental disorders usually begin with a traumatic event in childhood and
can be treated with psychotherapy, a form of “talking cure.” Today, there are
four main psychological models of abnormality: psychoanalytic, behavioral,
humanistic, and cognitive.
psychoanalytic model. A psychoanalytic model, stemming from Freud,
emphasizes the role of parental influences, unconscious conflicts, guilt,
frustration, and an array of defense mechanisms that people use, uncon-
sciously, to ward off anxiety. According to this view, people develop psycho-
logical problems because they have inner conflicts intense enough to over-
whelm their normal defenses.
Freud thought that all people have some aspects of their personality that
are innate and self-preserving (the id), some aspects of their personality that
are learned rules or conscience (the superego), and some aspects of their
personality that are realistic (the ego). For example, the id of a person who is
hungry wants to eat immediately, in any manner, regardless of the time or so-
cial conventions. However, it may be time to meet with the supervisor for an
important review. The superego insists on meeting with the supervisor right
now, for as long as necessary. The ego may be able to balance personal needs
and society’s requirements by, for example, bringing bagels for everyone to
the meeting with the supervisor. People must somehow harmonize the in-
stinctual and unreasoning desires of the id, the moral and restrictive demands
of the superego, and the rational and realistic requirements of the ego.
Conflicts between the id, ego, and superego may lead to unpleasant and
anxious feelings. People develop defense mechanisms to handle these feel-
ings. Defense mechanisms can alleviate anxiety by staving off the conscious
awareness of conflicts that would be too painful to acknowledge. A psycho-
analytic view is that everyone uses defense mechanisms, and abnormality is
simply the result of overblown defense mechanisms.
Some of the most prominent defense mechanisms are repression, regres-
sion, displacement, reaction formation, sublimation, and projection. In re-
pression, a person forgets something that causes anxiety. For example, a stu-
dent who genuinely forgets her meeting with her professor about a make-up
7
Psychology Basics
test has repressed the appointment. In regression, a person reverts back to

activities and feelings of a younger age. For example, a toddler who reclaims
his old discarded bottle when a new baby sister comes on the scene is re-
gressing. In displacement, a person has very strong feelings toward one per-
son but feels for some reason unable to express them. Subsequently, she
finds herself expressing these feelings toward a safer person. For example, a
person who is extremely angry with her boss at work may keep these feelings
to herself until she gets home but then find herself very angry with her hus-
band, children, and pets. In reaction formation, people have very strong
feelings that are somehow unacceptable, and they react in the opposite way.
For example, a person who is campaigning against adult bookstores in the
community may be secretly fascinated with pornography. In sublimation, a
person rechannels energy, typically sexual energy, into socially acceptable
outlets. For example, a woman who is attracted to the young men in
swimsuits at the pool may decide to swim one hundred laps. In projection,
people notice in others traits or behaviors that are too painful to admit in
themselves. For example, a person who is very irritated by his friend’s whin-
ing may have whining tendencies himself that he cannot admit. All defense
mechanisms are unconscious ways to handle anxiety.
The psychoanalytic model opened up areas for discussion that were pre-
viously taboo and helped people to understand that some of their motiva-
tions are outside their own awareness. For example, dissociative disorders
occur when a person’s thoughts and feelings are dissociated, or separated,
from conscious awareness by memory loss or a change in identity. In
dissociative identity disorder, formerly termed multiple personality, the in-
dividual alternates between an original or primary personality and one or
more secondary or subordinate personalities. A psychoanalytic model would
see dissociative identity disorder as stemming from massive repression to
ward off unacceptable impulses, particularly those of a sexual nature. These
yearnings increase during adolescence and adulthood, until the person fi-
nally expresses them, often in a guilt-inducing sexual act. Then, normal
forms of repression are ineffective in blocking out this guilt, so the person
blocks the acts and related thoughts entirely from consciousness by develop-
ing a new identity for the dissociated bad part of self.
The psychoanalytic model views all human behavior as a product of men-
tal or psychological causes, though the cause may not be obvious to an out-
side observer or even to the person performing the behavior. Psychoanalytic
influence on the modern perspective of abnormality has been enormous.
Freudian concepts, such as Freudian slips and unconscious motivation, are
so well known that they are now part of ordinary language and culture. How-
ever, the psychoanalytic model has been criticized because it is not verifi-
able, because it gives complex explanations when simple and straight-
forward ones are sufficient, because it cannot be proven wrong (lacks
disconfirmability), and because it was based mainly on a relatively small
number of upper-middle-class European patients and on Freud himself.
8
behavioral model. A behavioral model, or social-learning model, stem-

ming from American psychologists such as John B. Watson (1878-1958) and
B. F. Skinner (1904-1990), emphasizes the role of the environment in devel-
oping abnormal behavior. According to this view, people acquire abnormal
behavior in the same ways they acquire normal behavior, by learning from
rewards and punishments they either experience directly or observe hap-
pening to someone else. Their perceptions, expectations, values, and role
models further influence what they learn. In this view, a person with abnor-
mal behavior has a different reinforcement history from that of others.
The behavioral model of abnormality stresses classical conditioning, op-
erant conditioning, and modeling. In classical conditioning, a child might
hear a very loud sound immediately after entering the elevator. Thereafter,
this child might develop a phobia of elevators and other enclosed spaces. In
operant conditioning, a mother might give the child a cookie to keep him
quiet. Soon, the child will notice that when he is noisy and bothersome, his
mother gives him cookies and will develop a pattern of temper tantrums
and other conduct disorders. In modeling, the person might notice that her
mother is very afraid of spiders. Soon, she might develop a phobia of spiders
and other small creatures.
The behavioral model advocates a careful investigation of the environ-
mental conditions in which people display abnormal behavior. Behaviorists
pay special attention to situational stimuli, or triggers, that elicit the abnor-
mal behavior and to the typical consequences that follow the abnormal be-
havior. Behaviorists search for factors that reinforce or encourage the repe-
tition of abnormal behaviors.
The behavioral model helped people realize how fears become associ-
ated with specific situations and the role that reinforcement plays in the ori-
gin and maintenance of inappropriate behaviors. However, this model ig-
nores the evidence of genetic and biological factors playing a role in some
disorders. Further, many people find it difficult to accept the view of human
behavior as simply a set of responses to environmental stimuli. They argue
that human beings have free will and the ability to choose their situation as
well as how they will react.
humanistic model. A humanistic model, stemming from American psy-
chologist Carl Rogers (1902-1987) and others, emphasizes that mental dis-
orders arise when people are blocked in their efforts to grow and achieve
self-actualization. According to this view, the self-concept is all-important
and people have personal responsibility for their actions and the power to
plan and choose their behaviors and feelings.
The humanistic model stresses that humans are basically good and have
tremendous potential for personal growth. Left to their own devices, people
will strive for self-actualization. However, people can run into roadblocks.
Problems will arise if people are prevented from satisfying their basic needs
or are forced to live up to the expectations of others. When this happens,
people lose sight of their own goals and develop distorted self-perceptions.
9
Psychology Basics
They feel threatened and insecure and are unable to accept their own feel-
ings and experiences. Losing touch with one’s own feelings, goals, and per-
ceptions forms the basis of abnormality. For example, parents may withhold
their love and approval unless a young person conforms to their standards.
In this case, the parents are offering conditional positive regard. This causes
children to worry about such things as, “What if I do not do as well on the
next test?”, “What if I do not score in the next game?”, and “What if I forget
to clean my room?” In this example, the child may develop generalized anxi-
ety disorder, which includes chronically high levels of anxiety. What the
child needs for full development of maximum potential, according to the
humanistic view, is unconditional positive regard.
American psychologist Abraham Maslow (1908-1970) and other human-
istic theorists stress that all human activity is normal, natural, rational, and
sensible when viewed from the perspective of the person who is performing
the behavior. According to this model, abnormality is a myth. All abnormal
behavior would make sense if one could see the world through the eyes of
the person who is behaving abnormally.
The humanistic model has made useful contributions to the practice of
psychotherapy and to the study of consciousness. However, the humanistic
model restricts attention to immediate conscious experience, failing to rec-
ognize the importance of unconscious motivation, reinforcement contin-
gencies, future expectations, biological and genetic factors, and situational
influences. Further, contrary to the optimistic self-actualizing view of peo-
ple, much of human history has been marked by wars, violence, and individ-
ual repression.
cognitive model. A cognitive model, stemming from American psy-
chologists Albert Ellis and Donald Meichenbaum, American psychiatrist
Aaron Beck, and others, finds the roots of abnormal behavior in the way
people think about and perceive the world. People who distort or misinter-
pret their experiences, the intentions of those around them, and the kind of
world where they live are bound to act abnormally.
The cognitive model views human beings as thinking organisms that de-
cide how to behave, so abnormal behavior is based on false assumptions or
unrealistic situations. For example, Sally Smith might react to getting fired
from work by actively searching for a new job. Sue Smith, in contrast, might
react to getting fired from work by believing that this tragedy is the worst
possible thing that could have happened, something that is really awful. Sue
is more likely than Sally to become anxious, not because of the event that
happened but because of what she believes about this event. In the cognitive
model of abnormality, Sue’s irrational thinking about the event (getting
fired), not the event itself, caused her abnormal behavior.
Beck proposed that depressed people have negative schemas about
themselves and life events. Their reasoning errors cause cognitive distor-
tions. One cognitive distortion is drawing conclusions out of context, while
ignoring other relevant information. Another cognitive distortion is over-
10
generalizing, drawing a general rule from one or just a few isolated inci-
dents and applying the conclusion broadly to unrelated situations. A third
cognitive distortion is dwelling on negative details, while ignoring positive
aspects. A fourth cognitive distortion is thinking in an all-or-nothing way.
People who think this way categorize experiences as either completely good
or completely bad, rather than somewhere in between the two extremes. A
fifth cognitive distortion is having automatic thoughts, negative ideas that
emerge quickly and spontaneously, and seemingly without voluntary con-
trol.
The cognitive and behavioral models are sometimes linked and have
stimulated a wealth of empirical knowledge. The cognitive model has been
criticized for focusing too much on cognitive processes and not enough on
root causes. Some also see it as too mechanistic.
The cognitive model proposes that maladaptive thinking causes psycho-
logical disorders. In contrast, the psychoanalytic model proposes that un-
conscious conflicts cause psychological disorders; the humanistic model
proposes that blocking of full development causes psychological disorders;
and the behavioral model proposes that inappropriate conditioning causes
psychological disorders. These psychological models of abnormality stress
the psychological variables that play a role in abnormal behavior.
Sociocultural Models of Abnormality

A sociocultural model of abnormality emphasizes the social and cultural
context, going so far as to suggest that abnormality is a direct function of so-
ciety’s criteria and definitions for appropriate behavior. In this model, ab-
normality is social, not medical or psychological. For example, early Greeks
revered people who heard voices that no one else heard because they inter-
preted this phenomenon as evidence of divine prophecy. In the Middle
Ages, people tortured or killed people who heard voices because they inter-
preted this same proclivity as evidence of demonic possession or witchcraft.
Today, people treat those who hear voices with medicine and psychotherapy
because this symptom is viewed as evidence of schizophrenia.
Social and cultural context can influence the kinds of stresses people ex-
perience, the kinds of disorders they are likely to develop, and the treatment
they are likely to receive. Particularly impressive evidence for a social per-
spective are the results of a well-known study, “On Being Sane in Insane
Places” (1973), by American psychologist David Rosenhan. Rosenhan ar-
ranged for eight normal people, including himself, to arrive at eight differ-
ent psychiatric hospitals under assumed names and to complain of hearing
voices repeating innocuous words such as “empty,” “meaningless,” and
“thud.” These pseudopatients responded truthfully to all other questions
except their names. Because of this single symptom, the hospital staff diag-
nosed all eight as schizophrenic or manic-depressive and hospitalized them.
Although the pseudopatients immediately stopped reporting that they heard
voices and asked to be released, the hospitals kept them from seven to fifty-
11
Psychology Basics
two days, with an average of nineteen days. When discharged, seven of the
eight were diagnosed with schizophrenia “in remission,” which implies that
they were still schizophrenic but simply did not show signs of the illness at
the time of release. The hospital staff, noticing that these people took notes,
wrote hospital chart entries such as “engages in writing behaviors.” No staff
member detected that the pseudopatients were normal people, though
many regular patients suspected as much. The context in which these
pseudopatients behaved (a psychiatric hospital) controlled the way in which
others interpreted their behavior.
Particularly impressive evidence for a cultural perspective comes from
the fact that different types of disorders appear in different cultures. An-
orexia nervosa, which involves self-starvation, and bulimia nervosa, which in-
volves binge eating followed by purging, primarily strike middle- and upper-
class women in Westernized cultures. In Western cultures, women may feel
particular pressure to be thin and have negatively distorted images of their
own bodies. Amok, a brief period of brooding followed by a violent outburst
that often results in murder, strikes Navajo men and men in Malaysia, Papua
New Guinea, the Philippines, Polynesia, and Puerto Rico. In these cultures,
this disorder is frequently triggered by a perceived insult. Pibloqtoq, a brief
period of extreme excitement that is often followed by seizures and coma
lasting up to twelve hours, strikes people in Arctic and Subarctic Eskimo
communities. The person may tear off his or her clothing, break furniture,
shout obscenities, eat feces, and engage in other acts that are later forgot-
ten. As researchers examine the frequency and types of disorders that occur
in different societies, they note some sharp differences not only between so-
cieties but also within societies as a function of the age and gender of the in-
dividuals being studied.
The sociocultural model of abnormality points out that other models fail
to take into account cultural variations in accepted behavior patterns. Un-
derstanding cross-cultural perspectives on abnormality helps in better fram-
ing questions about human behavior and interpretations of data. Poverty
and discrimination can cause psychological problems. Understanding the
context of the abnormal behavior is essential.
The medical, psychological, and sociocultural models of abnormality
represent profoundly different ways of explaining and thus treating peo-
ple’s problems. They cannot be combined in a simple way because they of-
ten contradict one another. For example, a biological model asserts that de-
pression is due to biochemistry. The treatment, therefore, is medicine to
correct the imbalance. In contrast, a behavioral model asserts that depres-
sion is learned. The treatment, therefore, is changing the rewards and pun-
ishers in the environment so that the person unlearns the old, bad habits
and learns new, healthy habits.
One attempt to integrate the different models of abnormality is called
the diathesis-stress model of abnormality. It proposes that people develop
disorders if they have a biological weakness (diathesis) that predisposes
12
them to the disorder when they encounter certain environmental condi-

tions (stress). The diathesis-stress approach is often used to explain the de-
velopment of some forms of cancer: a biological predisposition coupled
with certain environmental conditions. According to this model, some peo-
ple have a predisposition that makes them vulnerable to a disorder such as
schizophrenia. They do not develop schizophrenia, however, unless they ex-
perience particularly stressful environmental conditions.
It is unlikely that any single model can explain all disorders. It is more
probable that each of the modern perspectives explains certain disorders
and that any single abnormal behavior has multiple causes.
Sources for Further Study

Alloy, Lauren B., Neil S. Jacobson, and Joan Acocella. Abnormal Psychology:
Current Perspectives. 8th ed. Boston: McGraw-Hill, 1999. This comprehen-
sive textbook discusses the medical (biological), psychodynamic (psycho-
analytic), and cognitive models of abnormality.
American Psychiatric Association. Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental
Disorders: DSM-IV-TR. Rev. 4th ed. Washington, D.C.: Author, 2000. This
listing of all psychological disorders includes for each a description, asso-
ciated features and disorders, prevalence, course, and differential diag-
nosis. It is revised every five to ten years as new information becomes
available.
Gotlib, I. H., and C. L. Hammen. Psychological Aspects of Depression: Toward a
Cognitive-Interpersonal Integration. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1992.
This book provides a summary of the symptoms of depression as well as
theoretical explanations.
Gottesman, Irving I. Schizophrenia Genesis: The Origins of Madness. New York:
W. H. Freeman, 1991. Gottesman, an active researcher in the field of
schizophrenia, wrote this book for nonprofessionals interested in schizo-
phrenia and included first-person accounts written by people diagnosed
with schizophrenia.
Kesey, Ken. One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest. New York: Viking, 1962. This
novel, and the 1975 film on which it is based, made the point that psychi-
atric diagnosis and treatment can be used to control behavior considered
undesirable in a hospital and yet healthy from other perspectives.
Rosenhan, David L. “On Being Sane in Insane Places.” Science 179 (1973):
250-258. The original report of a classic study of the effect that context
has on perceptions of behavior.
Lillian M. Range
See also: Psychoanalytic Psychology.
13
Adolescence
Cognitive Skills
Type of psychology: Developmental psychology
Fields of study: Adolescence; cognitive development
Adolescence brings the potential for logical and theoretical reasoning, systematic prob-
lem solving, and acquisition of abstract concepts; adolescent cognitive skills are reflected
in social and personality development as well as in learning and problem-solving be-
havior.
Key concepts
• concrete operations stage
• developmental approach
• egocentrism
• formal operations stage
• hypothetical-deductive reasoning
• imaginary audience
• information-processing approach
• personal fable
• psychometric approach
Psychologists approach the study of adolescent cognitive skills from three

perspectives: the psychometric, the developmental, and the information-
processing. The psychometric approach focuses on defining and measuring
intellectual skills. Psychometric research typically involves studies of perfor-
mance on intelligence tests. The developmental approach seeks to identify
the types of cognitive skills that are unique to the adolescent years. This ap-
proach has been heavily influenced by the cognitive stage theory of Swiss
psychologist Jean Piaget. The information-processing approach examines
the characteristics of memory and problem solving. It views adolescent cog-
nitive skills as parameters that determine how the brain stores and analyzes
information.
Psychometric Approach
In the psychometric view, adolescence is a period of cognitive stability. Intel-
ligence quotient (IQ) scores show little change during adolescence. Al-
though IQ scores often fluctuate during early childhood, scores generally
stabilize about age eight. It is common to find temporary periods of instabil-
ity in IQ scores after age eight, such as at the onset of puberty or during
other stressful times, but dramatic and long-term score changes are rare. Ac-
cording to this perspective, adolescence does not bring significant changes
in cognitive skills.
Theory and research on cognitive skills began with the development of
modern intelligence tests, such as Alfred Binet’s 1916 test; however, the
14
Adolescence: Cognitive Skills
intelligence-testing, or psychometric, approach has contributed little to an

understanding of adolescent cognitive skills. Intelligence tests are best
suited to the study of individual differences, or how people compare to oth-
ers of their age. It is difficult to use intelligence testing to compare and con-
trast cognitive skills at different ages.
Intelligence tests also are used to study the stability of intellectual level
and the likelihood it will change in later years. Research indicates, however,
that intelligence test scores in adolescence generally are similar to scores
during childhood, although scores may fluctuate during childhood as a
function of changes in factors such as diet, socioeconomic status, and educa-
tion. Again, the psychometric approach seems poorly suited to the study of
adolescent cognitive skills.
Developmental Approach
The developmental approach seeks to identify the cognitive skills of adoles-
cence and to contrast them with the skills found at other ages. This ap-
proach addresses both the qualities of thought and the process of change.
In 1958 Piaget and his coworker Barbel Inhelder published The Growth of
Logical Thinking from Childhood Through Adolescence, a detailed account of
Piaget’s four stages of cognitive development. In addition to proposing that
specific cognitive skills emerge in each stage, he proposes that the move
from one stage to the next is largely maturational.
This statement may be confusing. Clearly, sixteen-year-olds must “know
more” than eight-year-olds, and adolescents have the capacity to learn
school subjects beyond the grasp of elementary school children. The
psychometric approach, however, is not designed to contrast the nature of
cognitive skills at different ages. Intelligence tests are scored by comparing a
specific person to other people of the same age. A score of 100 at age eight
means that a person performs similarly to the average eight-year-old; a score
of 100 at age eighteen means that a person performs similarly to the average
eighteen-year-old. IQ score is expected to remain the same if the person ma-
tures at a relatively normal rate.
Two of Piaget’s stages are of particular importance to the study of adoles-
cence: the concrete operational stage (ages seven to twelve) and the formal
operational stage (ages twelve and up). During the concrete operational
stage, children acquire basic logical concepts such as equivalence, seriation,
and part-whole relations. Children also master reversibility, a skill allowing
them mentally to restore a changed object or situation to its original state.
With reversibility, children can recognize that a small glass of juice poured
into a taller and thinner glass may look like more juice but is actually the
same amount. During concrete operations, children can think logically as
long as their reasoning is in reference to tangible objects.
The formal operational stage follows the concrete operational stage and
is the final stage of cognition, according to Piaget. Beginning at adoles-
cence, thinking becomes more logical, more abstract, more hypothetical,
15
Psychology Basics
and more systematic. Unlike their concrete operational counterparts, for-

mal thinkers can study ideologies, generate a variety of possible outcomes to
an action, and systematically evaluate alternative approaches to a problem.
Formal thinkers also are better able to adopt a new course of action when a
particular strategy proves unsuccessful. In the Piagetian model, adolescents
are compared to scientists as they utilize hypothetical-deductive reasoning
to solve problems. Although children during the concrete operational stage
would solve problems by trial and error, adolescents could be expected to
develop hypotheses and then systematically conclude which path is best to
follow in order to solve the problem.
Information-Processing Approach
The information-processing approach provides additional information about
these child/adolescent contrasts. According to John Flavell, cognitive growth
is the acquisition of increasingly sophisticated and efficient problem-solving
skills. For example, adolescents can hold more information in memory than
children, which enhances their ability to solve complex problems. Improve-
ments in memory reflect more than changes in capacity. Adolescents are
better able to develop associations between words and ideas, which in turn
facilitates remembering them. Part of their improvement is a result of the
fact that adolescents know more than children. Adolescents also are better
able to think abstractly and develop hypotheses. These skills in part reflect
improvements in generalization, identifying similarities between previous
situations and new ones. Changes in thinking and hypothesizing also enable
adolescents to generate a wider variety of problem-solving strategies, which
enhances their performance. Finally, adolescents know more about the na-
ture of thought and memory. This metacognition, or ability to “think about
thinking,” increases the planning in their problem-solving behavior.
Information-processing research has helped explain some of the incon-
sistencies that appear in Piagetian research. According to Piagetian theory,
people are located within particular cognitive stages and will reason at those
levels of maturity in all problem-solving situations. Why, then, do most peo-
ple show features of several stages, depending on the type of problem pre-
sented? According to information-processing research, variability in perfor-
mance across different problem types is to be expected. The more one
knows, the easier it is to use efficient cognitive processes. People will appear
more cognitively mature performing tasks about which they are knowledge-
able.
Application of Research
The research on adolescent thinking has been applied to the study of learn-
ing, personality, and social behavior during adolescence. For example, re-
search on adolescent cognition has influenced the development of both
curricula and teaching methods at the middle-school and high-school lev-
els. As individuals who are entering the stage of formal thinking, adoles-
16
cents are better equipped to handle abstract topics such as geometry and
physics. Their emerging ability to consider systematically the effects of sev-
eral factors when solving a problem make adolescents good candidates for
laboratory science courses.
Some applications of research on adolescent cognitive skills are the sub-
ject of much debate, however; ability tracking is a case in point. Psycho-
metric research indicates that intellectual functioning becomes relatively
stable in preadolescence. From this point onward, children continue to per-
form at the same level relative to their age-mates on standardized measures
such as IQ tests. The stability of test performance has been used to support
the creation and maintenance of ability tracks beginning in the middle-
school years. Proponents of tracking maintain that ability grouping, or
tracking, enables teachers to challenge more able students without frustrat-
ing less capable students. Opponents of tracking maintain that less able stu-
dents benefit from both the academic challenges and the competent role
models provided by superior students in ungrouped classrooms. In fact,
critics of tracking charge that the level at which performance stabilizes actu-
ally results from subtle differences in how teachers interact with their stu-
dents, differences often based on inaccurate assumptions about student po-
tential. Perhaps students with low test scores, many of whom are poor or
minority students, perform poorly because people expect them to be less
capable.
Adolescents and Social Cognition

Although Piaget primarily limited his research of adolescent reasoning to
mathematical and scientific concepts, he did consider the role that formal
operations play in the adolescent’s social life. David Elkind continued re-
search in this area by noting that features of formal thinking are reflected in
adolescent personality characteristics. According to Elkind, the ability to
think abstractly and hypothetically enables adolescents to develop their own
idealistic, theoretical views of the world. The ability to distinguish between
reality and theory, however, can lead to disillusionment and the recognition
that adolescents’ idols have “feet of clay.” Elkind identified an adolescent
egocentrism that he equates with the heightened self-consciousness of ado-
lescence. This egocentrism demonstrates itself in two types of social think-
ing—personal fable and imaginary audience.
In personal fable, young adolescents see themselves as unique and spe-
cial. Personal fable may lead adolescents to take unnecessary risks because
they believe they are so different from others: “I can drink and drive.” “Only
other people get pregnant.” Personal fable also makes adolescents believe
that no one else can understand how they feel or offer any useful sugges-
tions: “No one has ever had a problem like mine.” In imaginary audience,
adolescents believe that “everyone” is watching them. Elkind sees this self-
consciousness as an application of hypothetical thinking: “If my characteris-
tics are so obvious to me, they must also be obvious to everyone else.”
17
Psychology Basics
Neural Basis of Adolescent Cognition

Interest has been growing in the prospect of uniting brain and cognitive devel-
opment during adolescence. With the use of magnetic resonance imaging
(MRI), researchers now have a better understanding of how the adolescent
brain actually functions. A surprising discovery is the fact that there are
changes in the structure of the brain that appear relatively late in child devel-
opment. Of special note during the teenage years is the second wave of syn-
apse formation just before puberty, along with a pruning back during adoles-
cence. It had already been known that prior to birth and during the first
months after birth there was an overproduction of connections, but it was not
known that a second spurt occurred. This time of rapid development of synap-
ses followed by the pruning of connections determines the cells and connec-
tions that will be “hardwired.” From studies of growth patterns of the develop-
ing brain, it has also been found that fiber systems which influence language
learning and associative thinking develop more rapidly just before puberty
and for a short period of time just after puberty. Changes in the prefrontal cor-
tex increase the adolescent’s potential to reason with more accuracy, show
more control over impulses, and make more effective judgments. Even the
cerebellum is still developing into adolescence. Although commonly associ-
ated with physical coordination, the cerebellum also plays a role in processing
mental tasks, such as higher thought, decision making, and social skills. In
summary, it is now known that an important part of the growth of the brain is
happening just before puberty and well into adolescence.
Lillian J. Breckenridge
Cognitive changes also affect social behavior by inducing changes in so-

cial cognitive development. Social cognition refers to an individual’s under-
standing of people and of interactions among people. According to Piaget,
changes in cognition are reflected in the way people think about themselves
and other people. The thinking of preadolescents (seven to eleven years)
begins to focus less on the obvious features of objects, events, and people.
They are better able to translate patterns of behavior into psychological
characteristics, such as concluding that a particular person is “nice” or
“rude.” They are becoming less egocentric, better able to appreciate that
people have different points of view. It is not surprising, then, that they are
better able to see the world from the perspective of another person. As they
enter formal operations (eleven or twelve years and older), adolescents are
able to think in more logical and abstract ways. These changes are reflected
in their ability to describe people in abstract terms, such as “cooperative” or
“uncoordinated,” and compare people along psychological dimensions.
Robert Selman has observed that changes in social cognition occur in
stages that closely parallel Piaget’s stages of cognitive development. Accord-
18
ing to Selman’s research, most concrete operational preadolescents (ages

ten to twelve) recognize the existence of different points of view. Many of
them, however, have difficulty evaluating conflicting perspectives or under-
standing how perspectives relate to membership in different social groups.
As adolescents become more fully formal operational (twelve to fifteen
years and older), they become able to understand the relationship between
another person’s perspective and their membership in social systems. For
example, the difference between two people’s points of view may reflect
their membership in different racial or ethnic groups. Progress through
Selman’s stages also is influenced by social experiences. In other words, it is
possible for a person to mature intellectually and to become less egocentric
without becoming skillful at adopting others’ points of view.
Formal Operations Controversy

Piaget believed that formal operational thought, entered between eleven
and fifteen years of age, was a fourth and final stage of cognitive develop-
ment, although he did say that adults are quantitatively more knowledge-
able than adolescents. Some experts argue that young adults demonstrate a
fifth, postformal stage that is different from adolescent thinking. Postformal
thought is characterized by an understanding that the correct answer to a
problem requires reflective thinking that may vary from one situation to an-
other. Truth is viewed as an ongoing, never-ending process. Critics of this
view argue that research evidence is lacking to document this as a qualita-
tively more advanced stage than formal operational thought.
Research has called into question the link between adolescence and the
stage of formal operational thought. It is estimated that only one in three
young adolescents is a formal operational thinker. Many adolescents think
in ways characteristic of concrete operations or use formal thinking only
part of the time. In fact, even many adults have not mastered formal opera-
tions. Critics argue that individual differences and cultural experiences may
play a greater role in determining formal operations than Piaget envi-
sioned.
Piagetian theory has been notoriously difficult to evaluate. Research indi-
cates that performance on Piagetian tasks depends on understanding the
instructions, being able to attend to the relevant aspects of the problems,
and being interested in the problems themselves. Adolescents who perform
best on formal operational tasks are often those with interests in the natural
sciences—an unlikely finding if cognitive change is largely maturational.
Adolescents who do use formal operations may experience development
in two phases, one early and the other during late adolescence. The initial
stage is primarily assimilation and involves the incorporation of new infor-
mation into existing knowledge. Rather than using hypothetical-deductive
thinking, adolescents at this point may simply be consolidating their con-
crete operational thinking. They tend to perceive their world in subjective
and idealistic terms. During the later phase, adolescents are more likely to
19
Psychology Basics
accommodate, restoring intellectual balance after a cognitive upheaval oc-

curs.
Although the popularity of Piagetian theory has declined, it remains one
of the most influential theories in developmental psychology. In fact, it was
Piagetian theory that led information-processing psychologists to become
interested in cognitive development. In a summation, understanding ado-
lescent cognitive skills requires some familiarity with all perspectives, in
spite of their respective weaknesses. Each has made a unique historical con-
tribution to current views of cognition.

Byrnes, James P. Minds, Brains, and Learning: Understanding the Psychological
and Educational Relevance of Neuroscientific Research. New York: Guilford
Press, 2001. Provides a stimulus for rethinking assumptions regarding the
connection between mental and neural processes. The author challenges
some of Piaget’s ideas on formal operational thought. Gives a clear and
readable overview of current neuroscientific work, especially for those
relatively new to the field.
Elkind, David. The Child’s Reality: Three Developmental Themes. Hillsdale, N.J.:
Lawrence Erlbaum, 1978. Discusses the ways in which adolescent cogni-
tive skills are reflected in personality and in social behavior. Excellent
presentations on egocentrism, ideologies, personal fable, and imaginary
audience.
Flavell, John, Patricia Mill, and Scott Miller. Cognitive Development. Rev. ed.
Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 2001. Presents theory and research
on cognitive development from an information-processing approach.
Discusses relationship between information-processing and Piagetian
theory. An excellent effort to compare and contrast these two perspec-
tives.
Ginsburg, Herbert, and Sylvia Opper. Piaget’s Theory of Intellectual Develop-
ment. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1988. In its latest edition, this
now classic work contains an updated presentation of Piaget’s theory of
cognitive development, including a detailed analysis of formal opera-
tional thinking.
Kuhn, D. “Adolescence: Adolescent Thought Processes.” In Encyclopedia of
Psychology, edited by Alan E. Kazdin. New York: Oxford University Press,
2000. This is an outstanding reference source for cognitive development
in general. Kuhn provides a good evaluation of Piaget’s work.
Muuss, R. E. “Social Cognition: Robert Selman’s Theory of Role Taking.”
Adolescence 17, no. 67 (1982): 499-525. Discusses the relationship between
adolescent cognitive skills and the ability to adopt another person’s point
of view. Includes an overall summary of Robert Selman’s model of social
cognitive development.
Pruitt, David B., ed. Your Adolescent: Emotional Behavioral and Cognitive Devel-
opment from Early Adolescence Through the Teen Years. New York: Harper-
20
Collins, 2000. Written with the parent in mind, this resource covers a wide
range of concerns and issues. It is published by the American Academy of
Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and complements a similar book written
for the childhood years. The approach is more practical than scholarly.
Lisa Friedenberg; updated by Lillian J. Breckenridge
See also: Adolescence: Sexuality; Cognitive Development: Jean Piaget;

Identity Crises; Learning.
21
Adolescence
Sexuality
Field of study: Adolescence
Adolescent sexuality examines the physical, psychological, and behavioral changes

that occur as the individual leaves childhood, acquires sexual maturity, and incorpo-
rates the various aspects of sexuality into his or her identity.
Key concepts
• contraception
• development of sexual identity
• levels of sexual activity
• psychological effects
• puberty
Perhaps no single event during the adolescent years has as dramatic or wide-
spread effects as the realization of sexuality. The lives of both boys and girls
become wrapped in this new dimension. Adolescence is a time of sexual ex-
ploration and experimentation, of sexual fantasies and sexual realities, of
incorporating sexuality into one’s identity. These processes determine ado-
lescents’ comfort with their own emerging sexuality as well as with that of
others. Adolescents are also beginning to be involved in intimate relation-
ships, a context in which sexual activity often occurs.
In recent decades, many of the milestones by which adulthood is defined
and measured—full-time employment, economic independence, domestic
partnership/marriage, and childbearing—are attained at later ages in peo-
ple’s lives than they were in earlier generations, while puberty begins at ear-
lier ages. Thus, adolescents face many years between the onset of puberty,
fertility, and the natural intensification of sexual feelings and the achieve-
ment of committed relationships and economic independence. As a result,
young people have sexual intercourse earlier in life, and there are greater
percentages of adolescents who are sexually experimenting at every age
level, a greater number of acts of premarital intercourse, and a greater num-
ber of sexual partners before marriage.
Physical Changes
Adolescence is the life stage between childhood and adulthood. Its age lim-
its are not clearly specified, but it extends roughly from age twelve to the late
teens, when physical growth is nearly complete. Puberty, a term often con-
fused with adolescence, occurs at the end of childhood and lasts from two
to four years. It is the period of adolescence during which an individual
reaches sexual maturity.
22
Adolescence: Sexuality
Human beings grow most rapidly at two times during their lives: before
they are six months old and during adolescence. The second period of ac-
celerated growth is often referred to as the adolescent growth spurt. Adoles-
cents grow both in height and weight, with the increase in height occurring
first. As they gain weight, the amount and distribution of fat in their bodies
changes, and the proportion of bone and muscle tissue increases. In girls,
the adolescent growth spurt usually begins between the ages of nine and
eleven and reaches a peak at an average of twelve and a half years. Then
growth slows and usually ceases completely between the ages of fifteen and
eighteen. The growth spurt in boys generally begins about two years later
than it does in girls and lasts for a longer time. It begins between the ages of
eleven and fourteen, reaches a peak at about age fifteen, and slowly declines
until the age of nineteen or twenty.
The teenager’s body grows at differing rates, so that at times adolescents
look a bit awkward. Big feet and long legs are the early signs of a changing
body, but even these changes do not occur at the same time. First the hands
and feet grow, then the arms and legs; only later do the shoulders and chest
grow to fit the rest of the developing body. Changes in body proportion be-
come obvious. The trunk widens in the hips and shoulders, and the waistline
narrows. Boys tend to broaden mostly in the shoulders, girls in the hips.
Puberty is chiefly characterized by sexual development. Sexual develop-
ment can be best understood by examining the maturation of primary and
secondary sex characteristics. Primary sex characteristics are the physiologi-
cal features of the sex organs. For males, these organs are the penis and the
testes; for females, they are the ovaries, uterus, clitoris, and vagina. Second-
ary sex characteristics are not directly related to the sexual organs but never-
theless distinguish a mature male from a mature female. Examples of sec-
ondary sex characteristics are the male beard and the female breasts.
In girls, the onset of breast development is usually, but not always, the first
sign that puberty has begun. This typically occurs between the ages of ten
and eleven but can occur as late as ages thirteen and fourteen. There is si-
multaneous development of the uterus and vagina, with enlargement of the
labia and clitoris. Menarche (the first menstrual period), although perhaps
the most dramatic and symbolic sign of a girl’s changing status, occurs rela-
tively late in puberty, after the growth spurt has reached its peak velocity.
The first menstrual periods tend to be irregular, and ovulation (the release
of a mature egg) does not usually begin until a year or so after menarche.
Onset age of menarche has decreased as body weight has increased in the
modern era, with girls on average reaching menarche at ten and a half to
eleven years of age.
The first noticeable change in boys is usually growth of the testes and
scrotum. The growth of the genitals begins, on average, about the age of
twelve and is completed, on average, by about the age of fifteen. Boys gener-
ally become capable of ejaculation about a year after the penis begins to
grow. These first emissions may occur as a result of nocturnal emissions, the
23
Psychology Basics
Physical Changes During

Puberty and Adolescence
15 to 18
12 to 14
Males
(onset: ages 12 to 14)
Facial and pubic

hair appear
Voice deepens
Shoulders broaden
Sex organs enlarge
15 to 16
10 to 12
Females
(onset: ages 10 to 12)
Breasts grow
Hips widen
Pubic hair appears
Uterus enlarges
Menstruation begins
During adolescence, the
physical changes of
puberty result in relatively
rapid sexual development.
(Hans & Cassidy, Inc.)
24
ejaculation of semen during sleep. Nocturnal emissions are a normal phase

of development and are frequently caused by sexual excitation in dreams or
by some type of physical condition, such as a full bladder or even pressure
from pajamas.
As the bodies of adolescents become more adult, their interest in sexual
behavior increases sharply. They must learn the necessary behavior to satisfy
that interest, and they must face the issue of a mature gender identity. This
includes the expression of sexual needs and feelings and the acceptance or
rejection of sex roles. The onset of dating and the beginning of physical inti-
macies with others can provoke frustration and anxiety. As this unfamiliar
territory is explored, the adolescent is often very underinformed and overly
self-conscious. Conflicting sexual values and messages are frequently en-
countered, accentuating the problem of integrating sexual drives with other
aspects of the personality.
Psychological Adjustment
Adolescents are acutely aware of the rapid changes taking place in their bod-
ies. How they react to such changes greatly affects how they evaluate them-
selves; it is in this manner that physical and psychological development are
related.
Physical changes may cause psychological discomfort. Adolescents are
particularly concerned about whether they are the “right” shape or size and
whether they measure up to the “ideal” adolescent. Rapid growth, awkward-
ness, acne, voice changes, menarche, and other developments may produce
emotional distress. Therefore, it is not surprising that the timing of physical
and sexual maturity may have an important influence on psychosocial ad-
justment. Adolescents are generally concerned about anything that sets
them apart from their peers. Being either the first or last to go through pu-
berty can cause considerable self-consciousness.
In general, boys who mature early have a distinct advantage over those
who mature late. They tend to be more poised, easygoing, and good-
natured. They are taller, heavier, and more muscular than other boys their
age. They are also more likely to excel in sports, achieve greater popularity,
and become school leaders. The ideal form for men in American society, as
represented by the media, is that of the postpubescent male. Therefore,
early entry into puberty draws boys closer to the male “ideal.” In contrast,
late-maturing boys not only are smaller and less well developed than others
in their age group but also are not as interested in dating. When they do be-
come interested in intimacy, they often lack social skills; they are more likely
to feel inadequate, anxious, and self-conscious. These personality character-
istics tend to persist into early adulthood, although they may become less
marked and often disappear as time goes by.
For girls, early maturation appears to be a mixed blessing. Girls who ma-
ture early grow taller, develop breasts, and go through menarche as much as
six years before some of their peers. Their larger size and more adult phy-
25
Psychology Basics
sique may make them feel conspicuous and awkward, while at the same time
they may be popular with boys and experience more dating opportunities.
They also may have to deal with parents and other caregivers who have re-
acted to their early sexual development by being overly restrictive. The
beauty ideal for women in American society, as portrayed by the media, is
that of a prepubescent female. Changes in body fat related to puberty thus
may lead to body image problems, as entry into puberty increases the dis-
tance from the beauty ideal just as girls become most interested in it. As with
boys, the consequences of early and late maturation decrease over time.
However, either early or late start of menarche seems significantly more dif-
ficult to deal with than if more typical.
Sexual Behavior
Sexual maturation has other psychological consequences as well. In particu-
lar, patterns of sexual behavior change tremendously with the arrival of sex-
ual maturity. As adolescents’ bodies become more adult, their interest in
sexual behavior increases sharply; as they explore their sexual identities,
they develop a sexual script, or a stereotyped pattern for how individuals
should behave sexually.
The sexual script for boys is frequently different from the sexual script for
girls. As a result, boys and girls generally think differently about sex. This dis-
crepancy can cause problems and confusion for adolescents as they struggle
with their sexual identities. For boys, the focus of sexuality may be sexual
conquest, to the point that young men who are nonexploitative or inexperi-
enced may be labeled with negative terms such as “sissy.” Boys are more
likely than girls to see intercourse as a way of establishing their maturity and
of achieving social status. As a consequence, boys are more likely to have sex
with someone who is a relative stranger, to have more sexual partners, and to
disassociate sex from love and emotional intimacy.
Adolescent girls are much more likely than adolescent boys to link sexual
intercourse with love. The quality of the relationship between the girl and
her partner is a very important factor. Most girls would agree that sexual in-
tercourse is acceptable if the two people are in love and that is not accept-
able if they are not in a romantic relationship. Consequently, girls are less
likely than boys to list pleasure, pleasing their partner, and relieving sexual
tension as reasons for having sex.
During the past several decades, attitudes toward sexual activity have
changed dramatically. Views regarding premarital sex, extramarital sex, and
specific sexual acts are probably more open and permissive today than they
have been at any other time in recent history. Young people are exposed to
sexual stimuli on television and in magazines and motion pictures to a
greater extent than ever before. Effective methods of birth control have less-
ened the fear of pregnancy. All these changes have given the adolescent
more freedom. At the same time, the rise of acquired immunodeficiency
syndrome (AIDS) in the late 1970’s, the sharp increases in AIDS cases
26
among heterosexual teenagers in the 1990’s, and the increased concern

over antibiotic-resistant gonorrhea and other sexually transmitted diseases
have only produced more conflict, since guidelines for “appropriate behav-
ior” are less clear-cut than they were in the past. In some families, the diver-
gence between adolescent and parental standards of sexual morality is
great.
Research specifically directed toward the exploration of adolescent sexu-
ality was not seriously undertaken until the 1950’s and 1960’s. Even then,
the few studies that were conducted handled the topic delicately and fo-
cused on attitudes rather than behavior. When behavior was emphasized,
age at first intercourse was generally selected as the major variable. Later
studies have been more detailed and expansive; however, a paucity of re-
search in this area still exists.
In Facing Facts (1995), Debra W. Haffner categorizes adolescent sexuality
into three stages; early, middle, and late. In early adolescence (ages nine to
thirteen for girls, eleven to fifteen for boys) experimenting with sexual be-
havior is common, although sexual intercourse is usually limited. A 1994 na-
tional telephone survey of ninth- to twelfth-grade students found that nearly
all had engaged in kissing; more than 70 percent had engaged in touching
above the waist and more than 50 percent below the waist; 15 percent had
engaged in mutual masturbation. This time period is characterized by the
beginning of the process of separating from the family and becoming more
influenced by peers. During middle adolescence (thirteen to sixteen for
girls, fourteen to seventeen for boys) sexual experimentation is common,
and many adolescents have first intercourse during this stage of life. Of
ninth- through twelfth-grade students, 50 percent report having had sexual
intercourse, with percentages from 38 percent of ninth-graders to 65 per-
cent of twelfth-graders. A slightly higher percentage of young men than
young women reported having had sexual intercourse. In late adolescence
(women sixteen and older; men seventeen and older), the process of physi-
cal maturation is complete. There is autonomy from family as well as from
the peer group as adult roles are defined. Sexuality often becomes associ-
ated with commitment and planning for the future.
Awareness of sexual orientation often emerges in adolescence. Margaret
Rosario and her colleagues conducted a study of fourteen- to twenty-one-
year-old lesbian, gay, and bisexual youths which found that the average age
at which girls were certain of being gay was approximately 16 and the aver-
age age for boys was 14.6, with the majority reporting a history of sexual ac-
tivity with both sexes.
Boys appear to initiate intercourse earlier than girls, but girls catch up by
the late teens. The timing of puberty is important for boys, while for girls, so-
cial controls exert a greater influence than the onset of puberty. Girls who
are academically engaged, with higher self-esteem, and with interests out-
side the dating culture are more likely to delay the onset of sexual activity.
For both boys and girls, dual-parent families, higher socioeconomic status,
27
Psychology Basics
parental supervision, and close relationships with parents are all associated
with delayed onset of sexual activity.
Contraceptive use among adolescents continues to increase. Two-thirds
of adolescents report using some method of contraceptive, usually con-
doms, the first time they have sexual intercourse. The older they are at first
intercourse, the more likely they are to use a contraceptive as well. Programs
that improve teen access to contraceptives have not produced increased
rates of sexual activity but do increase condom use.
Social concerns such as teenage pregnancy, sexually transmitted diseases,
and sex education have focused attention on the need to understand clearly
the dynamics of adolescent sexuality. This awareness should continue to en-
courage broader perspectives for the study of teenage sexual behavior and
produce detailed knowledge of sexuality as it occurs in the adolescent expe-
rience.

Alan Guttmacher Institute. Sex and America’s Teenagers. New York: Author,
1994. The report of a study conducted by the Alan Guttmacher Institute
on teenage sexual activity in the 1990’s. It is presented in written and
graphical forms and provides a good look at adolescent sexuality.
Bell, Ruth, et al. Changing Bodies, Changing Lives: A Book for Teens on Sex and
Relationships. 3d ed. New York: Random House, 1998. Written specifically
for a teenage audience. Teens from around the United States were sur-
veyed in order to determine the book’s contents, and they share their
unique perspectives on sexuality. This is perhaps one of the best re-
sources available for teens.
Columbia University Health Education Program. The Go Ask Alice Book of An-
swers: A Guide to Good Physical, Sexual, and Emotional Health. New York: Owl
Books, 1998. Inspired by Columbia’s award-winning and hugely popular
Web site, this book is packed with straightforward, nonjudgmental, com-
prehensive answers to the toughest, most embarrassing questions teens
and adults have about sexual, emotional, and physical health.
Madaras, Lynda, with Area Madaras. The “What’s Happening to My Body?” Book
for Girls: A Growing Up Guide for Parents and Daughters. 3d rev. ed. New York:
Newmarket, 2000. Written especially for adolescents and their parents.
The author is a leading sex educator, and she is joined by her daughter.
The primary focus is on female puberty; however, topics such as sexual
feelings and sexual intercourse are also discussed. Well written, with illus-
trations that enhance the text.
Madaras, Lynda, with Dane Saavedra. The “What’s Happening to My Body?”
Book for Boys: A Growing Up Guide for Parents and Sons. 3d rev. ed. New York:
Newmarket, 2000. Written by a leading sex educator with the assistance of
an adolescent boy. The book deals primarily with male puberty but in-
cludes information about sexual feelings and sexual intercourse. A very
useful and informative book, written in a conversational style.
28
Rosario, Margaret, et al. “The Psychosexual Development of Urban Lesbian,

Gay, and Bisexual Youths.” The Journal of Sex Research 33, no. 2 (1996): 113-
126. Fills one of the gaps left by general reference sources that often treat
adolescent sexuality as strictly heterosexual in nature. Provides current
information on alternative sexuality choices made by adolescents.
Strasburger, Victor C., and Robert T. Brown. Adolescent Medicine: A Practical
Guide. 2d ed. Philadelphia: Lippincott-Raven, 1998. This book addresses
the physical and psychosocial problems of teenagers that physicians are
most likely to treat. The emphasis is on practical information. Applied di-
agnostic and treatment guidelines cover conditions such as asthma, dia-
betes mellitus, developmental problems, headaches, sexually transmitted
diseases and pregnancy, depression, and eating disorders.
Doyle R. Goff; updated by Cynthia O’Dell
See also: Adolescence: Cognitive Skills; Drives; Homosexuality; Identity

Crises.
29
Affiliation and Friendship
Type of psychology: Social psychology
Fields of study: Interpersonal relations; social motives
Affiliation is the tendency to seek the company of others; people are motivated to affili-
ate for several reasons, and affiliation also meets many human needs. Friendship is
an important close relationship based on affiliation, attraction, and intimacy.
Key concepts
• affiliation
• attraction
• communal relationship
• complementarity
• consensual validation
• exchange relationship
• propinquity
• proselytize
• social comparison
Affiliation is the desire or tendency to be with others of one’s own kind.

Many animal species affiliate, collecting in groups, flocks, or schools to mi-
grate or search for food. Human affiliation is not controlled by instinct but
is affected by specific motives. One motivation for affiliation is fear: People
seek the company of others when they are anxious or frightened. The pres-
ence of others may have a calming or reassuring influence. Research in 1959
by social psychologist Stanley Schachter indicated that fear inducement
leads to a preference for the company of others. Further work confirmed
that frightened individuals prefer the company of others who are similarly
frightened, rather than merely the companionship of strangers. This prefer-
ence for similar others suggests that affiliation is a source of information as
well as reassurance.
Social Comparison Theory

The value of obtaining information through affiliating with others is sug-
gested by social comparison theory. Social comparison is the process of com-
paring oneself to others in determining how to behave. According to Leon
Festinger, who developed social comparison theory in 1954, all people have
beliefs, and it is important to them that their beliefs be correct. Some beliefs
can be objectively verified by consulting a reference such as a dictionary or a
standard such as a yardstick. Others are subjective beliefs and cannot be ob-
jectively verified. In such cases, people look for consensual validation—the
verification of subjective beliefs by obtaining a consensus among other peo-
ple—to verify their beliefs. The less sure people are of the correctness of a
belief, the more they rely on social comparison as a source of verification.
30
The more people there are who agree with one’s opinion about something,
the more correct one feels in holding that opinion.
Influences on Affiliation
Beyond easing fear and satisfying the need for information or social com-
parison, mere affiliation with others is not usually a satisfactory form of
interaction. Most people form specific attractions for other individuals,
rather than being satisfied with belonging to a group. These attractions
usually develop into friendship, love, and other forms of intimacy. Interper-
sonal attraction, the experience of preferring to interact with specific oth-
ers, is influenced by several factors. An important situational or circumstan-
tial factor in attraction is propinquity. Propinquity refers to the proximity
or nearness of other persons. Research by Festinger and his colleagues
has confirmed that people are more likely to form friendships with those
who live nearby, especially if they have frequent accidental contact with
them.
Further research by social psychologist Robert Zajonc indicated that pro-
pinquity increases attraction because it increases familiarity. Zajonc found
that research subjects expressed greater liking for a variety of stimuli merely
because they had been exposed to those stimuli more frequently than to
others. The more familiar a person is, the more predictable that person
seems to be. People are reassured by predictability and feel more strongly at-
tracted to those who are familiar and reliable in this regard.
Another important factor in attraction and friendship is physical attrac-
tiveness. According to the physical attractiveness stereotype, most people
believe that physically attractive people are also good and valuable in other
ways. For example, physically attractive people are often assumed to be intel-
ligent, competent, and socially successful. Attraction to physically attractive
persons is somewhat modified by the fear of being rejected. Consequently,
most people use a matching principle in choosing friends and partners:
They select others who match their own levels of physical attractiveness and
other qualities.
Matching implies the importance of similarity. Similarity of attitudes, val-
ues, and background is a powerful influence on interpersonal attraction.
People are more likely to become friends if they have common interests,
goals, and pastimes. Similar values and commitments are helpful in estab-
lishing trust between two people. Over time, they choose to spend more
time together, and this strengthens their relationship.
Another factor in interpersonal attraction is complementarity, defined as
the possession of qualities that complete or fulfill another’s needs and abili-
ties. Research has failed to confirm that “opposites attract,” as attraction ap-
pears to grow stronger with similarities, not differences, between two peo-
ple. There is some evidence, however, that people with complementary
traits and needs will form stronger relationships. For example, a person who
enjoys talking will have a compatible relationship with a friend or partner
31
Psychology Basics
who enjoys listening. Their needs are different but not opposite—they com-
plete each other.
Friendship
Friendship begins as a relationship of social exchange. Exchange relation-
ships involve giving and returning favors and other resources, with a short-
term emphasis on maintaining fairness or equity. For example, early in a re-
lationship, if one person does a favor for a friend, the friend returns it in
kind. Over time, close friendships involve shifting away from an exchange
basis to a communal basis. In a communal relationship, partners see their
friendship as a common investment and contribute to it for their mutual
benefit. For example, if one person gives a gift to a good friend, he or she
does not expect repayment in kind. The gift represents an investment in
their long-term friendship, rather than a short-term exchange.
Friendship also depends on intimate communication. Friends engage in
self-disclosure and reveal personal information to each other. In the early
stages of friendship, this is immediately reciprocated: One person’s revela-
tion or confidence is exchanged for the other’s. As friendship develops, im-
mediate reciprocity is not necessary; long-term relationships involve expec-
tations of future responses. According to psychologist Robert Sternberg,
friendship is characterized by two experiences: intimacy and commitment.
Friends confide in each other, trust each other, and maintain their friend-
ship through investment and effort.
Comfort in a Group
Theories of affiliation explain why the presence of others can be a source of
comfort. In Schachter’s classic 1959 research on fear and affiliation, univer-
sity women volunteered to participate in a psychological experiment. After
they were assembled, an experimenter in medical attire deceived them by
explaining that their participation would involve the administration of elec-
trical shock. Half the subjects were told to expect extremely painful shocks,
while the others were assured that the shocks would produce a painless, tick-
lish sensation. In both conditions, the subjects were asked to indicate where
they preferred to wait while the electrical equipment was being set up. Each
could indicate whether she preferred to wait alone in a private room, pre-
ferred to wait in a large room with other subjects, or had no preference.
The cover story about electrical shock was a deception; no shocks were
administered. The fear of painful shock, however, influenced the subjects’
preferences: Those who expected painful shocks preferred to wait with
other subjects, while those who expected painless shocks expressed no pref-
erence. Schachter concluded that (as the saying goes) misery loves com-
pany. In a later study, subjects were given the choice of waiting with other
people who were not research subjects. In this study, subjects who feared
shock expressed specific preference for others who also feared shock: Mis-
ery loves miserable company.
32
The social comparison theory of affiliation explains the appeal of group

membership. People join groups such as clubs, organizations, and churches
to support one another in common beliefs or activities and to provide one
another with information. Groups can also be a source of pressure to con-
form. One reason individuals feel pressured to conform with group behav-
ior is that they assume the group has better information than they have. This
is termed informational influence. Cohesive groups—groups with strong
member loyalty and commitment to membership—can also influence mem-
bers to agree in the absence of information. When a member conforms with
the group because he or she does not want to violate the group’s standards
or norms, he or she has been subjected to normative influence.
Factors in Friendship
Studies of interpersonal attraction and friendship have documented the
power of circumstances such as propinquity. In their 1950 book Social Pres-
sures in Informal Groups, Leon Festinger, Stanley Schachter, and Kurt Back re-
ported the friendship preferences of married students living in university
housing. Festinger and his colleagues found that the students and their fam-
ilies were most likely to form friendships with others who lived nearby and
with whom they had regular contact. Propinquity was a more powerful de-
terminant of friendship than common background or academic major. Pro-
pinquity appears to act as an initial filter in social relationships: Nearness
and contact determine the people an individual meets, after which other
factors may affect interpersonal attraction.
The findings of Festinger and his colleagues can be applied by judiciously
Image not available
People are more likely to become friends if they share interests, goals, and pastimes. (CLEO
Photography)
33
Psychology Basics
choosing living quarters and location. People who wish to be popular

should choose to live where they will have the greatest amount of contact
with others: on the ground floor of a high-rise building, near an exit or stair-
well, or near common facilities such as a laundry room. Zajonc’s research on
the power of mere exposure confirms that merely having frequent contact
with others is sufficient to predispose them to liking.
Mere exposure does not appear to sustain relationships over time. Once
people have interacted, their likelihood of having future interactions de-
pends on factors such as physical attractiveness and similarity to one an-
other. Further, the quality of their communication must improve over time
as they engage in greater self-disclosure. As friends move from a tit-for-tat ex-
change to a communal relationship in which they both invest time and re-
sources, their friendship will develop more strongly and satisfactorily.
Love
Research on love has identified a distinction between passionate love and
companionate love. Passionate love involves intense, short-lived emotions
and sexual attraction. In contrast, companionate love is calmer, more stable,
and based on trust. Companionate love is strong friendship. Researchers as-
sert that if passionate love lasts, it will eventually calm down and become
transformed into companionate love.
Researcher Zick Rubin developed a scale to measure love and liking. He
found that statements of love involved attachment, intimacy, and caring.
Statements of liking involved positive regard, judgments of similarity, trust,
respect, and affection. Liking or friendship is not simply a weaker form of
love but a distinctive combination of feelings, beliefs, and behaviors. Rubin
found that most dating couples had strong feelings of both love and liking
for each other; however, follow-up research confirmed that the best predic-
tor of whether partners were still together later was how much they had
liked—not loved—each other. Liking and friendship form a solid basis for
love and other relationships that is not easily altered or forgotten.
Research
Much early research on affiliation and friendship developed from an inter-
est in social groups. After World War II, social scientists were interested in
identifying the attitudes and processes that unify people and motivate their
allegiances. Social comparison theory helps to explain a broad range of be-
havior, including friendship choices, group membership, and proselytizing.
Festinger suggested that group membership is helpful when one’s beliefs
have been challenged or disproved. Like-minded fellow members will be
equally motivated to rationalize the challenge. In their 1956 book When
Prophecy Fails, Festinger, Henry Riecken, and Schachter document the expe-
rience of two groups of contemporary persons who had attested a belief that
the world would end in a disastrous flood. One group was able to gather and
meet to await the end, while the other individuals, mostly college students,
34
were scattered and could not assemble. When the world did not end as pre-
dicted, only those in the group context were able to rationalize their predic-
ament, and they proceeded to proselytize, spreading the word to “converts.”
Meanwhile, the scattered members, unable to rationalize their surprise, lost
faith in the prophecy and left the larger group.
Research on propinquity combined with other studies of interpersonal
attraction in the 1960’s and 1970’s. Friendship and love are challenging top-
ics to study because they cannot be re-created in a laboratory setting. Studies
of personal relationships are difficult to conduct in natural settings; if peo-
ple know they are being observed while they talk or date, they behave differ-
ently or leave the scene. Natural or field studies are also less conclusive than
laboratory research because it is not always clear which factors have pro-
duced the feelings or actions that can be observed.
Friendship has not been as popular a topic in relationships research as ro-
mantic love, marriage, and sexual relationships. Some research has identi-
fied gender differences in friendship: Women communicate their feelings
and experiences with other women, while men’s friendships involve com-
mon or shared activities. Developmental psychologists have also identified
some age differences: Children are less discriminating about friendship,
identifying someone as a friend who is merely a playmate; adults have more
complex ideas about friendship forms and standards.
As research on close relationships has gained acceptance, work in com-
munication studies has contributed to the findings of social psychologists.
Consequently, more is being learned about the development and mainte-
nance of friendship as well as the initial attractions and bonds that encour-
age people’s ties to others.

Festinger, Leon, Stanley Schachter, and Kurt Back. Social Pressures in Informal
Groups. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1963. This classic work
documents the authors’ research on housing and friendship preferences
and ties work on friendship to theories of group structure and function.
Hendrick, Clyde, and Susan Hendrick. Close Relationships: A Sourcebook. Thou-
sand Oaks, Calif.: Sage, 2000. A wide-ranging sourcebook of current the-
ory, research, and practical application of the psychology of friendship.
__________. Liking, Loving, and Relating. 2d ed. Pacific Grove, Calif.: Brooks/
Cole, 1992. The Hendricks provide a thorough review of the processes of
affiliation and interpersonal attraction. They include a discussion of is-
sues in relationships, such as separation and divorce, blended families,
changing sex roles, and dual-career couples.
Yager, Jan. Friendshifts: The Power of Friendship and How It Shapes Our Lives. 2d
ed. Stamford, Conn.: Hannacroix Creek Books, 1999. A practical book
on the structures and sustenance of friendships.
Ann L. Weber
See also: Attraction Theories; Groups.
35
Aggression
Type of psychology: Biological bases of behavior; emotion; personality;
psychopathology
Fields of study: Aggression; biology of stress; childhood and adolescent
disorders; coping; critical issues in stress; personality disorders; stress
and illness
Aggression is an emotional response to frustration that often leads to angry and de-
structive actions directed against individuals, animals, or such organizations as cor-
porate bureaucracies, social and religious groups, or governments.
Key concepts
• anger
• defensive aggression
• frustration
• hostility
• offensive aggression
• predatory aggression
• regression
• social immaturity
• socialization
• stress
• tantrum
Aggression, as the term is applied to humans, occurs as an emotional reac-

tion to dissatisfactions and stress resulting in behaviors that society consid-
ers antagonistic and destructive. The term as used in common parlance has
broad meanings and applications. In psychological parlance, however, ag-
gression generally refers to an unreasonable hostility directed against situa-
tions with which people must cope or think they must cope. On a simple and
relatively harmless level, people may demonstrate momentary aggressive be-
havior if they experience common frustrations such as missing a bus, per-
haps reacting momentarily by stamping a foot on the ground or swearing.
The moment passes, and no one is hurt by this sort of aggression, which
most people demonstrate with fair frequency as they deal with frustration in
their daily lives.
People with tattered self-images may direct their aggression toward them-
selves, possibly in the form of expressing or thinking disparaging things
about themselves or, in extreme cases, harming themselves physically, even
to the point of suicide. Such internalized forms of aggression may remain
pent up for years in people who bear their frustrations silently. Such frustra-
tions may eventually erupt into dangerous behavior directed at others, lead-
ing to assaults, verbal or physical abuse, and, in the most extreme cases, to
massacres. Such was the case when Timothy McVeigh blew up the Alfred P.
36
Aggression
Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City on April 19, 1995, as an act of

civil protest, killing 167 people, none of whom he knew.
Infants and young children make their needs known and have them met
by crying or screaming, which usually brings them attention from whoever is
caring for them. Older children, basing their actions on these early behav-
iors, may attempt to have their needs met by having tantrums, or uncon-
trolled fits of rage, in an effort to achieve their ends. In some instances,
adults who are frustrated, through regression to the behaviors of infancy or
early childhood, have tantrums that, while disconcerting, frequently fail to
succeed in anything more than emphasizing their social immaturity. Social-
ization demands that people learn how to control their overt expressions of
rage and hostility.
Types of Aggression
Hugh Wagner, a behavioral psychologist concerned with the biology of ag-
gression, has identified three types: offensive aggression, defensive aggres-
sion, and predatory aggression. Offensive aggression occurs when the ag-
gressor initiates aggressive behavior against one or more nonaggressors.
The response to offensive aggression is likely to be defensive aggression that
generally takes the form of self-defense.
Predatory aggression differs from offensive or defensive aggression, al-
though it is basically a form of offensive aggression. It is characterized by, for
example, such phenomena as the lurking of predatory animals that make
themselves as inconspicuous as possible until their prey is within striking dis-
tance. They then pounce on the prey with the intention of killing it as
quickly as they can so that they can eat it. Among humans, hunters are exam-
ples of predatory aggressors, although not all modern hunters consume
their prey.
Biological Roots of Aggression

Although aggressive acts are usually triggered by environmental factors, lab-
oratory research suggests that aggression has biological roots. Various experi-
ments point to the fact that the three basic types of aggression are controlled
by different mechanisms in the midbrain. It has been demonstrated in labo-
ratory animals that offensive aggression has intimate connections to neu-
rons in the ventral tegmental area of the midbrain. When lesions occur in this
section of the brain, offensive aggression decreases markedly or disappears
altogether, although defensive and predatory aggression are not affected.
Conversely, when parts of the anterior hypothalamus are stimulated, of-
fensive behavior increases, and attack may ensue. The brain appears in these
experiments to be programmed in such a way that defensive aggression is
controlled by the periaqueductal gray matter (PAG) found in the midbrain.
So specialized are the neural activities of the midbrain that defensive aggres-
sion involving perceived threats emanates from a different part of the brain
than defensive aggression that involves an actual attack. Acid-based amino
37
Psychology Basics
DSM-IV-TR Criteria for Intermittent

Explosive Disorder
(DSM code 312.34)
Several discrete episodes of failure to resist aggressive impulses resulting in
serious assaultive acts or destruction of property
Degree of aggressiveness expressed during episodes grossly out of propor-
tion to any precipitating psychosocial stressors
Aggressive episodes not better accounted for by another mental disorder
and not due to direct physiological effects of a substance or general medical
condition
neurons from the medial hypothalamus are known to trigger defensive ag-
gression.
Alcoholic intake often intensifies aggressive behavior because alcohol re-
duces the inhibitions that the cerebral cortex controls while stimulating the
neural pathways between the medial hypothalamus and the PAG. Although
alcohol does not increase aggressive behavior in all humans, many people
react aggressively when they consume alcoholic beverages.
Aggression and Body Chemistry

In most species, including humans, males are more aggressive than females.
This is thought to be because of the testosterone levels present in varying de-
grees in males. The higher the testosterone level, the more aggressive the
male. Aggressive behavior that threatens the welfare of the species is often
controlled in humans by medication that reduces the testosterone levels
and pacifies aggressive men.
It is notable that young men tend to be considerably more aggressive
than older males, presumably because as men age, their testosterone levels
decrease considerably. Prisons are filled with young men unable to control
their aggressions sufficiently to stay out of trouble with the law. Many of
these prisoners mellow into relatively benign older men, not because prison
has reformed them but because their body chemistry has undergone signifi-
cant changes through the years.
At one time, aggressive behavior was controlled by electric shock therapy
(which is used at present in some extreme cases) or by the more drastic sur-
gical procedure known as lobotomy. Lobotomies often left people in virtu-
ally catatonic states from which they could never emerge. Drugs and psychi-
atric treatment have replaced most of the more devastating procedures of
the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
Road Rage and Air Rage

Two of the most common forms of offensive aggression in modern society
are road rage and air rage. Road rage, which generally occurs on crowded,
38
Aggression
multilane highways, is often committed by otherwise civilized individuals

who, when behind the wheel of a car that weighs more than a ton, become
irrational. If someone cuts them off in traffic, drives slowly in the lane ahead
of them, or commits some other perceived roadway insult, perpetrators of
road rage may bump the rear of car ahead of them, pass the car and shoot at
the offending driver, or force the offending driver off the road and onto the
shoulder, where a fight or a shooting may occur.
Air rage is somewhat different. Some people who have been flying for
long periods in cramped airplane conditions, often passing through sev-
eral time zones, may suffer from disorientation. Often this feeling is in-
tensified by the consumption of alcohol before or during the flight. Such
people, if refused another drink or if asked to return to their seats and
buckle their seat belts, may strike out at flight attendants or at fellow passen-
gers.
Aggression in Animals
Although humans exhibit aggression in its most subtle and complicated
forms, other species of animals also manifest aggressive behaviors. Most ani-
mals will fight if they are attacked because self-defense and self-preservation
are inherent in most species. Within their own social constructs, some ani-
mals will attack those outside their group, even those of the same species, al-
though few animals turn on their own species to nearly the extent that hu-
mans do. Carnivorous animals exhibit aggressiveness in preying on other
animals as food sources, the large overpowering the small, the swift overtak-
ing the slow, the strong killing and consuming the weak. Most animals also
aggressively defend the areas in which they forage and build their nests or
dens.
The less aggressive species of animals have been domesticated by humans
as sources of food, notably poultry, cattle, and fish. More aggressive animals
are sometimes used in sports such as bullfighting or cockfighting. In these
instances, the animals are taught aggressive behaviors that are not instinc-
tive in most of them. They are trained to perform, and satisfactory perfor-
mance on their parts is rooted in aggression.
Aggression and Procreation

Aggressive behavior in nearly all species is rooted in sexuality. The male is
usually more aggressive than the female. The sexual act is fundamentally an
act of male aggression. Males during their sexual prime maintain the high
levels of testosterone that assure the continuance of their species but that
also result in aggressive, sometimes antisocial behavior.
The offensive aggression of one species, such as the predatory birds that
feed on newborn turtles in the Galápagos Islands, evokes defensive aggres-
sive behavior on the part of those seeking to protect their young and to
assure the continuance of their species. The species that demonstrates de-
fensive aggression in a situation of this sort may demonstrate offensive ag-
39
Psychology Basics
gression in pursuing and attacking a weaker species. All of these aggressions

among nonhumans are, in the final analysis, directed at preserving the spe-
cies.
Can Human Aggression Be Controlled?

Aggression is so inherent in nearly every species that it is doubtful that it can
ever be fully controlled, nor would it be desirable to control it. When aggres-
sion among humans reaches the point of threatening the social fabric, how-
ever, steps must be taken to control or, at least, to redirect it. The adolescent
male who wants to beat everyone up probably is suffering from extreme an-
ger. It may be possible to redirect this anger, which is a form of energy, into
more socially acceptable channels. It may also be possible to control ele-
ments in the environment—home life, being bullied at school, being re-
jected by peers—in such ways as to reduce the anger and resentment that
have led to aggressive behavior.
The management of aggression through psychotherapy and medication
may prove effective. The aggressive individual, however, may resist the treat-
ment that could succeed in controlling the socially unacceptable aggressive
behavior in which he or she engages. Attempts to control aggression often
run counter to the very nature of human beings as they pass through the var-
ious developmental stages of their lives.

Anderson, Daniel R., et al. Early Childhood Television Viewing and Adolescent Be-
havior. Boston: Blackwell, 2001. Of particular relevance to those inter-
ested in aggression are chapters 6 (“Aggression”) and 9 (“Self-Image:
Role Model Preference and Body Image”). The five coauthors of this
valuable study seek to explore the roots of aggression in teenagers in
terms of their exposure to violence through television viewing in their
formative years.
Archer, John, and Kevin Browne. Human Aggression: Naturalistic Approaches.
New York: Routledge, 1989. The approach is that of the social psycholo-
gist who is much concerned with environmental factors affecting aggres-
sion. A worthwhile book for the beginner.
Blanchard, Robert J., and Caroline D. Blanchard, eds. Advances in the Study of
Aggression. New York: Academic Press, 1984. Dan Olweus’s chapter, “De-
velopment of Stable Aggressive Reaction Patterns in Males,” and John
Paul Scott’s chapter, “Advances in Aggression Research: The Future,” are
particularly compelling. The book as a whole is well constructed, al-
though it may be more appropriate for those experienced in the field
than to beginners.
Englander, E. K. Understanding Violence. Mahwah, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum,
1997. The author presents a panoramic view of violence and human ag-
gression, condensing effectively the major research in the field over the
previous half century.
40
Aggression
Feshbach, Seymour, and Jolanta Zagrodzka, eds. Aggression: Biological, Devel-

opmental, and Social Perspectives. New York: Plenum Press, 1997. This com-
prehensive collection, although somewhat specialized, covers the two
major factors in aggression (the biological roots and social determi-
nants) thoroughly and accurately, interpreting recent research in the
field extremely well.
Hoffer, Eric. The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements. New
York: Perennial Library, 1989. One of the most compelling and readable
accounts of mass movements and their relation to aggressive behavior in
individuals.
Lesko, Wayne A. Readings in Social Psychology: General, Classic, and Contempo-
rary Selections. 4th ed. Boston: Allyn & Bacon, 2000. Chapter 11, “Aggres-
sion,” is clear and forthright. A desirable starting point for those who are
not experienced in the field.
Lorenz, Konrad. On Aggression. 1963. Translated by Marjorie Kerr Wilson.
Reprint. New York: Routledge, 2002. This classic and revolutionary study
posits a killer instinct in both animals and humans.
Scott, John Paul. Aggression. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1975. Al-
though it is somewhat outdated, this book remains especially valuable for
its chapters on the physiology of aggression (chapter 3) and on the social
causes of aggression (chapter 5). The book is well written and easily un-
derstandable for those who are new to the field.
Wagner, Hugh. The Psychobiology of Human Motivation. New York: Routledge,
1999. Chapter 7 focuses on aggression and explores possible biological
origins of the three types of aggression (offensive, defensive, and preda-
tory) that Wagner employs in making his classifications.
R. Baird Shuman
See also: Domestic Violence; Emotions; Hormones and Behavior; Stress:

Behavioral and Psychological Responses.
41
Aging
Cognitive Changes
Type of psychology: Cognition; intelligence and intelligence testing;
learning; memory; psychopathology; sensation and perception
Fields of study: Aging; behavioral and cognitive models; cognitive
processes; social perception and cognition; thought
Behavioral scientists have become increasingly interested in studying the cognitive

changes that occur in the elderly across time. Studies have been conducted in order to
assist individuals in their adjustment to aging as well as to unlock the secrets of the ag-
ing process itself.
Key concepts
• attention
• cognition
• environmental influences
• information processing
• learning
• long-term memory
• mild cognitive impairment (MCI)
• pacing of instruction
• sensoriperceptual changes
• short-term memory
Cognitive changes refer to those changes which occur in overall mental

functions and operations. Cognition encompasses all mental operations and
functions, including attention, intelligence, memory, language and speech,
perception, learning, concept formation, thought, problem solving, spa-
tial and time orientation, and motor/behavior control. Psychologists have
worked to define and measure various areas of cognitive functioning, even
though there has been no consensus about these areas. Understanding the
progression of cognitive functioning requires an understanding of brain
structure and those human functions emanating from the brain and its full-
est human potentiality, the mind. There is considerable debate within the
scientific community about what type of cognitive functions actually exist as
well as the nature of the mental mechanisms that are necessary to under-
stand cognitive functioning.
A common belief is that cognitive abilities decline markedly in older indi-
viduals. More and more, however, this idea is being shown to be exagger-
ated. Studies attest that the diminishment of cognitive skills with age may
not be significant, especially before the age of about seventy-five. Aging has
been found to have different effects on long-term and short-term memory
processes. The capacity of short-term memory (which is quite limited in all
42
Aging: Cognitive Changes
age groups) remains essentially the same for people as they age. Long-term
memory, however, does show a decline. This decline can be minimized by
various strategies; the use of mnemonic devices is very effective, as is taking
extra time in learning and remembering.
Both biological and environmental factors have been studied in regard to
aging and cognition. An environment that induces apathy or depression has
been found to have a lowering effect on cognitive abilities. Environments
that provide stimuli to interest the individual can reduce cognitive decline.
Moreover, at least one study has found that providing challenging stimuli
can even reverse cognitive declines that have been observed. There is a tre-
mendous range of aging effects from individual to individual, with some
showing virtually no changes and others showing serious decay of functions.
It should be noted that this discussion concerns cognition in healthy indi-
viduals; diseases such as Alzheimer’s disease and Parkinson’s disease and
events such as strokes (cardiovascular accidents) have effects on memory
that are considered separately from the normal effects of aging.
Modern research on cognitive changes caused by aging emphasizes the
information-processing capabilities of individuals as reflected in memory
capacities. Memory is a basic psychological function upon which higher-
level psychological processes such as speech, learning, concept forma-
tion, and problem solving are based. Lester Sdorow describes the brain’s
information-processing capacities as the human being’s active acquisition of
information about the world. Sensory stimuli are transmitted to the brain,
where replicas of the external world are stored briefly in the sensory registry
(one second for visual stimuli and four seconds for auditory memory). In-
formation is then transferred to short-term memory for about twenty sec-
onds, unless it is actively rehearsed, then into long-term memory, where it is
potentially retained for a lifetime.
Information Processing and Memory

Information processing is a view of cognitive development that is based on
the premise that complex cognitive skills develop as the product of the inte-
gration of a hierarchy of more basic skills obtained through life experience
and learning. According to this view, prerequisite skills are mastered and
form the foundation for more and more complex skills.
Information-processing theories emerged as psychologists began to draw
comparisons between the way computers operate and the way humans use
logic and rules about the world as they develop. Humans use these rules for
processing information. New rules may be added and old rules modified
throughout childhood and adulthood as more information is obtained
from worldly interactions. The cognitive changes that occur throughout
adult life, as more useful and accurate rules are learned, are every bit as im-
portant as the cognitive advances that occurred during childhood, as long as
the basic rules acquired in childhood were not distorted by aberrant experi-
ences. Each advance refines the ability to process information. Elizabeth F.
43
Psychology Basics
Loftus points out that the terms “cognition” and “information processing”
have supplanted the term “thinking” among modern cognitive scientists.
Similar efforts have been made to redefine other human abilities such as
problem solving (by H. A. Simon) and intelligence (by Robert Sternberg) in
order to describe greater specificity of function.
Researchers have spent much time and effort defining and redefining
memory constructs, although theorists remain in the early stages of under-
standing memory. Much debate has focused on naturalistic versus labora-
tory methodologies, with few resolutions as to how the results of both can
contribute to a permanent knowledge base of memory.
The mediation school of thought suggests theoretical mechanisms of en-
coding, retention, and retrieval to explain memory functioning. Conse-
quently, concerted efforts have been made to attribute memory changes
across the life span to the specific deterioration of such mechanisms. Re-
searchers continue to debate the importance, even existence, of such con-
structs. Similarly, the dichotomy of long-term versus short-term memory
continues to be debated. In order to test the empirical validity of such theo-
ries, constructs must be able to be disproved if false, and these metaphorical
constructs have proved difficult or impossible to test because of their ab-
stract nature.
The greatest controversy in memory research focuses on laboratory ver-
sus naturalistic experiments; some researchers, such as M. R. Banaji and
R. G. Crowder, state that naturalistic experiments have yielded no new prin-
ciples and no new methods of memory research and should be abandoned.
Others, such as H. P. Bahrick, claim that the naturalistic approach has pro-
vided in ten years what the laboratory has not in a hundred years. Banaji and
Crowder criticize naturalistic experiments for their lack of control and thus
their lack of generalizability. Confining a study to a specific population in a
contrived laboratory setting, however, does not seem to generalize any fur-
ther. S. J. Ceci and Urie Bronfenbrenner emphasize the need to focus on the
process of understanding, whatever that process might be. As Endel Tulving
notes, the polemics that have ensued from this debate are not going to ad-
vance the science of memory. He concludes that there is no reason to be-
lieve that there is only one correct way of studying memory.
Information Processing in the Elderly

Learning, memory, and attention are all aspects of cognition. Learning is
the acquisition of information, skills, and knowledge, measured by improve-
ment in responses. Memory involves retaining and retrieving information
for later use. Attention is the mechanism by which individuals process infor-
mation. Cognition is how sensory input is transformed, stored, and re-
trieved from memory.
Major stages of information-processing models of learning and memory
include registration (input), storage (retention), and retrieval (process in-
put for response). Attention is a major component of registration in that fo-
44
Aging and the Brain
Normal brain Aged brain

(third decade)
The human brain shrinks with age as nerve cells are lost and brain tissue atrophies. Cognitive
changes in the elderly can range from mild forgetfulness to dementia. (Hans & Cassidy, Inc.)
cusing on stimuli and processing of information begin at this stage. Environ-

mental influences, age-related sensoriperceptual changes, and pacing of
instruction affect the processing of information.
Environmental influences can produce negative responses from the el-
derly because older adults are less comfortable in unfamiliar settings or with
unfamiliar people and have difficulty performing multiple tasks. Addi-
tionally, the ability to block out extraneous information and to focus on mul-
tiple instructions decreases with age.
Sensoriperceptual changes include age-related vision deficits such as al-
tered color perception as a result of yellowing of the eye lens, difficulty see-
ing at various distances as a result of presbyopia, difficulty adjusting from
light to dark, and decreased peripheral vision and depth perception. Sen-
sorineural hearing loss affects the ability to hear high-frequency sounds and
consonants and hinders communication. Also, excessive noise interferes
with the ability to hear in the elderly.
Pacing of instruction includes both the time it takes to present and the
amount of information presented. With age, there is slowing of physiologi-
45
Psychology Basics
cal and psychological responses. Reaction time increases. Studies have

shown that the elderly learn more efficiently when they are able to learn and
respond at their own pace.
Studies in Age-Related Cognition

In examining cognitive changes in aging populations, aside from the theo-
retical debates, researchers have reported that cognitive processes progres-
sively decline as chronological age advances. Studies have tended to de-
scribe the cognitive declines as gradual and general, rather than being
attributable to discrete cognitive losses in specific areas of functioning.
Several studies have supported the existence of age-related cognitive de-
cline, while other studies dispute the severity of such declines. Research in-
terest is increasing in the areas of identifying factors related to cognitive de-
cline and interventions to abate them. Under the direction of Ronald C.
Petersen and Michael Grundman, the National Institute on Aging is study-
ing whether daily doses of vitamin E or donepezil can prevent those with
mild cognitive impairment from developing Alzheimer’s disease. Other
studies are investigating cholinesterase inhibitors and anti-inflammatory
agents as a means of slowing the progression of mild cognitive impairment.
Psychologists who studied memory change identified diminished mem-
ory capacity in the elderly as attributable to a number of processes, such as
slowed semantic access and a reduced ability to make categorical judgments.
Other researchers concluded that older subjects were slower in mental op-
erations but were not less accurate. Some researchers hypothesized that
slower speed tied up processing functions, resulting in apparent memory
impairment. Still others hypothesized that older adults have more trouble
with active memory tasks because of increased competition for a share of
memory processing resources, whereas others linked the aged’s poor per-
formance on working memory tasks to an actual deficiency in processing re-
sources. Finally, some researchers concluded that older adults might simply
have less mental energy to perform memory tasks. These studies accept
gradual memory decline, or a slowing of processing, as a normal by-product
of aging.
There are some who believe that mild cognitive impairment is a neuro-
logical disorder. This belief stems from the identification of atrophy of the
left medial lobe and small medial temporal lobe, low parietal/temporal per-
fusion, and asymmetry of the brain as revealed by computed tomography.
One study identified those with small hippocampi as prone to developing
Alzheimer’s disease. Additionally, electroencephalogram tracings of the
brains of patients with mild cognitive impairment and patients with Alzhei-
mer’s disease showed similarities.
R. A. Hock, B. A. Futrell, and B. A. Grismer studied eighty-two elderly per-
sons, from sixty to ninety-nine years of age, who were living independently.
These normal adults were tested on a battery of eight tasks that were se-
lected to reflect cognitive functioning, particularly measuring primary and
46
secondary memory, memory for nonverbal material, span of attention, the

capacity to divide attention among competing sources of stimulation, and
two motor tasks requiring psychomotor integrity. This study found a grad-
ual, progressive decline in cognitive functioning but found that the decline
did not reach statistically significant levels. The decline was general, suggest-
ing that it may have been a function of reduced attention rather than more
discrete losses. This finding appears to be consistent with the notion that
crystallized intellectual or abstract processes are well maintained across
time. There were suggestions that speed of information processing is a sensi-
tive measure of the aging process.
It is possible, however, that the tasks selected for this study did not dis-
criminate between younger and older aging adults because the tasks may be
more reliable for assessing brain injuries and psychologically impaired per-
sons, who were not included in the population studied. Consequently, fur-
ther studies on the same cognitive tasks with impaired aged adults would be
necessary to see if the same relationships and conclusions would apply. Indi-
viduals with impaired cognitive functioning offer a unique opportunity to
determine if the brain continues to show the same propensity to function as
a unitary, global system as is observed with individuals who experience the
normal aging process.
Although the brain does exhibit localization of functions, with specializa-
tion of certain brain cells for specific functions, its overall mode of opera-
tion is as a total unit. The brain has an exceptional capacity to compensate
for the loss of some specific functions and continue the rest of its mental op-
erations. This capacity or flexibility in brain function has been termed
equipotentiation. Further studies of individuals with brain impairments will
help to show how the brain attempts to carry out its overall functions when
more specific impairments have been sustained. When cognitive disorders
result in faulty information processing, actual observable changes may oc-
cur in a person’s daily behavior. The previously neat person, for example,
may neglect personal hygiene. The person who previously exhibited excep-
tional verbal abilities may speak in a socially inappropriate manner. The
staid conservative businessperson may act impulsively or even make unrea-
sonable decisions about personal finances and may show impaired social
judgment.
Mild Cognitive Impairment

Studies of cognitive changes across the life span must distinguish between
normal gradual change in the elderly and change that is associated with dis-
ordered functioning. Studies must also respect the complexity of the human
brain. Morton Hunt notes that cognitive scientists have concluded that
there may be 100 billion neurons in the interior of the brain. Each of these
neurons may be interconnected to hundreds of others by anywhere from
one thousand to ten thousand synapses, or relay points. This may enable the
average healthy person to accumulate five hundred times as much informa-
47
Psychology Basics
tion as is contained in the entire Encyclopedia Britannica, or 100 trillion bits of

information. The circuitry in one human brain is probably sixty times the
complexity of the entire United States telephone system. Given this com-
plexity, even the daily estimated loss of 100,000 brain cells from the aging
process may leave human beings capable of sound cognitive functioning
well into old age.
“Mild cognitive impairment” is a term used to describe isolated memory
losses without changes in activities of daily living. There is some support for
the theory that mild cognitive impairment represents a transitional stage be-
tween normal aging and Alzheimer’s disease and may be a precursor to Alz-
heimer’s disease. A significant proportion of patients with mild cognitive
impairment do not progress to Alzheimer’s disease. One research study fol-
lowed a group of mildly cognitively impaired patients and reported they
developed Alzheimer’s disease at a rate of 10 percent to 15 percent per
year, while individuals without mild cognitive impairment developed Alzhei-
mer’s disease at a rate of 1 percent to 2 percent per year. Individuals who
have a memory problem but do not meet clinical criteria for Alzheimer’s
disease are considered to have mild cognitive impairment with memory
loss. This is an important group for Alzheimer’s disease research because up
to 40 percent of those who are mildly cognitively impaired develop Alzhei-
mer’s disease within three years. One study supported that those who car-
ried the gene apolipoprotein E-4 (APOE-4) were more likely to develop
Alzheimer’s disease. Studies involving molecular brain activity have contrib-
uted to understanding normal and abnormal memory activities. Another
study linked poor performance on a memory test that provided cues to help
participants at time of recall indicated a cognitive decline. To date, there
are no treatments to prevent or manage mild cognitive impairment. There-
fore, awareness, understanding the implications, and early identification
are important in management and education about mild cognitive impair-
ment.
Paul Baltes notes that it used to be considered “common knowledge” that
cognitive abilities decline with age, but today this view is highly debatable.
When the effects of disease and injury are separated out in studies of the
healthy elderly, no drastic decline in cognitive ability is found. This conclu-
sion may be one reason that studies of cognition and aging have begun to
make a distinction regarding intelligence. The distinction is between crys-
tallized intelligence, involving the accumulation of facts and knowledge,
which holds up with age, and fluid intelligence, which is the rapid process-
ing of new information, a function that appears particularly associated with
the young and vulnerable to the effects of age or disease. Studies of neuro-
logically healthy aging adults have revealed no consistent evidence of a re-
duced ability to learn. Studies have further shown that very little practice
may be required to improve substantially an elderly person’s ability to per-
form some cognitive tasks, reflecting a motivational factor. Studies of men-
tally active persons in their eighties have concluded that loss of cognitive
48
ability stemmed more from intellectual apathy or boredom than from actual
physical deterioration.
John Darley and his colleagues concluded that on average, the decline of
intellectual capability with age is slight and probably does not occur before
age seventy-five. When declines do occur, they do not occur equally across
cognitive functions. Vocabulary and verbal skills may actually improve with
age, whereas skills involving spatial visualization and deductive reasoning
are more likely to diminish. In general, verbal skills and accumulated knowl-
edge are maintained with aging, while tasks that require quick responses are
more susceptible to aging.

Bahrick, H. P. “A Speedy Recovery from Bankruptcy for Ecological Memory
Research.” American Psychologist 46, no. 1 (1991): 76-77. This article ad-
dresses the controversy between those who favor naturalistic memory
studies and those who favor strict experimental studies; Bahrick favors
the naturalistic approach.
Banaji, Mahzarin R., and Robert G. Crowder. “The Bankruptcy of Everyday
Memory.” American Psychologist 44, no. 9 (1989): 1185-1193. This article
addresses the controversy between naturalistic and experimental re-
search; the authors favor more controlled experimental approaches.
Ceci, S. J., and Urie Bronfenbrenner. “On the Demise of Everyday Memory.”
American Psychologist 46, no. 1 (1991): 27-31. Addresses the naturalistic
versus experimental memory study issue, offering a balanced perspective
and inviting scientific inquiry regardless of the type of methodology.
Craik, Fergus I. M., and Timothy Salthouse, eds. The Handbook of Aging and
Cognition. 2d ed. Mahwah, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum, 2000. A collection of
review essays on all aspects of the aging brain.
Friedrich, M. J. “Mild Cognitive Impairment Raises Alzheimer Disease
Risk.” Journal of the American Medical Association 282 (1999): 621-622. Dis-
cusses link between cognitive impairment and developing Alzheimer’s
disease.
Lindsay, Heather. “Delaying Treating Mild Cognitive Impairment.” Clinical
Psychiatry News 27 (1999): 18. Addresses consequences of not treating
mild cognitive impairment early.
Loftus, Elizabeth F. Memory: Surprising New Insights into How We Remember and
Why We Forget. New York: Ardsley House, 1988. Discusses the development
of the cognitive sciences in seeking greater specificity for human abilities
such as thinking and memory.
Park, Denise, and Norbert Schwarz, eds. Cognitive Aging: A Primer. Philadel-
phia: Psychology Press, 2000. Upper-level college and graduate text cov-
ers all aspects of cognition in aging brains at an introductory level.
Petersen, Ronald. “Mild Cognitive Impairment or Questionable Demen-
tia?” Archives of Neurology 57 (2000): 643-644. Differentiates between mild
cognitive impairment and dementia.
49
Psychology Basics
Petersen, Ronald C., et al. “Mild Cognitive Impairment: Clinical Charac-

terization and Outcome.” Archives of Neurology 56 (1999): 303-308. Speaks
of symptoms and consequences of untreated mild cognitive impairment.
Shah, Yogesh, Eric Tangalos, and Ronald Petersen. “Mild Cognitive Impair-
ment: When Is It a Precursor to Alzheimer’s Disease?” Geriatrics 55
(2000): 62-67. Discusses relationship between memory decline, mild cog-
nitive impairment, and Alzheimer’s disease.
Robert A. Hock; updated by Sharon Wallace Stark
See also: Alzheimer’s Disease; Dementia; Memory; Parkinson’s Disease.
50
Alzheimer’s Disease
Type of psychology: Cognition; memory; psychopathology
Fields of study: Aging; cognitive processes; depression; interpersonal
relations; social perception and cognition; thought
Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is the most frequent cause of dementia. Dementia is the loss
of cognitive and social abilities to the degree that they interfere with activities of daily
living (ADLs). AD is an irreversible and gradual brain disorder known to occur with
aging.
Key concepts
• activities of daily living (ADLs)
• cognitive function
• cognitive impairment
• dementia
• memory loss
• motor function
• neurofibrillary fibers
• plaques
Alzheimer’s disease (AD) and dementia are not a normal part of aging. Dis-
eases that affect the brain such as genetic, immunologic, and vascular ab-
normalities cause AD. A defect in connections between the brain’s cells
causes gradual death of brain cells. AD advances progressively, from mild
forgetfulness to a severe loss of mental function. It results in memory loss,
behavior and personality changes, deterioration in thinking abilities, diffi-
culty speaking (aphasia), declining motor function (apraxia), and difficulty
recognizing objects (agnosia).
Forgetfulness and loss of concentration are early symptoms that may not
be readily identified because they are considered normal signs of aging. For-
getfulness and loss of concentration may also result from use of drugs or al-
cohol, depression, fatigue, grief, physical illness, impaired vision, or hearing
loss. The symptoms of AD usually occur after sixty years of age but may occur
as early as forty. Symptoms often begin with recent memory loss, confusion,
poor judgment, and personality changes. In later stages of AD, ADLs such as
dressing and eating are affected. Eventually, AD sufferers are completely de-
pendent on others for ADLs. They become so debilitated that they become
bedridden, at which time other physical problems develop. Seizures may oc-
cur late in AD.
Prevalence and Impact

AD accounts for 50 to 75 percent of all dementias. AD prevalence increases
from 1 percent at age sixty-five to between 20 and 35 percent by age eighty-
five. On average, AD sufferers may live from eight to twenty years following
diagnosis. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), the num-
51
Psychology Basics
ber of people worldwide aged sixty-five years and older will reach 1.2 billion
by 2025 and will exceed 2 billion by 2050. Of these, an estimated 22 million
individuals will be afflicted with AD worldwide. The Alzheimer’s Association
speculates that if a preventive is not found, AD will be diagnosed in 14 mil-
lion Americans by the middle of the twenty-first century.
A study done in 1998 revealed that African Americans and Latino Ameri-
cans might have a higher overall risk of AD. Socioeconomic status, health
care, level of education, and culture may also influence the diagnosis of AD.
Another study in 1998 estimated that the annual economic burden created
by the cost of caring for a patient with mild AD is $18,000, for a patient with
moderate AD $30,000, and for a patient with severe AD $36,000. More than
half of AD patients are cared for at home, with almost 75 percent of their
care provided by family and friends. In 2002 the Alzheimer’s Association es-
timated that approximately $33 billion is lost annually by American busi-
nesses as a result of AD. Time taken by caregivers of AD sufferers accounts
for $26 billion, and $7 billion is spent for health issues and long-term care
related to AD. Additionally, AD costs the United States more than $100 bil-
lion annually.
History
AD is named after a German physician, Dr. Alois Alzheimer, who in 1906
found plaques and neurofibrillary tangles in the brain of a mentally dis-
turbed woman. Today, these plaques and tangles in the brain are considered
hallmarks of AD.
There is also evidence that ancient Greeks and Romans recognized the
disease, as there are writings dating from their time that appear to describe
symptoms of AD. In the sixteenth century, playwright and poet William
Shakespeare wrote that old age is a “second childishness and mere obliv-
ion.” In the past, terms such as “senility” and “hardening of the arteries”
were commonly used to describe dementia. Until recently, AD was consid-
ered an inevitable consequence of aging. Beginning in the last quarter of
the twentieth century, researchers discovered more about AD.
Risk Factors
The major risk factors for AD are age and family history. Other possible risk
factors include a serious head injury and lower socioeconomic status. There
is speculation that genetics, environmental influences, weight, educational
level, and blood pressure and blood cholesterol levels are factors that may
increase the risk for AD.
Causes
There are no definitive causes of AD. Some that have been identified in-
clude lesions caused by plaque, inflammation in brain cells, oxidative stress
effects on brain cells, genetic factors, beta amyloid protein and senile
plaques, tau protein and neurofibrillary tangles, estrogen effects on brain
52
neurotransmitters, dysfunction in brain cell communication, autoimmune

responses, viruses, and vessel anomalies.
plaque. In AD, plaques develop in the areas of the brain that regulate
memory and other cognitive functions. These plaques are deposits of beta-
amyloid (a protein fragment from a larger protein called amyloid precursor
protein, APP) intermingled with portions of neurons and with nonnerve cells
such as microglia (cells that surround and digest damaged cells or foreign sub-
stances) and astrocytes (glial cells that support and nourish neurons). Plaques
are found in the spaces between the brain’s nerve cells. Researchers do not
know whether amyloid plaques cause AD or are a by-product of the AD process.
AD consists of abnormal collections of twisted threads found inside nerve
cells. The chief component is a protein called tau. In the central nervous sys-
tem, tau proteins bind and stabilize brain cells’ support structure by form-
ing tubules that guide nutrients and molecules from the cells to the ends of
the axon. Tau normally holds together connector pieces of the tubule
tracks. In AD, tau threads twist around each other and form neurofibril-
lary tangles. Support to the cell is lost, causing cell death and leading to de-
mentia.
genetic factors in ad development. Two types of AD have been
identified: familial AD (FAD), which follows an inheritance pattern, and
sporadic AD. The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (4th
ed., 1994, DSM-IV) describes AD as early-onset (younger than sixty-five
years) or late-onset (sixty-five years and older). Only 5 to 10 percent of AD
cases are early onset. Some forms of early-onset AD are inherited and often
progress faster than late-onset AD.
estrogen. Estrogen use has been associated with a decreased risk of AD
and enhanced cognitive functioning. Its antioxidant and anti-inflammatory
effects enhance the growth of processes of neurons for memory function.
This has created intense interest in the relationship between estrogen,
memory, and cognitive function in humans.
autoimmune system. The body’s immune system may attack its own tis-
sues and produce antibodies against essential cells. Some researchers postu-
late that aging neurons in the brain trigger an autoimmune response that
causes AD. Antibodies have been identified in the brains of those with Alz-
heimer’s disease.
viruses. The discovery of slow-acting viruses that cause some brain dis-
orders has resulted in some researchers believing that a virus may cause AD.
As of 2002, no virus had been identified in the brains of those with AD.
vessel anomalies. Defects in brain blood vessels such as cerebroarter-
iosclerosis or problems in the blood-brain barrier (which guards against for-
eign bodies or toxic agents in the blood stream from entering the brain)
have not been identified as causes of AD.
growth factors. Some researchers believe that a decline in growth
factors or an increase in factors that are toxic to neuronal cells causes
AD. Researchers are investigating introducing naturally occurring nerve
53
Psychology Basics
DSM-IV-TR Criteria for Dementia of the

Alzheimer’s Type
Development of multiple cognitive deficits manifested by both memory im-
pairment (impaired ability to learn new information or recall previously
learned information) and one or more of the following cognitive distur-
bances:
• aphasia (language disturbance)
• apraxia (impaired ability to carry out motor activities despite intact mo-
tor function)
• agnosia (failure to recognize or identify objects despite intact sensory
function)
• disturbance in executive functioning (planning, organizing, sequenc-
ing, abstracting)
Cognitive deficits each cause significant impairment in social or occupa-
tional functioning and represent significant decline from previous level of
functioning
Course characterized by gradual onset and continuing cognitive decline
Cognitive deficits not due to any of the following:
• other central nervous system conditions causing progressive deficits in
memory and cognition (such as cerebrovascular disease, Parkinson’s
disease, Huntington’s disease, subdural hematoma, normal-pressure hy-
drocephalus, brain tumor)
• systemic conditions known to cause dementia (such as hypothyroidism,
vitamin B or folic acid deficiency, niacin deficiency, hypercalcemia,
neurosyphilis, HIV infection)
• substance-induced conditions
Deficits do not occur exclusively during course of a delirium

Disturbance not better accounted for by another Axis I disorder (such as
Major Depressive Episode, Schizophrenia)
Code based on presence or absence of clinically significant behavioral dis-
turbance:
• Without Behavioral Disturbance (DSM code 294.10): Cognitive distur-
bance not accompanied by any clinically significant behavioral distur-
bance
• With Behavioral Disturbance (DSM code 294.10): Cognitive disturbance
accompanied by clinically significant behavioral disturbance (such as
wandering, agitation)
Specify with Early Onset (onset at age sixty-five years or younger) or with
Late Onset (onset after age sixty-five)
54
growth factor (NGF) into the brain to stimulate brain cell growth in rats.
chemical deficiencies. AD brains have lower levels of neurotransmit-
ters responsible for cognitive functions and behavior. Acetylcholine is a neu-
rotransmitter that is found in lower levels in the AD brain than in normally
functioning brains. Scientists have seen slight, temporary cognitive im-
provement when acetylcholine levels in AD patients have been increased.
environment. Metals such as aluminum and zinc have been found in
brain tissue of people with AD. Researchers are studying these and other en-
vironmental factors to discover their relationship to AD development.
Diagnosis
There is no single reliable biological test to diagnose AD; therefore, criteria
to assist primary care providers in diagnosing AD have been established to
differentiate between AD and other forms of dementia. One such guideline
has been established by the Agency for Health Care Policy and Research
(AHCPR). Any positive response to six identified areas warrants a workup
for dementia. New diagnostic tools and criteria make it possible for health
care providers to make a positive clinical diagnosis of AD with around 90
percent accuracy.
Diagnostic criteria for AD includes dementia, history, physical and men-
tal examinations consistent with AD, normal blood tests, and medications
that are not the cause of dementia. Brain imaging study—computed tomog-
raphy (CT) or magnetic resonance imaging (MRI)—is normal or shows
brain atrophy.
A medical history provides information about mental or physical condi-
tions, prescription drugs, and family health history. A physical examination
evaluates nutritional status, blood pressure, and pulse. A neurological exam-
ination evaluates for neurological disorders. The Mini-Mental State Exami-
nation (MMSE) and Addenbrooke’s Cognitive Examination (ACE) are in-
struments used to evaluate AD.
Blood and urine tests evaluate for other causes of dementia. Psychiatric
evaluation assesses mood and emotional factors that mimic dementia. A
neuropsychological assessment evaluates memory, sense of time and place,
and ability to understand, communicate, and do simple calculations.
MRI and CT scans of the brain assess for the possibility of other potential
causes of dementia, such as stroke, Huntington’s disease, or Parkinson’s dis-
ease.
Early diagnosis of AD is important to determine the proper treatment and
to detect underlying diseases such as depression, drug interactions, vitamin
deficiencies, or endocrine problems. These diseases may be reversible if de-
tected early. A definitive diagnosis of AD can only be confirmed on autopsy.
Four Stages of AD
Early-stage AD is recognized when one exhibits recent memory loss, mild
aphasia, avoidance of the unfamiliar, difficulty writing, and necessity for re-
55
Psychology Basics
minders to perform ADLs such as dressing, washing, brushing one’s teeth,

and combing one’s hair. Apathy and depression are common.
Middle-stage AD is recognized when one exhibits routine recent memory
loss, moderate aphasia, getting lost in familiar surroundings, repetitive ac-
tions, apraxia, mood and behavior disturbances, and necessity for remind-
ers and help with ADLs.
Late-stage AD is recognized when one misidentifies familiar people and
places, is bradykinesic (exhibits slowness of movement and general muscle
rigidity), frequently falls, has more frequent mood and behavior distur-
bances, and needs help with all ADLs.
Terminal-stage AD is recognized when one has no association to past or
present, is mute or enunciates few coherent words, is oblivious to surround-
ings, has little spontaneous movement, is dysphagic (has difficulty swallow-
ing), exhibits passive mood and behavior, and needs total care.
DSM-IV divides Alzheimer’s disease into subtypes that represent the pre-
dominant features of the clinical presentation: with delirium, with delu-
sions, with depressed mood, and uncomplicated. “With behavioral distur-
bance” can also be used to indicate the presence of difficulties such as
wandering or combativeness.
Treatment
The principal goal of treatment is to slow AD progression, provide a safe en-
vironment, maintain function as long as possible, and provide emotional
support for the patient and family through social services and support
groups. However, the treatment of dementia varies according to the stage of
the disease and is focused on management of symptoms because no cure ex-
ists. It is of utmost importance to educate the patient and family about AD,
its course, ramifications, and treatment options. Treatment includes both
patient and caregivers. In early stages of AD, patients and their families may
need counseling to deal with a sense of loss; be made aware of support
groups, respite care, and other social services that are available to them; and
be introduced to legal considerations in making decisions about future care
needs such as medical and financial powers of attorney and a living will. As
more supervision is required, caregivers need to be aware of physical dan-
gers that can result from memory loss, such as fires from unattended stoves
or burning cigarettes, malnutrition from “forgetting” to eat and difficulty
swallowing, increased risk for falls related to confusion, disorientation, and
declining motor function as well as issues about driving related to poor
motor and cognitive function. Caregivers should also be aware of the pa-
tient’s finances, to assist in paying and recording bills and planning for fu-
ture care needs. During late-stage AD, the family may need assistance in pre-
paring for the patient’s death. Hospice care should be discussed, as it
provides for physical care and comfort for the patient and emotional sup-
port for the family.
56
Pharmaceutical Therapy
Pharmaceutical agents used to slow the progression of AD include acetyl-
cholinesterase inhibitors (tacrine, donepezil, rivastigmine, and galanta-
mine). These agents block the breakdown of neurotransmitters in the brain
and are used to lessen symptoms of mild to moderate AD. Their action ex-
tends cognitive function and improves behavioral symptoms for twelve
months up to two years. Vitamin E or selegiline delays the progression of
AD. Estrogen has been associated with a decreased risk of AD and enhanced
cognitive functioning. Its antioxidant and anti-inflammatory effects en-
hance the growth of neuron processes for memory function. Ginkgo biloba
has provided moderate cognitive improvement with few ill effects. Delu-
sions and hallucinations often develop in moderately impaired patients. In
the absence of agitation or combativeness, the best treatment is reassurance
and distraction. Delusions and hallucinations accompanied by agitation
and combativeness can be treated with low doses of antipsychotic or antide-
pressant medications. Medications may also be used to control wandering,
anxiety, insomnia, and depression.
Complications
People with AD do not die from AD but from complications that result from
the disease. The most common cause of death in AD is pneumonia. Diffi-
culty swallowing increases the risk of inhaling foods and liquids into the
lungs, which then may cause aspiration and pneumonia. The risk of falling
is increased by disorientation, confusion, and declining motor function.
Falls can lead to fractures and head injuries. Surgical intervention and im-
mobilization also present risks for additional life-threatening complications
in the elderly. Memory loss may result in fires from unattended stoves or
burning cigarettes or malnutrition from “forgetting” to eat.
Prevention
Studies have supported that regular use of nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory
drugs (NSAIDs) such as ibuprofen (Advil, Motrin, Nuprin), naproxen so-
dium (Aleve), and indomethacin (Indocin) may reduce AD risk by 30 to 60
percent.
Researchers are also studying the antioxidant affects of vitamin E and
selegiline hydrochloride in preventing brain damage caused by toxic free
radicals to slow the rate of progression of AD. Studies of estrogen replace-
ment therapy in menopausal women showed a reduced risk of developing
AD by 30 to 40 percent. In 2002, a synthetic form of beta-amyloid protein
(AN-1792) vaccine was being investigated in clinical trials.
Research for the Future

The National Institutes of Health’s Alzheimer’s Disease Prevention Initia-
tive was organized to investigate pharmacological interventions and to
identify factors that will assist in early recognition of AD and delay the devel-
57
Psychology Basics
opment of AD. A collaborative association with federal and private agencies

has allowed for diverse investigations that include biologic and epidemio-
logic research; instrument development to identify high-risk individuals, fa-
cilitating clinical trials; and researching alternate strategies to treat behav-
ioral disturbances in AD patients.
New drugs to reduce symptoms of AD are being studied in clinical trials.
Other research is being done to identify factors related to patients’ and care-
givers’ coping and stress as well as support mechanisms in dealing with pro-
gressive nature of AD.

Hamdy, Ronald, James Turnball, and Joellyn Edwards. Alzheimer’s Disease: A
Handbook for Caregivers.New York: Mosby, 1998. Causes, symptoms, stages,
and treatment options for AD are discussed.
Karlin, Nancy, J. Paul, A. Bell, and Jody L. Noah. “Long-Term Consequences
of the Alzheimer’s Caregiver Role: A Qualitative Analysis.” American Jour-
nal of Alzheimer’s Disease (May/June, 2001): 177-182. Examines caregivers’
adaptation to the role of caregiver, caregiver burden and coping, social
support issues, and positive and negative experiences created by un-
planned changes brought on by AD.
Leon, J., C. Cheng, and P. Neumann. “Alzheimer’s Disease Care: Costs and
Potential Savings.” Health Affiliates (November/December, 1998): 206-
216. Identifies the economic impact of caring for and treating those with
AD.
Mace, M., and P. Rabins. The Thirty-Six-Hour Day: A Family Guide to Caring for
Persons with Alzheimer Disease, Related Dementing Illnesses, and Memory Loss in
Later Life. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1999. Discusses
what dementia is, physical and psychological problems, effects on care-
givers, financial and legal issues, and long-range care planning for AD
sufferers.
Powell, L., and K. Courtice. Alzheimer’s Disease: A Guide for Families and Care-
givers. Cambridge, Mass.: Perseus, 2001. Provides information about early
signs, tests, diagnosis, and treatment research for AD. Also provides in-
sight into the emotional aspects experienced by caregivers, with advice
on communication, safety, and long-term care issues for AD suffers.
St. George-Hyslop, Peter H. “Piecing Together Alzheimer’s.” Scientific Ameri-
can (December, 2000): 76-83. Good description of AD, symptoms, sup-
port, and research in the quest for a cure.
Terry, R., R. Katzman, K. Bick, and S. Sisodia. Alzheimer Disease. 2d ed. Phila-
delphia: Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, 1999. An in-depth review of he-
reditary links, signs and symptoms, diagnosis, and treatment for AD.
Sharon Wallace Stark
See also: Aging: Cognitive Changes; Brain Structure; Dementia; Parkin-

son’s Disease.
58
Amnesia and Fugue
Type of psychology: Psychopathology
Field of study: Coping
The inability to totally or partially recall or identify a past experience is called amne-
sia. A fugue is an extensive escape from life’s problems that involves an amnesiac
state and actual flight from familiar surroundings. During a fugue, a new partial
or entire identity may be assumed. Both fugue and amnesia involve the concept of
dissociation.
Key concepts
• behavioral explanation
• continuous amnesia
• dissociation
• dissociative disorders
• generalized amnesia
• localized amnesia
• psychodynamic explanation
• psychogenic amnesia
• selective amnesia
Amnesia involves the failure to recall a past experience because of an anxi-

ety that is associated with the situation. Fugue states take place when a per-
son retreats from life’s difficulties by entering an amnesic state and leaving
familiar surroundings. During a fugue state, a person may assume a new par-
tial or whole personality. Although amnesia may be caused by organic brain
pathology, attempts to cope with anxiety can produce amnesia and fugue.
The concept of dissociation refers to the ability of the human mind to split
from conscious awareness. Through dissociation, a person can avoid anxiety
and difficulty in managing life stresses. When stress and anxiety overwhelm
a person, the mind may split from a conscious awareness of the troubling sit-
uations. When this takes place, the individual automatically loses memory of
the event and may physically leave the stressful situation through a fugue
state.
Amnesia and fugue are two of the dissociative disorders recognized by
the American Psychiatric Association. The dissociative disorders are meth-
ods of avoiding anxiety through the process of pathological dissociation. In
addition to amnesia and fugue, the dissociative disorders include disso-
ciative identity disorder and depersonalization disorder. In the former, a
person develops a number of alter identities. This disorder was previously
called multiple personality disorder. Depersonalization disorder involves a
process in which individuals suddenly feel that their bodies or senses of self
have changed dramatically.
59
Psychology Basics
Amnesia Types
Another term for dissociative amnesia is psychogenic amnesia. This conveys
the concept that the amnesia is not due to organic brain pathology. Indi-
viduals developing psychogenic or dissociative amnesia often encounter a
traumatic event or extreme stress that overloads their coping abilities. Four
different types of psychogenic or dissociative amnesia can be identified. Lo-
calized amnesia is seen when a person cannot remember anything about a
specific event. This is often seen after a person experiences a very traumatic
event, such as a serious accident, and then does not recall what happened.
The second type of amnesia is called selective amnesia and occurs when only
some parts of a certain time period are forgotten. Infrequently, generalized
amnesia takes place, and the person forgets his or her entire life history. The
fourth type of dissociative amnesia is the continuous type. This form of am-
nesia is seen when a person does not remember anything beyond a certain
point in the past.
Diagnosis
It is difficult to report reliable data on the prevalence of dissociative disor-
ders, but it appears that women are diagnosed with the dissociative disor-
ders at a rate five times that of men.
To make the diagnosis of dissociative amnesia, a doctor must identify a
disturbance in memory that involves the appearance of one or more epi-
sodes of inability to recall important personal information that is usually of a
traumatic or stressful nature. The memory loss must be too extensive to be
explained by ordinary forgetfulness. When people develop dissociative am-
nesia, they may not be able to remember their own names or the identities
of relatives, but they retain a number of significant abilities. In psychogenic
or dissociative amnesia, basic habits and skills remain intact. Thus, the per-
son is still able to read a book, drive a car, and recognize familiar objects.
The memories that are lost revolve around life events and autobiographical
information.
The diagnosis of dissociative fugue requires sudden, unexpected travel
away from the home or customary place of work. Together with this travel,
the person is unable to recall the past. During the fugue, the person shows
confusion about personal identity or assumes a new one. The person’s activi-
ties at the time of the fugue can vary extensively, from short-term involve-
ment in new interests to traveling to distant locations and assuming a new
identity and work roles. The fugue can last for days, weeks, or even years. At
some point, the individual will leave the fugue state and be in a strange place
without awareness of the events that took place during the dissociative pe-
riod. When a fugue state is taking place, the person appears normal to oth-
ers and can complete complex tasks. Usually, the activities selected by the
person are indicative of a different lifestyle from the previous one.
The diagnosis of dissociative amnesia and fugue can be controversial be-
cause it often depends upon self-reports. The possibility that a person is fak-
60
Amnesia and Fugue
DSM-IV-TR Criteria for Amnesia and Fugue

Dissociative Amnesia (DSM code 300.12)
Predominant disturbance is one or more episodes of inability to recall im-
portant personal information, usually of a traumatic or stressful nature, too
extensive to be explained by ordinary forgetfulness
Disturbance not occurring exclusively during the course of Dissociative
Identity Disorder, Dissociative Fugue, Post-traumatic Stress Disorder, Acute
Stress Disorder, or Somatization Disorder and not due to direct physiological
effects of a substance or a neurological or other general medical condition
Symptoms cause clinically significant distress or impairment in social, occu-
pational, or other important areas of functioning
Depersonalization Disorder (DSM code 300.6)
Persistent or recurrent experiences of feeling detached from, and as if an
outside observer of, one’s mental processes or body (such as feeling in a dream)
During depersonalization experience, reality testing remains intact
Depersonalization causes clinically significant distress or impairment in so-
cial, occupational, or other important areas of functioning
Experience not occurring exclusively during the course of another mental
disorder, such as Schizophrenia, Panic Disorder, Acute Stress Disorder, or an-
other Dissociative Disorder, and not due to direct physiological effects of a
substance or general medical condition
Dissociative Fugue (DSM code 300.13)
Predominant disturbance is sudden, unexpected travel away from home or
one’s customary place of work, with inability to recall one’s past
Confusion about personal identity or assumption of new identity (partial or
complete)
Disturbance not occurring exclusively during course of Dissociative Iden-
tity Disorder and not due to direct physiological effects of a substance or gen-
eral medical condition such as temporal lobe epilepsy
Dissociative Identity Disorder (DSM code 300.14)
Presence of two or more distinct identities or personality states, each with
its own relatively enduring pattern of perceiving, relating to, and thinking
about the environment and self
At least two of these identities or personality states recurrently take control
of person’s behavior
Inability to recall important personal information too extensive to be ex-
plained by ordinary forgetfulness
Disturbance not due to direct physiological effects of a substance (such as
blackouts or chaotic behavior during alcohol intoxication) or general medical
condition (such as complex partial seizures); in children, symptoms not attrib-
utable to imaginary playmates or other fantasy play
61
Psychology Basics
ing the symptoms must be considered. Objective diagnostic measures for

these disorders do not exist. The possibility of malingering or fabricating
the symptoms must be considered in arriving at a diagnosis of dissociative
amnesia and fugue.
When diagnosing dissociative amnesia and fugue, a number of other dis-
orders and conditions have to be excluded. A number of medical conditions
such as vitamin deficiency, head trauma, carbon monoxide poisoning, and
herpes encephalitis can produce similar symptoms. Amnesia can also be
found in conjunction with alcoholism and the use of other drugs.
Possible Causes
Normal dissociation is often differentiated from pathological dissociation.
Normal dissociation can be an adaptive way to handle a traumatic incident.
It is commonly seen as a reaction to war and civil disasters. In normal dissoci-
ation, the person’s perception of the traumatic experience is temporarily
dulled or removed from the conscious mind. Pathological dissociation is an
extreme reaction of splitting the anxiety-provoking situation from con-
sciousness.
There exist a limited number of research studies that seek to explain the
causes of dissociation in certain individuals and predict what persons are
vulnerable to the development of dissociative amnesia or fugue during pe-
riods of trauma or overwhelming stress. The psychodynamic explanation
emphasizes the use of repression as a defense against conscious awareness of
the stressful or traumatic event. Entire chunks of the person’s identity or
past experiences are split from the conscious mind as a way to avoid painful
memories or conflicts. According to this explanation, some individuals are
vulnerable to the use of dissociation because of their early childhood experi-
ences of trauma or abuse. With the early experience of abuse, the child
learns to repress the memories or engage in a process of self-hypnosis. The
hypnotic state permits the child to escape the stress associated with the
abuse or neglect. The abused child feels a sense of powerlessness in the face
of repeated abuse and splits from this conscious awareness. This isolation of
the stressful event leads to the development of different memory processes
from those found in normal child development.
A behavioral explanation for the likely development of dissociation as a
means to cope with stressful events focuses on the rewarding aspects of
dissociative symptoms. The child learns to role-play and engage in selective
attention to recognize certain environmental cues that provide rewards.
Stressful circumstances are blocked out and disturbing thoughts ignored.
Eventually, this process expands into a tendency to assume new roles and
block out stressful situations.
The dissociative disorders appear to be influenced by sociocultural fac-
tors which are dependent upon social attitudes and cultural norms. Accep-
tance and toleration of the symptoms associated with dissociative disorders
depend upon prevailing societal attitudes. Over time, cultures vary in the ac-
62
Amnesia and Fugue
ceptance of dissociative symptoms and the manifestation of amnesia and

fugue states. For example, historical reports of spirit possession can be inter-
preted as the experience of a fugue state.
Treatment
The symptoms associated with dissociative amnesia and fugue usually spon-
taneously disappear over time. As the experience of stress begins to lessen,
the amnesia and fugue often disappear. When providing treatment for these
individuals, it is important that caregivers provide a safe environment which
removes them from the possible sources of stress. Some persons are hospi-
talized for this reason. The institutional setting allows them to regain com-
fort away from the traumatizing or stress-producing situation. Occasionally
the memory loss can be retrieved through the use of specific medications.
One such medication is sodium amytal, which can be used during an inter-
view process that attempts to restore the lost memories. Hypnosis is also
used as a means to put the person in a receptive state for questions that may
overcome the amnesia.
Hypnosis is also used in the treatment of fugue states. The goal when us-
ing hypnosis is to access important memories that may have triggered the
fugue. Medications are sometimes used with patients who have a history of
fugue. Antianxiety medications, called benzodiazepines, have been utilized
with individuals showing dissociative fugue. The medication helps to allevi-
ate the feelings of worry and apprehension.
Because amnesia does not typically interfere with a person’s daily func-
tioning, few specific complaints about the lack of memory take place. Indi-
viduals may complain about other psychological symptoms but not the am-
nesia. Consequently, treatment often does not focus on the lost memories.
Some of the associated symptoms that occur with amnesia include depres-
sion and stress due to a fugue state. Treatment is often directed toward alle-
viating the depression and teaching a person stress management tech-
niques.

Lewis, D., C. Yeager, Y. Swica, J. Pincus, and H. Lewis. “Objective Documen-
tation of Child Abuse and Dissociation in Twelve Murderers.” American
Journal of Psychiatry 154 (1997): 1703-1710. This research study reports on
the relationship between early child abuse and later dissociation. The ar-
ticle investigated a unique sample of murderers in coming to its conclu-
sions.
Lowenstein, R. “Psychogenic Amnesia and Psychogenic Fugue.” In Review of
Psychiatry, edited by A. Tasman and S. Goldfinger. New York: American
Psychiatric Press, 1991. Provides a review of the scientific investigations
into the causes of psychogenic amnesia and fugue.
Lynn, S., and J. Rhue. Dissociation: Clinical and Theoretical Perspectives. New
York: Guilford Press, 1994. This volume comprises a number of chapters
63
Psychology Basics
written by experts in the study of dissociation. The contributors place

great emphasis on the role of trauma in producing vulnerability for disso-
ciation as a defense in adulthood.
Michelson, L, and W. Ray. Handbook of Dissociation: Theoretical, Empirical, and
Clinical Perspectives. New York: Plenum Press, 1996. Provides an extensive
explanation of dissociation with multiple examples. It is written for a
reader who needs detailed research and clinical information.
Putnam, F. Dissociation in Children and Adolescents. New York: Guilford Press,
1997. This is a useful book for information on the manifestation of nor-
mal dissociation in children and teenagers and how normal dissociation
can evolve into pathological dissociation, which signals the development
of the dissociative disorders.
Sackeim, H., and W. Vingiano. “Dissociative Disorders.” In Adult Psychopath-
ology and Diagnosis, edited by S. Turner and M. Hersen. New York: John
Wiley & Sons, 1984. The importance of treating other psychological
symptoms is discussed in this chapter. Persons with dissociative disorders
often show depression that should receive treatment.
Sadovsky, R. “Evaluation of Patients with Transient Global Amnesia.” Ameri-
can Family Physician 57 (1998): 2237-2238. One of the medical conditions
that has symptoms similar to those of dissociative amnesia is transient
global amnesia. This article, which is written for physicians, provides the
specifics for making a differential diagnosis.
Tulving, E. “What Is Episodic Memory?” Current Directions in Psychological Sci-
ence 2 (1993): 67-70. This article is useful for understanding the different
forms of memory loss that are seen in dissociative amnesia.
Tutkun, H., V. Sar, L. Yargic, and T. Ozpulat. “Frequency of Dissociative Dis-
orders Among Psychiatric Inpatients in a Turkish University Clinic.”
American Journal of Psychiatry 155 (1998): 800-805. The dissociative disor-
ders vary in incidence across countries. This article provides information
concerning the reasons for the differences between cultural groups.
Frank J. Prerost
See also: Brain Structure; Memory; Memory: Animal Research.
64
Analytic Psychology
Jacques Lacan
Type of psychology: Personality
Fields of study: Classic analytic themes and issues; humanistic-
phenomenological models; personality theory; psychodynamic and
neoanalytic models; thought
Lacan, a pioneering psychoanalyst who emphasized the relationship between lan-

guage and the unconscious, radically reinterpreted Freud in light of philosophy and
structuralist linguistics. Lacan’s theories of the unconscious (that it is “structured like
a language”) and the mirror phase have significantly reshaped the discourse of psycho-
analysis and cultural theory.
Key concepts
• desire
• falsifying character of the ego
• imaginary
• imaginary misidentification/méconnaissance
• jouissance
• lack/manque
• little object a/objet petit a
• mirror stage
• real
• symbolic
According to Freudian psychoanalysis, desire is biological and driven by sex-

ual force, or libido. Jacques Lacan (1901-1981), on the other hand, re-
garded desire as a drive for an original ontological unity which can never be
achieved because of the psychic split resulting from what he called “the mir-
ror stage” as well as the Freudian Oedipal phase. Desire emerges from this
split or “lack” which it tries, continually, to fill. Desire expresses itself
through language.
Lacan believed that his form of psychoanalysis was not a departure from,
but a return to, the original principles of Freudian analysis. Lacan’s readers
have long complained about the difficulty of his prose, which is character-
ized by a seeming lack of linearity and an often impenetrable style. Many of
Lacan’s commentators have likened his discursive style to a rebus or puzzle,
designed to communicate the idea that no “truth” about psychic life can ever
be wholly and fully expressed through language because the psyche is always
split against itself, and language is the result of absence and difference.
The Mirror Stage

Central to Lacanian psychoanalysis is the celebrated mirror stage. Lacan ar-
gues that a child’s ego only begins to emerge in the ages between six months
65
Psychology Basics
and eighteen months, when the child first sees its own reflection in a mirror.
This experience is illusory, according to Lacan, because the child’s actual
experience of its own body is never that of a clearly delineated whole in the
child’s full control. Lacan’s observations on the so-called mirror stage relied
heavily upon the earlier work of the American psychologist and philosopher
James Mark Baldwin (1861-1934).
Desire emerges from the perceived distance between the actual or lived
experience of the child’s own body and the reflection it first sees in the mir-
ror. The child envies the perfection of the mirror image or the mirroring re-
sponse of its parents, says Lacan, and this lack, or manque, is permanent be-
cause there will always be a gap or existential distance between the subjective
experience of the body and the complete image in the mirror, or the appar-
ent wholeness of others.
Desire begins at the mirror stage in the psychic development of the
young child. The apparent completeness of the reflected image gives the
otherwise helpless child a sense of mastery over its own body, but this sense
of self-mastery is as illusory as it is frustrating. Lacan urged his fellow psycho-
analysts to reassess their focus on the patient’s ego and turn their attention
back to the unconscious because of what he termed “the falsifying character
of the ego.” Lacan argued that psychoanalysis should “return to Freud” and
abandon its fascination with the ultimately untrustworthy ego of the patient.
Lacan believed that his theory of the “mirror stage” answered two funda-
mental questions raised by Sigmund Freud’s 1914 essay, “On Narcissism”:
What “psychical action” takes place to bring the ego into being? If one is not
a narcissist from the earliest stages of life, what causes narcissism to emerge?
According to Lacan, the mechanism of the mirror stage answers both of
these questions.
The Oedipus Complex

Lacan, like Freud, believed that individuals are socialized by passing through
the three stages of the Oedipus complex: seduction, the “primal scene,” and
the castration phase, the last of which Lacan reconfigured as the “Father’s
‘No’.” In the so-called seduction phase, the child is attracted to the original
object of desire, which is the body of the mother. In the “primal scene” or
“primal stage” the child witnesses the father having sexual intercourse with
the mother, and this is followed by the “castration phase,” wherein the father
restricts the child’s access to the mother under threat of castration. The
“Law of the Father” or “Father’s ‘No’” causes the child to redirect desire
from the mother to what Lacan calls the “Other”—a hypothetical “place” in
the unconscious which allows the individual to later project desire onto
other persons—other, that is, than the mother.
Lacan holds that there are three “registers” in the child’s psychosexual de-
velopment: the imaginary, the symbolic, and the real. These correspond—
somewhat—to the Freudian oral, anal, and genital stages and are related, in-
directly, to the three stages of the Oedipus complex.
66
Analytic Psychology: Jacques Lacan
At the level of the imaginary, the pre-Oedipal infant inhabits a world with-
out clear subject-object distinctions. The child thinks that it is coextensive
with the mother’s body. While the child perceives the mother’s body as nur-
turing and pleasurable, it also entertains fantasies that the mother’s body
might overwhelm and destroy it. This yields alternating fantasies of incorpo-
ration and assault, whereby the child is both blissful in its identification with
the body of the mother and frightfully aggressive toward it. At this stage in its
development, the child inhabits a world of images. The mirror stage is the
most important moment of imaginary misidentification, or méconnaissance.
It is the father who disrupts the closed dyadic relationship between
mother and child, according to Lacan. The father signifies what Lacan calls
“the Law” or the “Law of the Father,” which is always, in the first instance, the
incest taboo. The child’s intensely libidinal relationship with its mother’s
body is opened to the wider world of family and society by the figure of the
father. The father’s appearance divides the child from the mother’s body
and drives the child’s desire for its mother into the unconscious. Therefore
“the Law” and unconscious desire for the mother emerge at the same time,
according to Lacanian psychoanalysis.
The child’s experience of the father’s presence is also its first experience
of sexual difference, and with it comes the dim awareness that there is some-
one else other than the mother in its world. The “Father’s ‘No’” deflects the
child’s desire from the mother to what Lacan calls the “Other.” Lacan identi-
fied the “Other” as a hypothetical place in the unconscious which can be pro-
jected onto human counterparts by subjects. Lacan held that the “Other” is
never fully grasped because the nature of desire is such that its object is al-
ways beyond its reach.
Language and the Symbolic

This is the point at which the child enters the register of the symbolic. It is at
this stage, according to Lacan, that the child also enters the “language sys-
tem.” Absence, lack, and separation characterize the language system, ac-
cording to Lacan, because language names things which are not immedi-
ately present (“signifieds”) and substitutes words (“signifiers”) for them.
This is also the beginning of socialization, says Lacan. Just as the child real-
izes that sexual identity is the result of an originary difference between
mother and father, it comes to grasp that language itself is an unending
chain of “differences,” and that the terms of language are what they are only
by excluding one another. Signs always presuppose the absence of the ob-
jects they signify—an insight which Lacan inherited from structuralist an-
thropology and linguistics.
The loss of the precious object that is the mother’s body drives desire to
seek its satisfaction in incomplete or partial objects, none of which can ever
fully satisfy the longing bred by the loss of the maternal body. People try
vainly to settle for substitute objects, or what Lacan calls the “object little a.”
Lacan’s thinking was heavily influenced by structuralist thinkers such as the
67
Psychology Basics
anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss (b. 1908) and linguists Ferdinand de

Saussure (1857-1913) and Roman Jakobson (1896-1982). Lacan’s chief
claim, based upon his readings of Saussure and Jakobson, is that the uncon-
scious is “structured like a language.” Lacan refashioned Freud’s terminol-
ogy of psychic condensation and displacement by translating them into
what Lacan believed to be their equivalent rhetorical terms: metaphor and
metonymy. Metaphor works by condensing two separate images into a single
symbol through substitution, while metonymy operates by association—
using a part to represent the whole (such as “crown” for “king”) or using
contiguous elements (such as “sea” and “boat”).
The presence of the father teaches the child that it must assume a prede-
fined social and familial role over which it exercises no control—a role
which is defined by the sexual difference between mother and father, the ex-
clusion of the child from the sexual relationship which exists between the
mother and the father, and the child’s relinquishment of the earlier and in-
tense bonds which existed between itself and the mother’s body. This situa-
tion of absence, exclusion, and difference is symbolized by the phallus, a
universal signifier or metonymic presence which indicates the fundamental
lack or absence which lies at the heart of being itself—the manque à être, as
Lacan calls it.
The Real and Jouissance

Finally, Lacan posits a register called “the real”—not the empirical world but
the ineffable realm of constancy beyond the field of speech. According to
Lacan, the “reality” which is given to consciousness is no more and no less
than an amalgam of the imaginary (the specular and imagistic world of the
rationalizing ego, with all of its self-delusions, defenses, and falsifications)
and the symbolic (the meaningful social world of language). Lacan resists
defining the real in any explicit or easily codifiable way. In his later work in
the 1960’s Lacan discussed the register of the real in light of his work on
jouissance, a term which is loosely translated as “enjoyment” but which is
much more complex.
According to Lacan, jouissance is any experience which is too much for
the organism to bear. More often than not it is experienced as suffering—an
unbearable pain which is experienced as a kind of satisfaction by the uncon-
scious drives. According to Lacan, this is what lies at the heart of the Freud-
ian “repetition compulsion,” namely an unconscious, and unconsciously
satisfying, wish to suffer. Healthy human life is about the regulation of jouis-
sance. Children’s bodies are prone to overexcitation and overstimulation be-
cause they are full of jouissance, which is slowly drained from the body of the
child after its encounter with the “Law of the Father” and its entry into the
register of the symbolic. Portions of jouissance linked to especially intense
bodily memories from childhood can become “caught” or centered in the
body and manifest as symptoms. Lacan reconfigured Freud’s theory of cas-
tration by redefining it as the loss of jouissance from the body. More broadly,
68
Lacan says that the entry into language itself is castration because it intro-
duces the idea of lack or absence into the world.
Lacanian Clinical Practice

For Lacan, human subjects construct themselves through language. One of
the chief goals of Lacanian clinical practice is to create a space wherein the
patient can experience and release jouissance through speech without the
disintegration of the his or her sense of self. The analyst will then determine
where a patient lies on a diagnostic continuum—neurotic (obsessional or
hysteric), perverse, or psychotic.
Psychotic patients, according to Lacanian analysis, are most greatly dis-
connected at the level of language, or the symbolic. The Lacanian analyst
works with the disjointed speech of the psychotic to allow him or her to live
within and to express, through language, the world of signifiers without sig-
nificant discontinuity.
The perverse patient, on the other hand, is often drawn to a fetish object.
The fetish object is a compliant one, and it allows the patient to experience
jouissance without having to relive the experience of castration which was at-
tendant upon the “Father’s ‘No.’” The perverse patient engages in an act of
substitution, whereby a complicit object grants a sense of release—a real or
simulated experience of jouissance—while allowing him or her to avoid the
painful sense of separation from the Other, or the presymbolic mother.
The obsessional neurotic fears loss of control. Obsessional neurotics
struggle to control and contain the upwelling of desire and the accompany-
ing experience of jouissance. The obsessional neurotic speaks the language
of mastery and order and attempts to exercise control well beyond his or her
purview. The analyst is sensitive to dichotomizing tendencies in the patient’s
speech (order and disorder, right and wrong). According to Lacan, the pa-
tient’s fantasy is that the upwelling of jouissance will alienate those around
him or her and leave havoc in its wake. The analyst works with the obses-
sional neurotic to help the patient meet his or her needs without limiting
defenses—to experience and speak desire without the fear of losing self-
control.
Hysterics experience a deep and debilitating sense of lack which leads
to a feeling of alienation from the Other. Once the hysteric obtains the
imaginary object of the mother’s desire, he or she wishes to be rid of it—
sometimes almost violently. The goal of Lacanian analysis when working
with hysterics is to move them beyond the dichotomy of having/not having,
to help them to achieve satisfactory levels of comfort with themselves, and to
find a neutral space where the sense of lack is not all-consuming.
The Case of Aimée

Lacan’s early work on paranoia dealt with the case of a patient he called
Aimée (Marguerite Anzieu) who was arrested by the Paris police in the at-
tempted stabbing of a famous actress, Huguette Duflos. Lacan first encoun-
69
Psychology Basics
tered Aimée in 1931 at Sainte-Anne’s Hospital, where he had begun his clin-
ical training as a légiste medicale, or forensic psychiatrist, four years earlier.
Lacan’s patient, the subject of numerous press accounts and much public
speculation, had come to believe that her young son was about to be mur-
dered by Duflos. One night Aimée attended a play which featured the fa-
mous Parisian actress and suddenly lunged from the crowd of theatergoers,
brandishing a knife. Aimée was promptly arrested and given over to Lacan’s
care.
Lacan conducted an exhaustive number of analytic interviews with Aimée.
Lacan was able to reconstruct the trajectory of Aimée’s descent into what he
termed self-punishment paranoia. Aimée both feared and admired Duflos,
and she came to believe that the actress—really her ideal image of the ac-
tress—posed a danger to her and to her young child. Duflos’s ideal image
was the object of Aimée’s intense hatred as well as her excessive fascination,
writes Lacan, and in attacking Duflos the deluded woman was really punish-
ing herself.
In one especially striking memory, Aimée recalled (falsely) reading an ar-
ticle in a newspaper in which the actress told an interviewer that she was
planning to kill Aimée and her young son. Aimée therefore regarded her at-
tack on Duflos as an act of preemptive self-defense based upon a misrecog-
nition. Aimée finally found the real punishment she unconsciously craved
(her jouissance) in her public humiliation, arrest, and confinement.
Lacan was struck by the relationship between memory (or, in this case,
false memory) and identity. One sees in Lacan’s early analysis of Aimée
many of the most significant elements of his psychoanalytic theory, includ-
ing the mirror stage, the imaginary, jouissance and its role in paranoia, and
the power of misidentification.
Lacan’s detailed analysis of “the case of Aimée” in his 1932 doctoral the-
sis, De la psychose paranoiaque dans les rapports avec la personnalité (paranoid
psychosis and its relations to the personality), laid the groundwork for much
of his later work on the nature of identity, the genesis of narcissism, the
power of the image, and the fundamentally social character of personality.
From 1933 onward, Lacan was known as a specialist in the diagnosis and
treatment of paranoia. His densely textured doctoral dissertation was widely
circulated among artists and poets identified with the Surrealist movement,
and Lacan wrote regularly for Minotaure, a Surrealist review published be-
tween 1933 and 1939 by Albert Skira. Many of Lacan’s interpreters regard
his work with philosopher Alexandre Kojève (1902-1968) as a theoretical
turning point and the genesis of his thinking on the psychological signifi-
cance of lack, loss, and absence.
In 1936 Lacan presented his paper “Le Stade du miroir” (the mirror
stage) at the fourteenth International Psychoanalytical Congress, held at
Marienbad in August of 1936 under the chairmanship of the preeminent
British psychoanalyst Ernest Jones. It is in this seminal essay, since lost, that
Lacan outlined his theory of the mirror stage. His theory of self-mastery
70
through mimicry, in which the young child responds to its prematuration or

defenselessness by identifying with images outside itself, was influenced by
the anthropological insights of Roger Caillois (1913-1978).
Lacan’s radical revision of psychoanalysis, which he regarded as a “return
to Freud,” led to his eventual ejection from the Société Française de Psych-
analyse (SFP) in 1963. Lacan founded a new school, first called the École
Française de Psychanalyse and then later the École Freudienne de Paris
(EFP). Lacan dissolved the EFP in 1980 and died a year later, leaving behind
a body of work which continues to influence psychoanalytic studies, philoso-
phy, and literary and cultural theory.

Dor, Joel. Introduction to the Reading of Lacan: The Unconscious Structured Like a
Language. New York: Other Press, 1998. A clearly written and accessible
introduction. Includes a useful bibliography.
Evans, Dylan. An Introductory Dictionary of Lacanian Psychoanalysis. New York:
Routledge, 1996. Evans defines more than two hundred technical terms
in their historical contexts.
Fink, Bruce. A Clinical Introduction to Lacanian Psychoanalysis: Theory and Tech-
nique. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1997. A practicing
psychoanalyst clearly introduces Lacan in theory and in clinical practice.
Includes an extensive bibliography.
Lacan, Jacques. Écrits: A Selection. Translated by Bruce Fink. New York: W. W.
Norton, 2002. Lacan’s selections from his “writings”—really transcrip-
tions of his lectures and seminars. An important collection of seminal
works.
Leader, Darian, and Judy Groves. Introducing Lacan. New York: Toten Books,
1995. A concise, clearly written, and entertaining introduction to Lacan’s
most important concepts. Written by Leader, a practicing Lacanian ana-
lyst, for the general reader and wittily illustrated by Groves.
Muller, John P., and William J. Richardson. Lacan and Language: A Reader’s
Guide to “Écrits.” New York: International Universities Press, 1982. One of
the earliest and most comprehensive introductions to Lacan’s work,
coauthored by a practicing analyst and a philosopher with psychoanalytic
training.
Gerard O’Sullivan
See also: Language; Psychoanalytic Psychology; Psychoanalytic Psychology

and Personality: Sigmund Freud.
71
Analytical Psychology
Carl Jung
Field of study: Psychodynamic and neoanalytic models
Analytical psychology is one of the most complex theories of personality. It attempts to

improve on Sigmund Freud’s work by deemphasizing sexual instincts and the abnor-
mal side of human nature. Three of its more significant contributions are the notions
of psychological types, the concept of the collective unconscious, and the depiction of the
unconscious self as the most critical structure within the psyche.
Key concepts
• anima and animus
• archetypes
• collective unconscious
• conscious ego
• persona
• personal unconscious
• self
• shadow
Carl Gustav Jung (1875-1961) founded analytical psychology, perhaps the

most complex major theory of personality. It includes the presentation and
analysis of concepts and principles based on numerous disciplines within
the arts and sciences. Because this complexity is combined with Jung’s often
awkward writing, the task of mastering his theory is a challenge even for ex-
perts in the field of personality. His key contribution was taking the study of
psychology beyond the claims made by Sigmund Freud (1856-1939). Jung’s
emphasis on adult development and personality types and his willingness to
break with strict Freudian teachings were major contributions within the
history of psychology in general and personality in particular.
Jung’s theory can best be understood by examining the key structures he
proposes and the dynamics of personality. Jung divides the personality, or
psyche, into three levels: At the conscious level, there is the conscious ego.
The conscious ego lies at the center of consciousness. In essence, it is the
conscious mind—one’s identity from a conscious perspective. It is particu-
larly important to the person whose unconscious self is not yet fully devel-
oped. As the unconscious self begins to develop, the importance of the con-
scious ego will diminish.
Beneath the conscious ego is the personal unconscious. This level in-
volves material that has been removed from the consciousness of the per-
son. This information may leave consciousness through forgetting or re-
pression. Because the personal unconscious is close to the surface, which is
72
Analytical Psychology: Carl Jung
consciousness, items in it may be recalled at a later date. The personal un-

conscious is similar to Freud’s notion of the preconscious. Material within
the personal unconscious is grouped into clusters called complexes. Each
complex contains a person’s thoughts, feelings, perceptions, and memories
concerning particular concepts. For example, the mother complex contains
all personal and ancestral experiences with the concept of mother. These
experiences can be both good and bad.
The deepest level of the psyche is called the collective unconscious. This
level contains the memory traces that have been passed down to all human-
kind as a function of evolutionary development. It includes tendencies to
behave in specific ways, such as living in groups or using spoken language.
While each individual has his or her own personal unconscious, all people
share the same collective unconscious. The key structures within the collec-
tive unconscious that determine how people behave and respond to their
environment are labeled archetypes. Each archetype enables people to ex-
press their unique status as human beings.
Carl Jung.
(Library of Congress)
73
Psychology Basics
Archetypes
Archetypes are divided into major and minor archetypes. The major arche-
types include the persona, animus, anima, shadow, and self. The persona is
one’s public personality, which one displays in order to be accepted by soci-
ety. One’s goal is to balance the needs of the persona with the desire to ex-
press one’s true self. In contrast to the persona, the shadow represents the
dark side of the psyche. It includes thoughts and feelings which the person
typically does not express because they are not social. These cognitions can
be held back on either a conscious or an unconscious level. The anima rep-
resents the feminine aspects of males, while the animus represents the mas-
culine aspects of females. These archetypes have come about as a function
of centuries of interactions between males and females. They have the po-
tential to improve communication and understanding between males and
females. Finally, the most important psychic structure in Jung’s theory is the
self. It is the archetype which provides the whole psyche with a sense of unity
and stability. The major goal of each person’s life is to optimize the develop-
ment of the self.
Psychic Structures and Personalities

In an effort to optimize the development of the self, each person devel-
ops his or her own psychological type. Each type (Jung conceived of eight
types) consists of a combination of a person’s basic attitude and basic func-
tion. Jung’s two attitudes are extroversion and introversion. These terms fol-
low societal stereotypes, with the extrovert being outgoing and confident
and the introvert being hesitant and reflective. These attitudes are com-
bined with four basic functions, or ways of relating to the world. These func-
tions are thinking, feeling, sensing, and intuiting, which are consistent
with a general societal view of these terms. Jung used the possible combina-
tion of the attitudes and functions to form the eight possible psychological
types. Each person is thought to have dominance within one of the available
types.
In addition to providing key psychic structures, Jung provides personality
dynamics. He claimed that each person is endowed with psychic or libidinal
energy. Unlike Freud, however, Jung did not view this energy as strictly sex-
ual. Rather, he perceived it as life-process energy encompassing all aspects
of the psyche. According to Jung, this energy operates according to two
principles of energy flow: equivalence and entropy. The principle of equiva-
lence states that an increase in energy within one aspect of the psyche must
be accompanied by a decrease in another area. For example, if psychic en-
ergy is increasing in the unconscious self, it must decrease elsewhere, such
as in the conscious ego. The principle of entropy states that when psychic
energy is unbalanced, it will seek a state of equilibrium. For example, it
would not be desirable to have the majority of one’s psychic energy located
in the conscious ego. The energy needs of the other levels of consciousness
must also be met.
74
Jung’s psychic structures, along with his views on the dynamics of person-
ality, have provided psychologists with a wealth of information to consider,
many complexities to address, and numerous possible ways to apply his ideas
to human development and personality assessment.
Realization of Self
Jung made significant contributions to knowledge of areas such as human
development and personality assessment. In terms of human development,
Jung emphasized that personality development occurs throughout the life
of the person. This was critical in that Freud’s theory, the dominant theory
at that time, emphasized the first five years of life in examining personality
development. The overall goal of the person in Jung’s approach to develop-
ment is the realization of the self, which is a long and difficult process. Un-
like Freud, Jung was particularly interested in development during the
adulthood years. He emphasized the changes that occur beginning at the
age of thirty-five or forty. He believed that this was often a time of crisis in the
life of the person. This notion of a midlife crisis (which Jung experienced
himself) has continued to be the source of significant theoretical and empir-
ical claims.
Jung believed that the concept of a crisis during middle age was necessary
and beneficial. Often, a person has achieved a certain level of material suc-
cess and needs to find new meaning in life. This meaning can be realized by
shifting from the material and physical concerns of youth to a more spiritual
and philosophical view of life. The person seeks gradually to abandon the
emphasis on the conscious ego which is dominant in youth. A greater bal-
ance between the unconscious and conscious is pursued. If this is success-
fully achieved, the person can reach a state of positive psychological health
that Jung labels individuation. Perhaps the key to the midlife years in Jung’s
theory is that these are the years in which the person is attempting to dis-
cover the true meaning of life. Finally, Jung stated that religion can play an
important role in life during the midlife and old-age years. During the
midlife years, a sense of spirituality rather than materialism is important in
personality development; looking at the possibility of life after death can be
positive for the older adult.
Assessment Techniques
Jung made use of several interesting assessment techniques in addressing
the problems of his patients. Like Freud, Jung was an advocate of the case-
study method. He believed that much could be learned through an in-depth
analysis of the problems of his patients. In his cases, Jung made extensive use
of dream analysis. Jung maintained that dreams serve many purposes. They
can be used to address and resolve current conflicts or to facilitate the devel-
opment of the self. Dreams can therefore be oriented toward the future.
While Freud focused his analysis on individual dreams, Jung would examine
a group of dreams in order to uncover the problems of the patient. This ex-
75
Psychology Basics
amination of multiple dreams was viewed by Jung as a superior approach to

gaining access to the deeper meanings of dreams, which could often be
found in the collective unconscious.
Another important assessment device used by Jung which continues to
have applications today is the word-association test. In this test, a person re-
sponds to a stimulus word with whatever comes to mind. Jung originally
worked with a group of one hundred stimulus words and would focus on is-
sues such as the response word given by the patient, the length of time it
took the patient to respond, the provision of multiple responses, the repeti-
tion of the stimulus word, and the absence of a response. These and other
factors could be used to establish the existence of an underlying neurosis as
well as specific conflicts and complexes.
Split with Freud

The development of Jung’s analytical psychology can be traced to the devel-
opment of his relationship with Sigmund Freud and the subsequent split
that occurred between the two theorists. In 1906 Jung published a book
which concerned the psychoanalytic treatment of schizophrenia. He sent a
copy of this book to Freud, who was thoroughly impressed by Jung’s work.
Jung became one of the strongest Freudian advocates from 1907 to 1912.
During this time he collaborated with Freud and was viewed by many within
psychoanalytic circles as the heir apparent to Freud. Jung had, in fact, been
elected president of the prestigious International Psychoanalytic Associa-
tion. In 1913 and 1914, however, he abandoned Freud and his psychoana-
lytic theory. Three basic problems led to this split. The first was Freud’s em-
phasis on sexuality. Jung believed that while sexual instincts did exist, they
should not be emphasized at the expense of other relevant aspects of the
psyche. Second, Jung believed that Freud overemphasized abnormality. He
maintained that Freud appeared to have little to say about the normal as-
pects of human nature. Finally, unlike Freud, Jung wished to emphasize the
biology of the species rather than the biology of the individual.
The split between Freud and Jung was important for practical as well as
theoretical reasons. Jung was rejected for a period of time by other analyti-
cally oriented thinkers because of his split with Freud. In addition, the break
with Freud led Jung to experience a mental crisis which lasted for several
years. This combination of factors eventually led Jung to conclude that he
must develop his own view of the psyche, along with appropriate treatment
techniques.
While the challenges encountered by Jung in his life were difficult to
overcome, they clearly played a major role in his ability to develop the most
complex theory of personality ever formulated. His key concepts and psy-
chic structures, including the collective unconscious, personal unconscious,
archetypes, self, and personality typology, continue to be among the most in-
teresting theoretical contributions in the history of personality psychology.
76

Brome, Vincent. Jung: Man and Myth. New York: Granada, 1980. This is a
sound biography of Jung and discussion of his work. Perhaps its main ad-
vantage is that it provides an analysis which is fair to both Jung and his
critics.
Freud, Sigmund, and C. G. Jung. The Freud/Jung Letters. Edited by William
McGuire. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1988. Provides a
unique analysis of the development of the relationship between Freud
and Jung. Accurately portrays the promise of unity and collaboration
within the relationship in its early years, beginning around 1907, and ex-
poses the problems that eventually led to the Freud/Jung split, which was
complete by 1914. Provides a context for examining the remainder of
Jung’s work and the personal problems that he was to encounter follow-
ing his split with Freud.
Hannah, Barbara. Jung, His Life and Work: A Biographical Memoir. Wilmette,
Ill.: Chiron, 1997. This positive biographical view of Jung is provided by a
Jungian analyst who was a friend and colleague of Jung for three decades.
While it may not be as objectively written as other accounts, it has the ad-
vantage of being written by a scholar who had firsthand knowledge of
many of Jung’s ideas.
Jung, C. G. Memories, Dreams, Reflections. 1963. Reprint. New York: Vintage
Books, 1989. Jung’s autobiography. It thoroughly portrays the evolution
of his thinking, including all those factors that were critical to his theoret-
ical conceptions. Essential reading for anyone interested in gaining fur-
ther insights into Jung and his work, even though his writing is often diffi-
cult to follow.
__________. Psychological Types. Rev. ed. London: Routledge, 1989. Provides
both an overview of the basic principles of Jung’s theory and an analysis
of the derivation of the attitudes and functions that yield his psychologi-
cal types. Particularly important to those who are interested in the deriva-
tion of Jung’s view of typology.
Noll, Richard. The Jung Cult: Origins of a Charismatic Movement. New York:
Free Press, 1997. Noll suggests that Jung’s theories spawned not so much
a psychology as a religious cult, based in nineteenth century occultism,
neopaganism, and social Darwinism. Highly controversial.
Shamdasani, Sonu. Cult Fictions: C. G. Jung and the Founding of Analytical Psy-
chology. New York: Routledge, 1998. A rebuttal to Noll’s deconstruction of
the “Jung Cult.” Presents an accurate history of the foundation of analyti-
cal psychology both during and after Jung’s life.
Lawrence A. Fehr
See also: Abnormality: Psychological Models; Analytical Psychotherapy;

Dreams; Personality Theory; Psychoanalytic Psychology.
77
Analytical Psychotherapy
Type of psychology: Psychotherapy
Field of study: Psychodynamic therapies
Analytical psychotherapy is associated with the theory and techniques of Carl Jung.
Similar to other psychodynamic therapies, it stresses the importance of discovering un-
conscious material. Unique to this approach is the emphasis on reconciling opposite
personality traits that are hidden in the personal unconscious and the collective un-
conscious.
Key concepts
• collective unconscious
• compensatory function
• confession
• education
• elucidation
• method of active imagination
• method of amplification
• personal unconscious
• transference
• transformation
Analytical psychotherapy is an approach to psychological treatment pio-

neered by Carl Jung (1875-1961), a Swiss psychoanalyst. A follower of Sig-
mund Freud (1856-1939), Jung was trained in the psychoanalytic approach,
with its emphasis on the dark, inaccessible material contained in the uncon-
scious mind. Freud was fond of Jung and believed that he was to be the heir
to the legacy Freud had begun. Jung began to disagree with certain aspects
of Freud’s theory, however, and he and Freud parted ways bitterly in 1914.
Jung’s concept of the structure of personality, on which he based his
ideas of psychotherapy, was obviously influenced by Freud and the psycho-
analytic tradition, but he added his own personal and mystical touches to its
concepts. Jung believed that the personality consists of the ego, which is
one’s conscious mind. It contains the thoughts, feelings, and perceptions of
which one is normally aware. Jung also proposed a personal unconscious
that contains events and emotions of which people remain unaware because
of their anxiety-provoking nature. Memories of traumatic childhood events
and conflicts may reside in the personal unconscious. Jung’s unique contri-
bution to personality theory is the idea of a collective unconscious. This
consists of memories and emotions that are shared by all humanity. Jung
believed that certain events and feelings are universal and exert a similar ef-
fect on all individuals. An example would be his universal symbol of a
shadow, meaning the evil, primitive nature that resides within everyone.
Jung believed that although people are aware of the workings of the con-
scious ego, it is the unavailable material contained in the personal uncon-
78
scious and collective unconscious that has the greatest influence on one’s
behavior.
Jung’s analytical psychotherapy was a pioneering approach during the
very early era of psychological treatment. He conformed to the beliefs of
other psychodynamic therapists, such as Freud and Alfred Adler (1870-
1937), in the importance of discovering unconscious material. The psycho-
analysts would be followed by the behavioral school’s emphasis on environ-
mental events and the cognitive school’s focus on thoughts and perceptions.
Psychoanalysis brought a prominence to psychology it had not known previ-
ously.
Personality and the Unconscious Mind

Jung believed that emotional problems originate from a one-sided develop-
ment of personality. He believed that this is a natural process and that peo-
ple must constantly seek a balance of their traits. An example might be a per-
son who becomes overly logical and rational in his behavior and decision
making, while ignoring his emotional and spontaneous side. Jung believed
this one-sided development eventually would lead to emotional difficulty
and that one must access the complementary personality forces that reside
in the unconscious. Even psychotherapists must be aware that along with
their desire to help others, they have complementary darker desires that are
destructive to others. Jung believed that emotional problems are a signal
that one is becoming unbalanced in one’s personality and that this should
motivate one to develop more neutral traits.
The process of analytical psychotherapy, as in most psychodynamic ap-
proaches, is to make the patient conscious or aware of the material in his or
her unconscious mind. Jung believed that if the conscious mind were overly
logical and rational, the unconscious mind, to balance it, would be filled
with equally illogical and emotional material. To access this material, Jung
advocated a free and equal exchange of ideas and information between the
analyst and the patient. Jung did not focus on specific techniques as did
Freud, but he did believe that the unconscious material would become evi-
dent in the context of a strong, trusting therapeutic relationship. Although
the patient and analyst have equal status, the analyst serves as a model of an
individual who has faced her or his unconscious demons.
Stages of Analytic Psychotherapy

Analytic psychotherapy proceeds in four stages. The first stage is that of con-
fession. Jung believed that it is necessary for the patient to tell of his or her
conflicts and that this is usually accompanied by an emotional release. Jung
did not believe that confession is sufficient to provide a cure for one’s ills,
however, nor did he believe (unlike Freud) that an intellectual understand-
ing of one’s difficulties is adequate. The patient must find a more neutral
ground in terms of personality functioning, and this can only be accom-
plished by facing one’s unconscious material.
79
Psychology Basics
The second stage of psychotherapy is called elucidation, and it involves

becoming aware of one’s unconscious transferences. Transference is a pro-
cess in which a patient transfers emotions about someone else in his or her
life onto the therapist; the patient will behave toward the therapist as he or
she would toward that other person. It is similar to meeting someone who
reminds one of a past relationship; for no apparent reason, one might begin
to act toward the new person the same way one did to the previous person.
Jung believed that these transferences to the analyst give a clue about un-
conscious material. A gentle, passive patient might evidence hostile trans-
ferences to the therapist, thus giving evidence of considerable rage that is
being contained in the unconscious.
The third stage of analytic psychotherapy consists of education. The pa-
tient is instructed about the dangers of unequal personality development
and is supported in his or her attempts to change. The overly logical busi-
ness executive may be encouraged to go on a spontaneous vacation with his
family with few plans and no fixed destinations. The shy student may be ca-
joled into joining a debate on emotional campus issues. Jung believed in the
value of experiencing the messages of one’s unconscious.
The final stage of psychotherapy, and one that is not always necessary, is
that of transformation. This goes beyond the superficial encouragements of
the previous stages and attempts to get the patient to delve deeply into the
unconscious and thereby understand who he or she is. This process of un-
derstanding and reconciling one’s opposites takes considerable courage
and exploration into one’s personal and cultural past. It is a quest for one’s
identity and purpose in life that requires diligent work between the analyst
and patient; the result is superior wisdom and a transcendent calm when
coping with life’s struggles.
Analytic Techniques
Jung developed several techniques aimed at uncovering material hidden in
the unconscious. Like Freud, Jung believed that the content of dreams is in-
dicative of unconscious attitudes. He believed that dreams have a compensa-
tory function; that is, they are reflections of the side of personality that is not
displayed during one’s conscious, everyday state. The sophisticated librar-
ian may have dreams of being an exotic dancer, according to Jung, as a way
of expressing the ignored aspects of personality.
Jung gives an example of the compensatory aspects of dreams when de-
scribing the recollections of a dutiful son. The son dreamed that he and his
father were leaving home, and his father was driving a new automobile. The
father began to drive in an erratic fashion. He swerved the car all over the
road until he finally succeeded in crashing the car and damaging it very
badly. The son was frightened, then became angry and chastised his father
for his behavior. Rather than respond, however, his father began to laugh
until it became apparent that he was very intoxicated, a condition the son
had not previously noticed. Jung interpreted the dream in the context of the
80
son’s relationship with his father. The son overly idealized the father, while
refusing to recognize apparent faults. The dream represented the son’s la-
tent anger at his father and his attempt to reduce him in status. Jung indi-
cated to the young man that the dream was a cue from his unconscious that
he should evaluate his relationship with his father with a more balanced out-
look.
Amplification Method
Jung employed the method of amplification for interpreting dreams. This
technique involved focusing repeatedly on the contents of the dream and
giving multiple associations to them. Jung believed that the dream often is
basically what it appears to be. This differs dramatically from Freudian inter-
pretation, which requires the patient to associate dream elements with
childhood conflicts.
The amplification method can be applied to a dream reported by a grad-
uate student in clinical psychology. While preparing to defend his disserta-
tion, the final and most anxiety-provoking aspect of receiving the doctorate,
the student had a dream about his oral defense. Before presenting the pro-
ject to his dissertation committee that was to evaluate its worth (and seem-
ingly his own), the student dreamed that he was in the bathroom gathering
his resources. He noticed he was wearing a three-piece brown suit; however,
none of the pieces matched. They were different shades of brown. Fortu-
nately, the pieces were reversible, so the student attempted to change them
so they would all be the same shade. After repeated attempts he was unable
to get all three pieces of the suit to be the same shade of brown. He finally
gave up in despair and did not appear for his defense. With a little knowl-
edge about the student, an analytical therapist would have an easy time with
the meaning of this dream. This was obviously a stressful time in the young
man’s life, and the dream reflected his denied anxiety. In addition, the stu-
dent did not like brown suits; to him, a brown suit that did not match was
even more hideous. It is apparent that he was unhappy and, despite his best
attempts to portray confidence, the budding clinician was afraid that he was
going to “look stupid.” Jung would have encouraged him to face these fears
of failure that were hidden in his unconscious.
Active Imagination
A final application of analytical psychotherapy stems from Jung’s method of
active imagination. Jung believed that unconscious messages could come
not only from dreams but also from one’s artistic productions. He encour-
aged his patients to produce spontaneous, artistic material. Some patients
sketched, while others painted, wrote poetry, or sang songs. He was inter-
ested in the symbols that were given during these periods, and he asked his
clients to comment on them. Jung believed that considerable material in the
unconscious could be discovered during these encounters. He also talked
with his patients about the universal meanings of these symbols (as in his
81
Psychology Basics
idea of the collective unconscious), and they would attempt to relate this
material to the their own cultural pasts.
Many modern therapies, such as art, music, and dance therapy, draw
heavily from this idea that one can become aware of unconscious and emo-
tional material through association involving one’s artistic productions.
These therapists believe, as did Jung, that patients are less defensive during
these times of spontaneous work and, therefore, are more likely to discover
unconscious material.
Contributions to Psychology
Analytical psychotherapy is not considered a mainstream approach to psy-
chotherapy, but it does have a small group of devoted followers. Some of
Jung’s techniques have been adapted into other, more common approaches.
Many therapists agree with Jung’s deemphasis on specific techniques in fa-
vor of a focus on the establishment of a supportive therapy relationship.
Jung moved away from the stereotypical analyst’s couch in favor of face-to-
face communication between doctor and patient. Many psychotherapists
endorse Jung’s belief that the analyst and patient should have relatively
equal status and input. Jung also reduced the frequency of meeting with his
patients from daily (as Freud recommended) to weekly, which is the norm
today.
Jung’s analytical approach changed the focus of psychotherapy from
symptom relief to self-discovery. He was interested not only in patients with
major problems but also in those who were dissatisfied with their mundane
existences. These people were usually bright, articulate, and occupationally
successful.
Jung’s most lasting contributions probably have been his insights into the
polarity of personality traits. The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, based on
Jungian personality descriptions, is one of the most widely used personality
tests in business and industry. Jung also believed that personality changes
throughout one’s life, and he encouraged a continual evaluation of oneself.
The idea of a midlife crisis, a period when one reevaluates personal and oc-
cupational goals, is a product of Jung’s theory. He believed that individuals
continually should strive to achieve a balance in their personality and be-
havior.

Bishop, Paul, ed. Jung in Contexts: A Reader. New York: Routledge, 2000. A col-
lection of essays written between 1980 and 2000 on the evolution and the-
ory of Jungian analytic psychology.
Hall, Calvin Springer, Gardner Lindzey, and John Campbell. Theories of Per-
sonality. 4th ed. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1998. This is a classic text in
personality theory and application, and it gives a detailed description of
Jung’s theory. Recommended for the serious student of Jung.
Hall, Calvin Springer, and Vernon J. Nordby. A Primer of Jungian Psychology.
82
New York: New American Library, 1973. This paperback attempts to pro-
vide a comprehensive treatment of Jung’s ideas. It is intended for the be-
ginning student of Jung.
Hergenhahn, B. R., and Matthew Olsen. Personality Theories: An Introduction.
5th ed. Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 1998. Engler’s chapter on
Jung and his psychotherapy is easy to read and contains a good balance
between theory and practical application.
Jung, C. G. Man and His Symbols. 1961. Reprint. New York: Laureleaf Books,
1997. Jung’s own summary of his theories on dreams and dream analysis,
aimed at a lay reader.
Mathers, Dale. An Introduction to Meaning and Purpose in Analytical Psychology.
Philadelphia: Taylor & Francis, 2001. A guide aimed at therapists, coun-
selors, and other mental health professionals, explaining the basic pre-
mises of analytical psychology.
Samuels, Andrew. Jung and the Post-Jungians. New York: Routledge, 1986. A
comprehensive overview of both Jung’s thought and the developments of
his followers.
Stevens, Anthony. Jung: A Very Short Introduction. New York: Oxford Univer-
sity Press, 2001. A concise overview of Jung’s analytical psychology theo-
ries, written by a prominent Jungian.
Brett L. Beck
See also: Abnormality: Psychological Models; Analytical Psychology: Carl

Jung; Dreams; Psychoanalytic Psychology.
83
Animal Experimentation
Type of psychology: Psychological methodologies
Fields of study: Experimental methodologies; methodological issues
Psychologists study animals and animal behavior as well as humans; sometimes the
goal is to understand the animal itself, and sometimes it is to try to learn more about
humans. Because there are many biological and psychological similarities between hu-
mans and other animals, the use of animal models can be extremely valuable, al-
though it is sometimes controversial.
Key concepts
• analogy
• applied research
• basic research
• biopsychology
• ethology
• homology
• Institutional Animal Care and Use Committees
• invasive procedures
• learning theory
• situational similarity
Prior to the general acceptance of Charles Darwin’s evolutionary theory in

the late nineteenth century, animals were considered to be soulless ma-
chines with no thoughts or emotions. Humans, on the other hand, were as-
sumed to be qualitatively different from other animals because of their abili-
ties to speak, reason, and exercise free will. This assumption made it
unreasonable to try to learn about the mind by studying animals.
After Darwin, however, people began to see that, even though each spe-
cies is unique, the chain of life is continuous, and there are similarities as
well as differences among species. As animal brains and human brains are
made of the same kinds of cells and have similar structures and connections,
it was reasoned, the mental processes of animals must be similar to the men-
tal processes of humans. This new insight led to the introduction of animals
as psychological research subjects around the year 1900. Since then, animal
experimentation has taught much about the brain and the mind, especially
in the fields of learning, memory, motivation, and sensation.
Psychologists who study animals can be roughly categorized into three
groups. Biopsychologists, or physiological psychologists, study the genetic,
neural, and hormonal controls of behavior, for example, eating behavior,
sleep, sexual behavior, perception, emotion, memory, and the effects of
drugs. Learning theorists study the learned and environmental controls of
behavior, for example, stress, stimulus-response patterns, motivation, and
the effects of reward and punishment. Ethologists and sociobiologists con-
centrate on animal behavior in nature, for example, predator-prey interac-
84
tions, mating and parenting, migration, communication, aggression, and

territoriality.
Reasons for Using Animal Subjects

Psychologists study animals for a variety of reasons. Sometimes they study
the behavior of a particular animal in order to solve a specific problem.
They may study dogs, for example, to learn how best to train them as watch-
dogs, chickens to learn how to prevent them from fighting one another in
henhouses, and wildlife to learn how to regulate populations in parks, ref-
uges, or urban areas. These are all examples of what is called applied re-
search.
Most psychologists, though, are more interested in human behavior but
study animals for practical reasons. A developmental psychologist, for exam-
ple, may study an animal that has a much shorter life span than humans so
that each study takes a much shorter time and more studies can be done. An-
imals may also be studied when an experiment requires strict controls; re-
searchers can control the food, housing, and even social environment of
laboratory animals but cannot control such variables in the lives of human
subjects. Experimenters can even control the genetics of animals by breed-
ing them in the laboratory; rats and mice have been bred for so many gener-
ations that researchers can special-order from hundreds of strains and
breeds and can even obtain animals that are as genetically identical as iden-
tical twins.
Another reason psychologists study animals is that there are fewer ethical
considerations as compared to research with human subjects. Physiological
psychologists and neuropsychologists, in particular, may utilize invasive pro-
cedures (such as brain surgery or hormone manipulation) that would be
unethical to perform on humans. Without animal experimentation, these
scientists would have to do all their research on human victims of accident
or disease, a situation which would reduce the number of research subjects
dramatically as well as raise additional ethical considerations.
A number of factors make animal research applicable for the study of hu-
man psychology. The first factor is homology. Animals that are closely re-
lated to humans are likely to have similar physiology and behavior because
they share the same genetic blueprint. Monkeys and chimpanzees are the
animals most closely related to humans and thus are homologically most
similar. Monkeys and chimpanzees make the best subjects for psychological
studies of complex behaviors and emotions, but because they are expensive
and difficult to keep, and because there are serious ethical considerations
when using them, they are not used when another animal would be equally
suitable.
The second factor is analogy. Animals that have a similar lifestyle to hu-
mans are likely to have some of the same behaviors. Rats, for example, are
social animals, as are humans; cats are not. Rats also show similarity to hu-
mans in their eating behavior (which is one reason rats commonly live
85
Psychology Basics
The study of animals,

particularly primates,
has taught researchers
much about human
beings. (Adobe)
around human habitation and garbage dumps); thus, they can be a good
model for studies of hunger, food preference, and obesity. Rats, however, do
not have a similar stress response to that of humans; for studies of exercise
and stress, the pig is a better animal to study.
The third factor is situational similarity. Some animals, particularly do-
mesticated animals such as dogs, cats, domestic rabbits, and some birds,
adapt easily to experimental situations such as living in a cage and being
handled by humans. Wild animals, even if reared from infancy, may not be-
have normally in experimental situations. The behavior of a chimpanzee
that has been kept alone in a cage, for example, may tell something about
the behavior of a human kept in solitary confinement, but it will not neces-
sarily be relevant to understanding the behavior of most people in typical sit-
uations.
By far the most common laboratory animal used in psychology is Rattus
norvegicus, the Norwegian rat. Originally the choice of the rat was something
of a historical accident. Because the rat has been studied so thoroughly over
86
the past century, it is now often the animal of choice so that comparisons
can be made from study to study. Fortunately, the rat shares many features
with humans. Other animals frequently used in psychological research in-
clude pigeons, mice, hamsters, gerbils, cats, monkeys, and chimpanzees.
Scientific Value
One of the most important topics for which psychologists use animal experi-
mentation is the study of interactive effects of genes and the environment
on the development of the brain and subsequent behavior. These studies
can only be done using animals as subjects because they require individuals
with a relatively short life span that develop quickly, invasive procedures to
measure cell and brain activity, or the manipulation of major social and envi-
ronmental variables in the life of the subject.
In the 1920’s, E. C. Tolman and Robert Tryon began a study of the inheri-
tance of intelligence using rats. They trained rats to run a complex maze
and then, over many generations, bred the fastest learners with one another
and the slowest learners with one another. From the beginning, offspring of
the “bright” rats were substantially faster than offspring of the “dull” rats. Af-
ter only seven generations, there was no overlap between the two sets, show-
ing that “intelligence” is at least partly genetic and can be bred into or out of
animals, just as size, coat color, or milk yield can be.
Subsequent work with selectively bred bright versus dull rats, however,
found that the bright rats would only outperform the dull rats when tested
on the original maze used with their parents and grandparents; if given a dif-
ferent task to measure their intelligence, the bright rats were no brighter
than the dull rats. These studies were the first to suggest that intelligence
may not be a single attribute that one either has much or little of; there may
instead be many kinds of intelligence.
Traditionally, intelligence quotient (IQ) tests measure two kinds of intel-
ligence: one related to verbal skills and one related to spatial skills. Newer
theories and tests attempt to address the possibility that there are dozens of
different kinds of intelligence. The newer tests may help to identify special
talents that may otherwise go unrecognized, undeveloped, and unrewarded
in people who are not especially good at tasks measured by the more tradi-
tional tests. The new theories of multiple intelligences are also being used in
the field of artificial intelligence to develop computer and robotic systems
which utilize less sequential processing and more parallel systems or netlike
processing, more like the human brain.
Brain Studies
Another series of experiments that illustrates the role of animal models
in the study of brain and behavior is that developed by David Hubel and
Torsten Wiesel, who study visual perception (mostly using cats). Hubel and
Wiesel were able to study the activity of individual cells in the living brain. By
inserting a microelectrode into a brain cell of an immobilized animal and
87
Psychology Basics
flashing visual stimuli in the animal’s visual field, they could record when
the cell responded to a stimulus and when it did not.
Over the years, scientists have used this method to map the activities of
cells in several layers of the visual cortex, the part of the brain that processes
visual information. They have also studied the development of cells and the
cell connections, showing how early experience can have a permanent ef-
fect on the development of the visual cortex. Subsequent research has dem-
onstrated that the environment has major effects on the development of
other areas of the brain as well. The phrase “use it or lose it” has some accu-
racy when it comes to development and maintenance of brain connections
and mental abilities.
Harlow’s Experiments
Perhaps the most famous psychological experiments on animals were
those by Harry Harlow in the 1950’s. Harlow was studying rhesus monkeys
and breeding them in his own laboratory. Initially, he would separate infant
monkeys from their mothers. Later, he discovered that, in spite of receiving
adequate medical care and nutrition, these infants exhibited severe behav-
ioral symptoms: They would sit in a corner and rock, mutilate themselves,
and scream in fright at the approach of an experimenter, a mechanical toy,
or another monkey. As adolescents, they were antisocial. As adults, they were
psychologically ill-equipped to deal with social interactions: Male monkeys
were sexually aggressive, and females appeared to have no emotional attach-
ment to their own babies. Harlow decided to study this phenomenon (la-
beled “maternal deprivation syndrome”) because he thought it might help
to explain the stunted growth, low life expectancy, and behavioral symptoms
of institutionalized infants which had been documented earlier by René
Spitz.
Results of the Harlow experiments profoundly changed the way psychol-
ogists think about love, parenting, and mental health. Harlow and his col-
leagues found that the so-called mothering instinct is not very instinctive at
all but rather is learned through social interactions during infancy and ado-
lescence. They also found that an infant’s attachment to its mother is based
not on its dependency for food but rather on its need for “contact comfort.”
Babies raised with both a mechanical “mother” that provided milk and a
soft, cloth “mother” that gave no milk preferred the cloth mother for cling-
ing and comfort in times of stress.
Through these experiments, psychologists came to learn how important
social stimulation is, even for infants, and how profoundly lack of such stim-
ulation can affect mental health development. These findings played an im-
portant role in the development of staffing and activity requirements for
foundling homes, foster care, day care, and institutions for the aged, dis-
abled, mentally ill, and mentally retarded. They have also influenced social
policies which promote parent education and early intervention for chil-
dren at risk.
88
Limitations and Ethical Concerns

However, there are drawbacks to using animals as experimental subjects.
Most important are the clear biological and psychological differences be-
tween humans and nonhuman animals; results one gets in a study using
nonhuman animals simply may not apply to humans. In addition, animal
subjects cannot communicate directly with the researchers; they are unable
to express their feelings, motivations, thoughts, and reasons for their behav-
ior. If a psychologist must use an animal instead of a human subject for ethi-
cal or practical reasons, the scientist will want to choose an animal that is
similar to humans in the particular behavior being studied. Three factors
can create similarity between animal and human behavior; each of these
three must be considered.
For the same reasons that animals are useful in studying psychological
processes, however, people have questioned the moral justification for such
use. As it is now realized that vertebrate animals can feel physical pain, and
that many of them have thoughts and emotions as well, animal experimenta-
tion has become politically controversial.
Psychologists generally support the use of animals in research. The Amer-
ican Psychological Association (APA) identifies animal research as an im-
portant contributor to psychological knowledge. The majority of individual
psychologists would tend to agree. In 1996, S. Plous surveyed nearly four
thousand psychologists and found that fully 80 percent either approved or
strongly approved of the use of animals in psychological research. Nearly 70
percent believed that animal research was necessary for progress in the field
of psychology. However, support dropped dramatically for invasive proce-
dures involving pain or death. Undergraduate students majoring in psychol-
ogy produced largely similar findings. Support was less strong among newer
psychologists than older and was also less strong in women than in men.
Some psychologists would like to see animal experimentation in psychol-
ogy discontinued. An animal rights organization called Psychologists for the
Ethical Treatment of Animals (PSYETA), established in 1981, is highly criti-
cal of the use of animals as subjects in psychological research and has
strongly advocated improving the well-being of those animals that currently
are used through publication of the Journal of Applied Animal Welfare Science.
PSYETA is also a strong advocate for the developing field of human-animal
studies, in which the relationship between humans and animals is explored.
Companion animals (pets) can have a significant impact on psychological
and physical health and can be used as a therapeutic tool with, for example,
elderly people in nursing homes and emotionally disturbed youths. In this
field of study, animals are not the subjects of the experiment; rather it is the
relationship between humans and animals that is the topic of interest.
Regulations
In response to such concerns, the U.S. Congress amended the Animal Wel-
fare Act in 1985 so that it would cover laboratory animals as well as pets.
89
Psychology Basics
(Rats, mice, birds, and farm animals are specifically excluded.) Although
these regulations do not state specifically what experimental procedures
may or may not be done on laboratory animals, they do set standards for hu-
mane housing, feeding, and transportation. Later amendments were added
in 1991 in an effort to protect the psychological well-being of nonhuman
primates.
In addition, the Animal Welfare Act requires that all research on warm-
blooded animals (except those listed above) be approved by a committee
before it can be carried out. Each committee (called an Institutional Animal
Care and Use Committee, or IACUC) is composed of at least five members
and must include an animal researcher; a veterinarian; someone with an
area of expertise in a nonresearch area, such as a teacher, lawyer, or member
of the clergy; and someone who is unaffiliated with the institution where the
experimentation is being done who can speak for the local community. In
this way, those scientists who do animal experiments are held accountable
for justifying the appropriateness of their use of animals as research sub-
jects.
The APA has its own set of ethical guidelines for psychologists conducting
experiments with animals. The APA guidelines are intended for use in addi-
tion to all local, state, and federal laws that apply, including the Animal Wel-
fare Act. In addition to being a bit more explicit in describing experimental
procedures that require special justification, the APA guidelines require psy-
chologists to have their experiments reviewed by local IACUCs and do not
explicitly exclude any animals. About 95 percent of the animals used in psy-
chology are rodents and birds (typically rats, mice, and pigeons), which are
currently not governed by the Animal Welfare Act. It seems likely that fed-
eral regulations will change to include these animals at some point in the fu-
ture, and according to surveys, the majority of psychologists believe that
they should be. Finally, psychologists are encouraged to improve the living
environments of their animals and consider nonanimal alternatives for
their experiments whenever possible.
Alternatives to animal experimentation are becoming more widespread
as technology progresses. Computer modeling and bioassays (tests using bi-
ological materials such as cell cultures) cannot replace animal experimenta-
tion in the field of psychology, however, because computers and cell cultures
will never exhibit all the properties of mind that psychologists want to study.
At the same time, the use of animals as psychological research subjects will
never end the need for study of human subjects. While other animals may
age, mate, fight, and learn much as humans do, they will never speak, com-
pose symphonies, or run for office. Animal experimentation continues to
have an important, though limited, role in psychological research.

Fox, Michael Allen. The Case for Animal Experimentation. Berkeley: University
of California Press, 1986. Although the author is philosophically in favor
90
of most animal experimentation, he gives a clear and thorough discus-

sion of the entire context of animal experimentation from both sides. In-
cludes sections on animal rights, similarities and differences between hu-
man and nonhuman subjects, the role of methodological considerations
and replicability in scientific progress, and alternatives to animal testing.
The author specifically addresses some of the uglier behavioral studies on
animals, including some by Harry Harlow.
Gross, Charles G., and H. Philip Zeigler, eds. Motivation. Vol. 2 in Readings in
Physiological Psychology. New York: Harper & Row, 1969. Although there
are dozens of newer collections of articles in the area of physiological psy-
chology, this one does a particularly good job of covering the broad diver-
sity of topics in the field. In addition, all the work represented in this par-
ticular collection came from animal studies. This or a similar collection
can be consulted for illustration of many specific methodologies used in
research with animals.
Miller, Neal E. “The Value of Behavioral Research on Animals.” American Psy-
chologist 40 (April, 1985): 423-440. Good discussion of advances in the be-
havioral sciences that came from animal studies, including studies on ef-
fects of early experience on the brain and behavior, drug effects, eating
disorders, and diseases of aging. Also includes some discussion of applied
studies which benefit nonhuman species.
National Academy of Sciences and the Institute of Medicine. Committee on
the Use of Animals in Research. Science, Medicine, and Animals. Washing-
ton, D.C.: National Academy Press, 1991. This thirty-page pamphlet an-
swers commonly asked questions about the use of animals in biomedical
research. Although not focusing specifically on psychology, it does ad-
dress research in psychomedical areas such as brain research and drug
addiction.
National Research Council. Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals.
Washington, D.C.: National Academy Press, 1996. The primary reference
on animal care and use for researchers, the Guide covers specific legal
regulations regarding institutional responsibilities; animal housing and
environment; veterinary care; and facility requirements. Also available
online at http://www.nap. edu/readingroom/books/labrats/
Psychologists for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. http://www.psyeta.org.
Informative page for this animal rights organization. Provides links to the
table of contents of the journals they publish as well as full-text access to
some articles.
Linda Mealey; updated by Linda R. Tennison
See also: Behaviorism; Conditioning; Emotions; Hunger; Imprinting; In-

stinct Theory; Memory: Animal Research; Pavlovian Conditioning.
91
Anxiety Disorders
Fields of study: Anxiety disorders; behavioral and cognitive models;
psychodynamic and neoanalytic models
Anxiety is a central concept in many different schools of psychology, and there are
many widely varying theories concerning it; theories of anxiety often have spawned ap-
proaches to treating anxiety disorders.
Key concepts
• ego
• libido
• operant conditioning
• Pavlovian conditioning
• phobia
• preparedness
• repression
• three-systems approach
• two-factor theory
• vicarious transmission
The concept of anxiety is one of the most often-used and loosely defined
concepts in psychology. It can be used to describe a temporary state (“He
seems anxious today”) or an enduring personality trait (“He is an anxious
person”). It is used to assign cause (“He stumbled over the words in his
speech because he was anxious”) and to describe an effect (“Having to give a
speech makes him anxious”). It is seen as the result of discrete objects or sit-
uations, such as snakes or heights, or as evolving from basic existential prob-
lems such as the trauma of birth or the fear of death. All major theories in
psychology in some way confront anxiety.
Because of its preeminence in the field of psychology, there are many dif-
ferent theories about the nature and origin of anxiety disorders. The two
most important and influential viewpoints on anxiety are the Freudian and
the behavioral viewpoints. Although these theories attempt to explain many
anxiety disorders, an examination of how they apply to phobias presents a
good indication of how they work. A phobia can be defined as an anxiety dis-
order involving an intense fear of a particular thing (such as horses) or situa-
tion (such as heights).
Freudian Approach
Sigmund Freud, who said that understanding anxiety “would be bound to
throw a flood of light on our whole mental existence,” had two theories of
anxiety, an early one, in 1917, and a later one, in 1926. In the early theory, li-
bido (mental energy, often equated with sexual drive) builds up until it is
discharged by some pleasurable activity. Sometimes the energy cannot be
92
Anxiety Disorders
discharged, for example, when the sexual object is not attainable or is mor-
ally unacceptable. This undischarged energy is anxiety and remains even
when its original, unacceptable object is repressed or eliminated from con-
scious awareness. This anxiety may attach itself to an otherwise harmless ob-
ject, resulting in a phobia. This theory is best illustrated in one of Freud’s
most famous cases, that of “Little Hans,” a five-year-old who developed a
phobia of horses. Freud believed that Little Hans had a sexual desire for his
mother and wanted his father dead so that he could have his mother to him-
self. This desire for his mother and hatred of his father were unacceptable
impulses and so were repressed from consciousness, resulting in anxiety.
This anxiety attached itself to horses, Freud thought, because the black
blinders and muzzle of the horse symbolized his father’s glasses and mus-
tache.
In Freud’s first theory, repression causes anxiety. In psychoanalytic the-
ory, repression is a defense mechanism that keeps unacceptable thoughts
and impulses from becoming conscious. In the later theory, the relationship
between them has changed: Anxiety causes repression. In this theory, anxi-
ety acts as a signal to the ego (in Freud’s theory, the rational, conscious part
of the mind) that a forbidden impulse (such as Little Hans’s desire for his
mother) is trying to force its way into consciousness. This signal alerts the
ego to try to repress the unwanted impulse. If the ego cannot successfully re-
press the forbidden impulse, it may try to transfer the forbidden impulse to
an irrelevant object (horses, in Little Hans’s case). This object can arouse all
the emotions associated with the forbidden impulse, including the signal
anxiety. In this way, it becomes a phobic object.
Two-Factor Theory
One influential behavioral approach to anxiety is O. Hobart Mowrer’s two-
factor theory. It uses the principles of Pavlovian learning—in which two
stimuli are presented, one after the other, and the response to the first
changes because of the response automatically elicited by the second stimu-
lus—and operant conditioning—learning in which a behavior increases or
decreases depending on whether the behavior is followed by reward or pun-
ishment—to explain fear and phobic avoidance, respectively. Fear is ac-
quired through Pavlovian conditioning when a neutral object or situation is
paired with something painful or punishing. For example, involvement in
an automobile crash can result in a fear of driving. At this point, operant
learning principles take over to explain phobic avoidance. In operant learn-
ing, any action that leads to a reward is likely to be repeated. The person who
is anxious about driving might avoid driving. Because this avoidance is re-
warded by reduced anxiety, the person is more likely to avoid driving in the
future. Continued avoidance makes it harder to get back behind the wheel
again.
Many problems were found with two-factor theory, and many modifica-
tions have been made to it. Two problems will be discussed here to illustrate
93
Psychology Basics
these changes. First, the theory predicts that people will be likely to fear
things that are most often associated with pain. There are very few people in
modern society, however, who are phobic of electrical sockets and end ta-
bles, even though almost everyone has received a shock from the former
and stubbed a toe on the latter. On the other hand, many people are afraid
of snakes and spiders, even if they have never been bitten by one. This has
been explained through the concept of preparedness: Human evolutionary
history has prepared people to learn that some things—such as reptiles, in-
sects, heights, darkness, and closed spaces—are dangerous. These things
are “easy” to learn to fear, and they account for a large proportion of pho-
bias. On the other hand, human evolutionary ancestors had no experience
with electric sockets or guns, so people today are not prepared to become
phobic of these objects, even though they cause much more pain in modern
society than do snakes or spiders.
Two-factor theory states that in order for something to cause fear, it must
be paired with a painful or punishing experience. People, however, some-
times become phobic of objects or situations with which they have never had
a bad experience. Indeed, many people who have never seen a live snake are
afraid of snakes. Thus, there must be other ways in which fear is acquired.
One of these is vicarious transmission: Seeing someone act afraid of some-
thing can lead to acquiring that fear. For example, whether an infant be-
comes afraid of being in a high place depends on whether its mother is smil-
ing or has an expression of fear on her face. In an ingenious set of
experiments, Susan Mineka and her colleagues showed that vicarious trans-
mission of fear is influenced by preparedness. She showed that rhesus mon-
keys that watched a videotape of other monkeys acting afraid of a snake be-
came afraid of snakes themselves. Monkeys that watched other monkeys act
afraid of rabbits, however, did not become afraid of rabbits because they
were not evolutionarily prepared to fear rabbits. Human beings also can ac-
quire fear by being told that something is dangerous. A child can learn to
avoid running in front of oncoming cars by being told not to do this by his or
her parents; he or she does not have to be hit by a car or watch someone get
hit in order to acquire this information.
Treating Anxiety
All theories of anxiety disorders attempt to explain and organize what is
known about fear and anxiety. Some of the theories, including the ones de-
scribed here, also have been applied in developing treatments for anxiety
disorders. As might be expected, clinical psychologists with very different
ideas about the cause of anxiety will recommend very different treatments
to eliminate it.
In the case of Little Hans, Freud thought that his anxiety about horses was
caused by repressed sexual impulses toward his mother and hatred of his fa-
ther. From this, it follows that these repressed impulses would need to be
brought out into the open and resolved before his anxiety about horses
94
Anxiety Disorders
DSM-IV-TR Criteria for Generalized

Anxiety Disorder
(DSM code 300.02)
Excessive anxiety and worry (apprehensive expectation), occurring more
days than not for at least six months, about a number of events or activities
(such as work or school performance)
Person finds it difficult to control worry
Anxiety and worry associated with three or more of the following symp-
toms, with at least some present more days than not for previous six months
(only one item required in children):
• restlessness or feeling keyed up or on edge
• being easily fatigued
• difficulty concentrating or mind going blank
• irritability
• muscle tension
• sleep disturbance (difficulty falling or staying asleep, or restless unsatis-
fying sleep)
Focus of anxiety and worry not confined to features of Axis I disorder
Anxiety and worry do not occur exclusively during Post-traumatic Stress
Disorder
Anxiety, worry, or physical symptoms cause clinically significant distress or
impairment in social, occupational, or other important areas of functioning
Disturbance not due to direct physiological effects of a substance or general
medical condition and does not occur exclusively during a mood disorder, psy-
chotic disorder, or pervasive developmental disorder
would diminish. This was the basic goal of the psychoanalytic therapy Freud
recommended for Hans.
On the other hand, if Hans’s parents had taken him to a behaviorally ori-
ented therapist, the therapist would have assumed that the child’s fear
stemmed from a fright he suffered in the presence of a horse. In fact, Freud
stated that the phobia began when Hans saw a horse fall while pulling a bus.
Further, the therapist would assume that now Hans was rewarded for avoid-
ing horses by anxiety reduction and by getting extra attention from his par-
ents. Treatment would involve having the boy gradually think about, look at,
and even pet horses, and it would include being rewarded for approaching
(rather than avoiding) horses.
Given these vastly different theories and treatments, a question arises as
to which one is right. The theoretical issues are still debated, but it is clear
that treatments based on a behavioral model of anxiety are much more suc-
cessful in reducing fear than are treatments based on the theories of Freud
or his followers.
95
Psychology Basics
Cognitive Theories
Cognitive theories of anxiety also illustrate how theory is applied to develop
a treatment. There are many different cognitive models of anxiety, but all
are similar in that they assume that there is a cognitive cause of the fear
state. This cognitive step is sometimes called an irrational belief. A cognitive
theorist might explain Little Hans’s fear in the following way: Hans is afraid
of horses because he has some irrational belief that horses are dangerous.
The specific belief might be “The horse will bite me” or “The horse might
get spooked and run into me” or even “Horses have germs, and if I go near
one, I’ll catch its germs and get sick.” The theory assumes that anxiety will
stop when the irrational belief is eliminated. Thus, a cognitive therapist
would first carefully question Hans to find out the specific irrational belief
causing his fear. Once that is determined, the therapist would use persua-
sion, logical reasoning, and evidence to try to change the belief. (Little
Hans was used here only to continue with the same example. A therapist
probably would not try to reason with a five-year-old, and a different treat-
ment would be used. Cognitive therapies are more commonly used with
adults.)
Physiological Theories
Physiological theories of anxiety are increasing in importance. As with be-
havioral, psychodynamic, and cognitive theories, there are many physiologi-
cal theories. They differ with respect to the brain areas, pathways, or chemi-
cals implicated in anxiety. It is likely that many physiological theories
contain an element of truth. Anxiety is a complex state, involving multiple
interacting parts of the nervous system, and it will take much additional re-
search to develop a complete model of the brain’s role in anxiety.
One physiological variable that has been integrated into many theories of
anxiety is the panic attack. This is a sudden and usually short-lived attack
that includes trouble with breathing, heart palpitations, dizziness, sweating,
and fear of dying or going crazy. These attacks appear purely physiological
in that they seem to come “out of the blue” at first; however, psychological
factors determine whether they progress into a full-blown disorder. People
can become anxious about having panic attacks, and this added anxiety
leads to more attacks, producing panic disorder. Some people become
afraid of having an attack in a place where they will be unable to cope or re-
ceive help. These people may progressively avoid more and more places.
This is known as agoraphobia, which at its worst can result in people who are
afraid to leave their homes.
The development of physiological theories also illustrates an important
point in the relationship between theory and therapy. Thus far, it has been
stressed that theories of anxiety help determine treatment. This relationship
also works in reverse: Success or failure of treatments adds information used
in theory development. This is most clear in physiological theories. For ex-
ample, the physiological mechanisms of different types of anxiety-reducing
96
Anxiety Disorders
tranquilizers have been investigated to provide clues as to how the brain is

involved in anxiety.
Impact on Field of Psychology

Just as most theories in psychology have a view of anxiety, anxiety is an im-
portant concept in many areas of psychology. Obviously, anxiety is very im-
portant in the fields of psychopathology and psychotherapy. It also has been
very important in learning theory; experiments with conditioned fear have
advanced knowledge about Pavlovian and operant conditioning. Anxiety is
also an important trait in theories of personality, and it figures in theories of
motivation. It might be said that anxiety is everywhere in psychology.
Theoretical developments in anxiety have been incorporated into other
areas of psychology. For example, in the early 1960’s, Peter Lang described
fear and anxiety as being composed of three systems—that is, there are
three systems in which fear is expressed: verbal (saying “I’m anxious”), be-
havioral (avoiding or running away from a feared object), and physiological
(experiencing an increase in heart rate or sweating). An important point in
understanding the three systems of fear is that the systems do not always run
along parallel tracks. A person may speak of being anxious about the condi-
tion of the world environment without any physiological arousal. Alterna-
tively, a boy’s heart might pound at the sight of a snake in the woods, but he
reports no fear and does not run away in the presence of his friends. De-
scribing fear in a three-systems framework presents an important challenge
to any theory of anxiety. An adequate theory must explain why the three sys-
tems sometimes give the same information and sometimes do not. The
three-systems approach not only has been very influential in anxiety theory
and research but also has been applied to many other areas of psychology,
such as studying emotion, stress, and pain. This approach is an important
concept in behavioral formulations of anxiety, stating that anxiety has be-
havioral, physiological, and verbal components and that they do not neces-
sarily provide the same information.
Another major challenge for theories of anxiety is to begin to integrate
different positions. The present theories are not all mutually exclusive. The
fact that a behavioral theory of anxiety has some validity does not mean that
cognitive approaches are wrong. Also, psychological theories need to be in-
tegrated with physiological theories that describe brain activity during anxi-
ety. Although theory and research in anxiety has a long and fruitful history,
there is much work to be done, and many important developments lie
ahead.

Antony, Martin M., Susan M. Orsillo, and Lizabeth Roemer, eds. Practitioner’s
Guide to Empirically Based Measures of Anxiety. Plenum Press, 2001. Reviews
more than two hundred instruments for measuring adult anxiety. Aimed
at mental health professionals.
97
Psychology Basics
Barlow, David H. Anxiety and Its Disorders. 2d ed. New York: Guilford Press,
2001. The author, one of the leaders in the field of anxiety research, pres-
ents his integrative theory of anxiety. The book also describes assessment
and treatment of anxiety and includes a separate chapter on each recog-
nized anxiety disorder. The book’s intended audience is graduate stu-
dents and professionals in psychology, but it is very well written and worth
the effort for anyone interested in an up-to-date and comprehensive pre-
sentation of anxiety disorders.
Freud, Sigmund. “Analysis of a Phobia in a Five-Year-Old Boy.” In The Stan-
dard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud, edited by
James Strachey. Vol. 10. London: Hogarth Press, 1955. Originally pub-
lished in 1909, this is Freud’s description of the case of Little Hans, the
most famous patient in the history of anxiety disorders. Freud is an excel-
lent writer, and he presents many vivid details in this case history, making
it interesting to read.
__________. “Inhibition, Symptoms, and Anxiety.” In The Standard Edition of
the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud, edited by James Strachey.
Vol. 20. London: Hogarth Press, 1959. In this paper, originally published
in German in 1926, Freud describes his revised theory of anxiety. The pa-
per covers a wide range of topics (including a redescription of Little
Hans) and is not as readable as the initial presentation of the case. It is,
however, an interesting illustration of the change in Freud’s thinking
about anxiety.
Marks, Isaac Meyer. Living with Fear: Understanding and Coping with Anxiety. 2d
ed. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2001. This is a work written for the general
public by Britain’s foremost authority on fear and anxiety. It is accessible
and provides a good introduction to theory and treatment of anxiety.
Stein, Dan J., and Eric Hollander, eds. Textbook of Anxiety Disorders. Washing-
ton, D.C.: American Psychiatric Press, 2002. An up-to-date clinical guide
to anxiety and its treatment.
Tuma, A. Hussain, and Jack D. Maser, eds. Anxiety and the Anxiety Disorders.
New York: Lawrence Erlbaum, 1985. This thousand-page book contains
forty-three chapters of high quality, with most of the leaders in the field of
anxiety represented. Every important theoretical approach to anxiety is
covered. There are two hundred pages of references, an author index,
and a subject index, making it easy to find information on specific topics.
Scott R. Vrana
See also: Abnormality: Psychological Models; Amnesia and Fugue; Condi-

tioning; Multiple Personality; Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder; Pavlovian
Conditioning; Phobias.
98
Attachment and Bonding in Infancy
and Childhood
Fields of study: Infancy and childhood; interpersonal relations
Bonding and attachment are two theoretical constructs that psychologists have used to
describe and explain the intense emotional tie that develops between a caregiver and
child. Research has helped psychologists to explain the development of several common
social behaviors in infancy and to use individual differences in infant behavior to pre-
dict aspects of later development.
Key concepts
• approach behaviors
• attachment behaviors
• avoidance
• felt security
• resistance
• separation protest
• signalling behaviors
• “strange situation”
• stranger anxiety
Bonding refers to the development of an emotional tie of the mother to the

infant. This biologically based process is believed to occur in mothers
shortly after the birth of an infant, a time period during which the mother’s
intense emotional response is triggered by contact with her newborn. The
existence of such a bond is then evidenced in the mother’s behavior. Attach-
ment, on the other hand, refers to a relationship between the caregiver and
infant that develops over the infant’s first year of life; the quality of the at-
tachment is apparent in the behavior of the infant.
Evidence for the biologically based bonding process has been inconsis-
tent. In contrast, there exists considerable scientific evidence to support the
notion of attachment. Thus, the remainder of this discussion will focus on
the development of the attachment relationship.
The work of British psychiatrist John Bowlby played an important role in
the acceptance and understanding of the notion of mother-infant attach-
ment. Bowlby argued that the behaviors of infants are not random and that,
in fact, some of the behaviors exhibited most commonly by infants actually
serve a single goal. Specifically, he argued that the infant behaviors of cry-
ing, babbling, smiling, clinging, non-nutritional sucking, and following all
play an important role in bringing the infant into close contact with the
caregiver. He believed that, for the infant, seeking and maintaining proxim-
ity to the caregiver are essential for survival because the infant is dependent
upon the caregiver for food, shelter, and protection. Thus, the infant’s be-
99
Psychology Basics
havior is organized and goal-directed. During early infancy, however, this

goal is neither understood nor learned by the infant. Rather, humans are
born with a biological predisposition to engage in certain behaviors that aid
in the maintenance of proximity to the caregiver. Thus, the goal of main-
taining proximity is built into the human infant, as are some initial behav-
iors that serve the function of achieving that goal. With further develop-
ment, the infant becomes more aware of the goal, and therefore his or her
behaviors become more intentional.
The infant’s emotional state is also believed to play an important role in
attempts to seek and maintain proximity to the caregiver. That is, the in-
fant’s behavior is dependent upon his or her sense of emotional security.
For example, as long as a child is in the immediate presence of the attach-
ment figure, or within easy reach, the child feels secure and may then attend
to important developmental tasks such as exploration of the environment,
using the mother as a secure base from which to explore. Upon the threat of
loss of the attachment figure, however, the infant may lose that sense of secu-
rity and may exhibit attachment behaviors designed to increase the proxim-
ity of the attachment figure. Thus, the infant’s attempts to seek or maintain
proximity to the caregiver are determined by how secure he or she feels with
the caregiver in a specific environment.
The attachment relationship and the infant’s sense of security develop
over the period of infancy. Bowlby has described four phases in the develop-
ment of the attachment to the caregiver. In phase one, the newborn shows
limited discrimination among people and therefore exhibits no preferential
or differential behaviors, thus behaving in a friendly manner toward all
people. In phase two, the eight- to twelve-week-old infant shows the ability to
discriminate the caregiver from others but exhibits no preferential behavior
toward the caregiver. In phase three, which generally appears at approxi-
mately seven or eight months of age, the infant clearly discriminates the
caregiver from other people and begins to show preferential treatment to-
ward him or her. For example, the infant begins to follow a departing
mother, greets mother upon her return, and uses her as a base from which
to explore an unfamiliar environment. Furthermore, during phase three,
the infant begins to treat strangers with caution and may withdraw from a
stranger. In phase four, the child maintains a “goal-directed partnership”
with the caregiver, a more complex relationship in which the child is acquir-
ing some insight into the caregiver’s own feelings and motives, and thus in-
teracts with the caregiver as a partner. This final phase is not apparent in
most children until after age two.
Patterns of Infant-Mother Attachment

During the second half of the first year of life (after about eight months of
age), infants begin to show very clear attempts at exploration when their
mothers are present. In fact, research reported by Mary Ainsworth in the
mid-1970’s suggests that once an infant is able to crawl, he or she does not al-
100
Attachment and Bonding in Infancy and Childhood
ways remain close to the mother. Instead, the child begins to move away
from the mother, more carefully exploring objects and people. From time to
time he or she returns to her, as if to check her whereabouts or to check in
with her. If the mother moves away, however, or if the infant is frightened by
some event, he or she will either approach the mother or will signal to bring
the mother in closer proximity. For example, the infant often fusses, cries,
and clings to the caregiver at the first sign of the caregiver’s possible depar-
ture, a response known as separation protest. At about the same time, in-
fants begin to express stranger anxiety or stranger wariness by fussing and
crying when an unfamiliar person enters the room or approaches.
Ainsworth designed a special laboratory technique, known as the “strange
situation,” that allows direct observation of the interactions between the
behaviors associated with exploration, attachment, separation protest, and
stranger anxiety. This situation places an infant in an unfamiliar setting with
a stranger, both in the presence and in the absence of the mother. The pro-
cedure consists of a series of three-minute episodes (the process lasts a total
of about twenty minutes) in which the child is exposed to an unfamiliar play-
room containing a set of age-appropriate toys. During the initial episodes,
the mother remains in the playroom with the infant. Mother and infant are
then joined in the playroom by a female stranger, who first talks to the
mother, then approaches the baby. Next, the mother leaves the room, and
the baby and stranger are left alone together. Mother then returns and the
stranger leaves, so that the baby is reunited with the mother. Following this
episode, the baby is left alone in the room, then joined by the stranger; fi-
nally, the mother again returns and the stranger leaves.
This strange situation, therefore, exposes a child to three potentially up-
setting experiences: separation from the caregiver, contact with a stranger,
and unfamiliar surroundings. The episodes are arranged in such a way that
they present a series of stressful experiences to the infant and thus present
an opportunity to observe not only the infant’s immediate response to a
stranger and to separation from the mother but also his or her ability to de-
rive comfort from the mother and to use her as a secure base for explora-
tion.
Ainsworth has reported that, while there are many similarities in infant
responses to this strange situation, there are also important individual dif-
ferences. In her initial study of twelve-month-old infants and their mothers,
Ainsworth reported three distinct patterns of responding to the events of
the strange situation, and the validity of these behavior patterns has been
demonstrated by much additional research.
A majority of the infants exhibited active exploration of the new environ-
ment and the available toys when their mothers were present. Some of these
infants showed distress during the first separation from mother, and by the
second separation, the majority of these infants expressed distress. Upon re-
union with their mother, they actively sought contact with her and were eas-
ily comforted by her, showing considerable signs of positive emotion but
101
Psychology Basics
very little, if any, signs of negative emotion. Furthermore, these infants fre-
quently returned to play and exploration after a period of contact with their
mother. In general, then, these infants used their mothers as a secure base
from which to explore the novel environment, exhibited appropriate at-
tachment behaviors following her departure, and were easily comforted by
the mother upon her return. Ainsworth suggested that this pattern of be-
havior reflects a secure attachment relationship.
A second group of infants showed a very different pattern of behavior.
This minority group showed no evidence of distress during separation. They
did sometimes show distress when left alone in the playroom but were easily
comforted by the returning stranger. Furthermore, this group actually
avoided or ignored their mothers when they returned. In essence, the moth-
ers were treated very much as were the strangers. These infants showed vir-
tually no signs of separation protest or stranger anxiety and exhibited very
few attachment behaviors. Ainsworth suggested that this pattern of behavior
reflects an insecure, avoidant attachment relationship.
Bonding is an emotional
and physiological process
that begins at birth.
(Digital Stock)
102
Finally, a third group of children were extremely distressed upon separa-

tion yet, despite their obvious separation and stranger anxiety, resisted com-
fort from their mothers. Their behavior suggested an angry ambivalence—
they objected to being left alone, but they refused to be consoled when re-
united with their mothers. This group of infants often exhibited distress
upon first entering the unfamiliar room with their mothers, and they rarely
left her side to explore the toys or the environment, either before or after
separation, suggesting a lack of a sense of security. Ainsworth suggested that
this behavior pattern reflects an insecure, resistant, or ambivalent attach-
ment relationship.
It is important to note that Ainsworth’s research was done in the United
States in the 1970’s. Follow-up work has demonstrated that various sociocul-
tural factors can influence the patterns of attachment behavior seen in the
“strange situation.” For instance, studies done in North Germany in the
1980’s revealed that as many as 60 percent of babies in that culture were clas-
sified as insecure-avoidant because of their lack of distress at separation
from their mothers in the strange situation test. In contrast, studies of at-
tachment carried out in Japan in the 1980’s and 1990’s indicate that up to 40
percent of Japanese infants are classified as insecure-ambivalent in the
strange situation due to their tendency to cling to their mothers throughout
the procedure. These differing cross-cultural patterns imply that the wider
sociocultural context influences how mothers and infants interact: North
German mothers expect their infants to be relatively self-sufficient and con-
fident, even during short separations such as those characteristic of the
“strange situation” procedure. Japanese mothers, on the other hand, expect
their infants to be upset when they are out of close proximity, and in daily
practice are unlikely to leave their infants alone even for short periods.
These cross-cultural variations in patterns of attachment highlight the im-
portance of considering mother-infant attachment in context.
The development of these distinct patterns of attachment is believed to
be the result of the history of interaction between the caregiver and infant.
Specifically, attachment theory suggests that responsive and consistent care-
giving results in a secure mother-infant attachment, unresponsive caregiving
results in an avoidant attachment, and inconsistent caregiving results in a -
resistant/ambivalent attachment. The “avoidant” mother has been described
as cold and disliking physical contact with the infant, who responds by acting
aloof and avoiding social interaction. The “resistant” mother, on the other
hand, has been described as unpredictable, sometimes responding but
sometimes not, and the infant often responds with anger and ambivalence.
As the infant matures, the specific behaviors that indicate the existence of
the attachment relationship may change. The research evidence strongly sug-
gests, however, that such individual differences in the quality of the mother-
infant attachment relationship are predictive of later behavior. For example,
infants who exhibit secure attachment patterns at one year of age have been
found to be more cooperative with adults, to show greater enthusiasm for
103
Psychology Basics
learning, to be more independent, and to be more popular with their peers

during the preschool years. Thus, the quality of the mother-infant attachment
relationship may have long-range effects. This does not mean that the child’s
future is determined solely by the quality of the attachment relationship. The
evidence indicates that certain negative consequences of an insecure attach-
ment relationship may be overcome by changes in the nature of the child’s
important relationships.
Attachment in Nonhuman Primates

The existence of a mother-infant attachment relationship has been recog-
nized for many years. For most of those years, however, psychologists ex-
plained the development of this attachment by way of traditional learning
theory. That is, behaviorists argued that the infant-mother attachment de-
velops because mothers are associated with the powerful, reinforcing event
of being fed. In this way, the mother becomes a conditioned reinforcer. This
reinforcement theory of attachment, however, came into question as a re-
sult of the work of Harry and Margaret Harlow in the early 1960’s.
The Harlows’ work was not with human infants but with infant rhesus
monkeys. They removed newborn monkeys from their mothers at birth and
raised them in the laboratory with two types of artificial or surrogate moth-
ers. One surrogate mother was made of terrycloth and could provide “con-
tact comfort.” The other surrogate mother was made of wire. A feeding bot-
tle was attached to one of the substitute mothers for each of the monkeys.
Half of the monkeys were fed by the wire mother; the other half were fed by
the cloth mother. This allowed the Harlows to compare the importance of
feeding to the importance of contact comfort for the monkeys.
In order to elicit attachment behaviors, the Harlows introduced some
frightening event, such as a strange toy, into the cages of the young mon-
keys. They expected that if feeding were the key to attachment, then the
frightened monkeys should have run to the surrogate mother that fed them.
This was not the case, however: All the young monkeys ran to their cloth
mothers and clung to them, even if they were not fed by them. Only the
cloth mothers were able to provide security for the frightened monkeys. The
Harlows concluded that a simple reinforcement explanation of attachment
was inaccurate and that the contact comfort, not the food, provided by a
mother plays a critical role in the development of attachment.
This research provided the impetus for the development of Bowlby’s
ethological account of attachment. Since that time, research by Mary
Ainsworth and Alan Sroufe, as well as many others, has provided important
information for the continuing development of understanding of the com-
plex relationship between caregivers and infants.
Bibliography
Ainsworth, Mary D. Salter, Mary C. Blehar, Everett Waters, and S. Wall. Pat-
terns of Attachment. Hillsdale, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum, 1978. Outlines, in
104
general terms, the development of John Bowlby’s attachment theory. De-

scribes in detail the procedures and scoring techniques for the strange
situation and describes the patterns of behavior associated with the se-
cure, avoidant, and resistant attachments. Discusses the antecedents of
individual differences in the attachment relationship.
Bowlby, John. Attachment and Loss. 2d ed. 3 vols. New York: Penguin Books,
1991. Examines the theoretical foundation of the attachment construct
and discusses attachment behavior. Outlines the development, mainte-
nance, and function of attachment in both humans and animals.
Cassidy, Jude, and Phillip R. Shaver, eds. Handbook of Attachment: Theory, Re-
search, and Clinical Applications. New York: Guilford Press, 1999. A com-
prehensive collection of papers on modern attachment theory, including
chapters on atypical attachment and implications for mental health.
Crittenden, Patricia McKinsey, and Angelika Hartl Claussen, eds. The Orga-
nization of Attachment Relationships: Maturation, Culture, and Context. New
York: Cambridge University Press, 2000. A collection of papers examin-
ing important influences on attachment in infancy, childhood, and adult-
hood.
Loretta A. Rieser-Danner; updated by Virginia Slaughter
See also: Affiliation and Friendship; Development; Gender-Identity Forma-

tion; Imprinting.
105
Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity
Disorder (ADHD)
Field of study: Childhood and adolescent disorders
Attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder is one of the most common disorders of child-

hood and adolescence, but it is also one of the most disturbing and debilitating condi-
tions that a child or adolescent can experience. Research into this disorder has identi-
fied its primary causes; however, it remains difficult to treat effectively.
Key concepts
• impulsivity
• inattention
• overactivity
• treatment
Attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is one of the most exten-

sively studied behavior disorders that begin in childhood. Thousands of arti-
cles and books have been published on the subject. There are a number of
reasons this disorder is of such interest to researchers and clinicians. The
two primary reasons are, first, that ADHD is a relatively common disorder of
childhood, and second, that there are numerous problems associated with
ADHD, including lower levels of intellectual and academic performance
and higher levels of aggressive and defiant behavior. (Although ADHD usu-
ally persists into adulthood, it is most commonly regarded as a childhood
disorder.)
In national and international studies of childhood emotional and behav-
ioral disorders, ADHD has been found to be relatively common among chil-
dren. Although prevalence estimates range from 1 percent to 20 percent,
most researchers agree that between 3 percent and 7 percent of children
could be diagnosed as having ADHD. The revised fourth edition of the Diag-
nostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV-TR), published by
the American Psychiatric Association in 2000, describes the diagnostic cri-
teria for ADHD. In order to receive the diagnosis of ADHD according to
DSM-IV-TR, a child must show abnormally high levels of inattention, hyper-
activity-impulsivity, or both when compared with peers of the same age. The
DSM-IV-TR lists two sets of behavioral symptoms characteristic of ADHD.
The first list contains nine symptoms of inattention such as “often has diffi-
culty sustaining attention in tasks or play activities,” while the second list
contains nine symptoms of hyperactivity-impulsivity such as “often talks ex-
cessively” and “often has difficulty awaiting turn.” In order to be diagnosed
with ADHD, a child must exhibit six to nine symptoms from at least one of
the lists. Although many of these behaviors are quite common for most chil-
dren at some point in their lives, the important point to consider in the diag-
106
Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD)
nosis of ADHD is that these behaviors must be in excess of the levels of be-
haviors most frequently exhibited by children of that age and that the
behaviors must cause functional impairment in at least two settings (for in-
stance, at home and at school). Additionally, it is expected that these behav-
iors have been excessive for at least six months and that some of the problem
behaviors were present by the time the child was seven years old.
Boys tend to outnumber girls in the diagnosis of ADHD, with the male:
female ratio estimated at 2:1 to 9:1, depending on the source. ADHD boys
tend to be more aggressive and antisocial than ADHD girls, while girls are
more likely to display inattentive symptoms of ADHD than boys.
Associated Problems
There are a number of additional problems associated with ADHD, in-
cluding the greater likelihood of ADHD boys exhibiting aggressive and anti-
social behavior. Although many ADHD children do not show any associated
problems, many ADHD children show deficits in both intellectual and be-
havioral functioning. For example, a number of studies have found that
ADHD children score an average of seven to fifteen points below other chil-
dren on standardized intelligence tests. It may be, however, that this poorer
performance reflects poor test-taking skills or inattention during the test
rather than actual impairment in intellectual functioning. Additionally,
ADHD children tend to have difficulty with academic performance and
scholastic achievement. It is assumed that this poor academic performance
is a result of inattention and impulsiveness in the classroom. When ADHD
children are given medication to control their inattention and impulsive-
ness, their academic productivity has been shown to improve.
ADHD children have also been shown to have a high number of associ-
ated emotional and behavioral difficulties. As mentioned earlier, ADHD
boys tend to show higher levels of aggressive and antisocial behavior than
ADHD girls and normal children. Additionally, it is estimated that up to 50
percent of ADHD children have at least one other disorder. Many of these
problems are related to depression and anxiety, although many ADHD chil-
dren also have severe problems with temper tantrums, stubbornness, and
defiant behavior. It is also estimated that up to 50 percent of ADHD children
have impaired social relations; that is, they do not get along with other chil-
dren. That there are many problems associated with ADHD may be part of
the reason that researchers have been so intrigued by this disorder.
Researchers must understand a disorder before they can attempt to treat
it. There are a variety of theories on the etiology of ADHD, but most re-
searchers now believe that there are multiple factors that influence its de-
velopment. It appears that many children have a biological predisposition
toward ADHD; in other words, they may have a greater likelihood of devel-
oping ADHD as a result of genetic factors. This predisposition is exa-
cerbated by a variety of factors, such as complications during pregnancy,
neurological disease, exposure to toxins, family adversity, and inconsistent
107
Psychology Basics
parental discipline. Although a very popular belief is that food additives or

sugar can cause ADHD, there has been almost no scientific support for
these claims. As so many factors have been found to be associated with the
development of ADHD, it is not surprising that numerous treatments have
been developed for the amelioration of its symptoms. Although numerous
treatment methods have been developed and studied, ADHD remains a dif-
ficult disorder to treat effectively.
Drug Therapies
Treatments of ADHD can be broken down into roughly two categories: med-
ication and behavioral or cognitive-behavioral treatment with the individual
ADHD child, parents, or teachers. Traditional psychotherapy and play ther-
apy have not been found to be effective in the treatment of ADHD. Stimu-
lant medications have been used in the treatment of ADHD since 1937. The
most commonly prescribed stimulant medications are methylphenidate
(Ritalin), pemoline (Cylert), and dextroamphetamine (Dexedrine). Behav-
ioral improvements caused by stimulant medications include those in im-
pulse control and improved attending behavior. Overall, approximately 75
percent of ADHD children on stimulant medication show behavioral im-
provement, and 25 percent show either no improvement or decreased be-
havioral functioning. The findings related to academic performance are
mixed. It appears that stimulant medications can help the ADHD child with
school productivity and accuracy but not with overall academic achieve-
ment. In addition, although ADHD children tend to show improvement
while they are on a stimulant medication, there are rarely any long-term
benefits to the use of such medications. In general, stimulant medication
can be seen as only a short-term management tool.
Antidepressant medications (such as imipramine and Prozac) have also
been used with ADHD children. These medications are sometimes used
when stimulant medication is not appropriate (for example, if the child has
motor or vocal tics). Antidepressant medications, like stimulant medica-
tions, appear to provide only short-term improvement in ADHD symptoms.
Overall, the use or nonuse of medications in the treatment of ADHD should
be carefully evaluated by a qualified physician (such as a psychiatrist). If the
child is started on medication for ADHD, the safety and appropriateness of
the medication must be monitored continually throughout its use.
Behavior Therapies
Behavioral and cognitive-behavioral treatments have been used with
ADHD children, with parents, and with teachers. Most of these techniques
attempt to provide the child with a consistent environment in which on-task
behavior is rewarded (for example, the teacher praises the child for raising
his or her hand and not shouting out an answer), and in which off-task be-
havior is either ignored or punished (for example, the parent has the child
sit alone in a chair near an empty wall, a “time-out chair,” after the child im-
108
pulsively throws a book across the room). In addition, cognitive-behavioral

treatments try to teach ADHD children to internalize their own self-control
by learning to “stop and think” before they act.
One example of a cognitive-behavioral treatment, which was developed
by Philip Kendall and Lauren Braswell, is intended to teach the child to
learn five “steps” that can be applied to academic tasks as well as social inter-
actions. The five problem-solving steps that children are to repeat to them-
selves each time they encounter a new situation are the following: Ask “What
am I supposed to do?”; ask “What are my choices?”; concentrate and focus
in; make a choice; and ask “How did I do?” (If I did well, I can congratulate
myself; if I did poorly, I should try to go more slowly next time.) In each ther-
apy session, the child is given twenty plastic chips at the beginning of the ses-
sion. The child loses a chip each time he or she does not use one of the steps,
goes too fast, or gives an incorrect answer. At the end of the session, the
child can use the chips to purchase a small prize; chips can also be stored in
a “bank” in order to purchase an even larger prize in the following sessions.
This treatment approach combines the use of cognitive strategies (the child
learns self-instructional steps) and behavioral techniques (the child loses a
desired object, a chip, for impulsive behavior).
Overall, behavioral and cognitive-behavioral treatments have been found
to be relatively effective in the settings in which they are used and at the time
they are being instituted. Like the effects of medication, however, the effects
of behavioral and cognitive-behavioral therapies tend not to be long-lasting.
There is some evidence to suggest that the combination of medication and
behavior therapy can increase the effectiveness of treatment. In the long
run, however, no treatment of ADHD has been found to be truly effective,
and in a majority of cases, the disorder persists into adulthood.
History and Changing Diagnostic Criteria

Children who might now be diagnosed as having ADHD have been written
about and discussed in scientific publications since the mid-1800’s. Atten-
tion to ADHD began in the United States after an encephalitis epidemic in
1917. Because the damage to the central nervous system caused by the dis-
ease led to poor attention, impulsivity, and overactivity in children who sur-
vived, researchers began to look for signs of brain injury in other children
who had similar behavioral profiles. By the 1950’s, researchers began to re-
fer to this disorder as “minimal brain damage,” which was then changed to
“minimal brain dysfunction” (MBD). By the 1960’s, however, the use of the
term MBD was severely criticized because of its overinclusiveness and non-
specificity. Researchers began to use terms that more specifically character-
ized children’s problems, such as “hyperkinesis” and “hyperactivity.”
The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), is the pri-
mary diagnostic manual used in the United States. In 1968, the second edi-
tion, called DSM-II, presented the diagnosis of “Hyperkinetic Reaction of
Childhood” to characterize children who were overactive and restless. By
109
Psychology Basics
DSM-IV-TR Criteria for Attention-Deficit

Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD)
Manifested as inattention or hyperactivity-impulsivity
Inattention
Six or more of the following symptoms, persisting for at least six months to a
degree maladaptive and inconsistent with developmental level:
• often fails to give close attention to details or makes careless mistakes in
schoolwork, work, or other activities
• often has difficulty sustaining attention in tasks or play activities
• often does not seem to listen when spoken to directly
• often does not follow through on instructions and fails to finish school
work, chores, or duties in the workplace (not due to oppositional behav-
ior or failure to understand instructions)
• often has difficulty organizing tasks and activities
• often avoids, dislikes, or is reluctant to engage in tasks that require sus-
tained mental effort (such as schoolwork or homework)
• often loses things necessary for tasks or activities (such as toys, school as-
signments, pencils, books, tools)
• often easily distracted by extraneous stimuli
• often forgetful in daily activities
Hyperactivity-impulsivity
Six or more of the following symptoms, persisting for at least six months to a
degree maladaptive and inconsistent with developmental level:
Hyperactivity
• often fidgets with hands or feet or squirms in seat
• often leaves seat in classroom or in other situations in which remaining
seated is expected
• often runs about or climbs excessively in situations in which it is inappro-
priate (in adolescents or adults, may be limited to subjective feelings of
restlessness)
• often has difficulty playing or engaging in leisure activities quietly
• often “on the go” or often acts as if “driven by a motor”
• often talks excessively
Impulsivity
• often blurts out answers before questions have been completed
• often has difficulty awaiting turn
• often interrupts or intrudes on others
Some hyperactive-impulsive or inattentive symptoms cause impairment

present before age seven
Some impairment from the symptoms present in two or more settings, such
as school and home
110
Clear evidence of clinically significant impairment in social, academic, or

occupational functioning
Symptoms do not occur exclusively during the course of a pervasive develop-
mental disorder, schizophrenia, or other psychotic disorder and are not better
accounted for by another mental disorder (mood disorder, anxiety disorder,
dissociative disorder, personality disorder)
DSM code based on type:
• Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder, Predominantly Inattentive
Type (DSM code 314.00): Inattention, but not hyperactivity-impulsivity
during the previous six months
• Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder, Predominantly Hyperactive-
Impulsive Type (DSM code 314.01): Hyperactivity-impulsivity but not in-
attention during the previous six months
• Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder, Combined Type (DSM code
314.01): Both inattention and hyperactivity-impulsivity during the previ-
ous six months
1980, when the third edition (DSM-III) was published, researchers had be-
gun to focus on the deficits of attention in these children, so two diagnostic
categories were established: “Attention Deficit Disorder with Hyperactivity
(ADD with H)” and “Attention Deficit Disorder without Hyperactivity (ADD
without H).” After the publication of DSM-III, many researchers argued that
there were no empirical data to support the existence of the ADD without H
diagnosis. In other words, it was difficult to find any children who were inat-
tentive and impulsive but who were not hyperactive. For this reason, in 1987,
when the revised DSM-III-R was published, the only diagnostic category for
these children was “Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD).”
With the publication of the fourth version of the manual, the DSM-IV, in
1994, three distinct diagnostic categories for ADHD were identified: ADHD
Predominantly Hyperactive-Impulsive Type, ADHD Predominantly Inatten-
tive Type, and ADHD Combined Type. The type of ADHD diagnosed is de-
pendent upon the number and types of behavioral symptoms a child exhib-
its. Six of nine symptoms from the Hyperactivity-Implusivity list but fewer
than six symptoms from the Inattention list lead to a diagnosis of ADHD Pre-
dominantly Hyperactive-Impulsive Type. Six of nine symptoms from the In-
attention list but fewer than six symptoms from the Hyperactivity-Implusivity
list lead to a diagnosis of ADHD Predominantly Inattentive Type. A child
who exhibits six of nine behavioral symptoms simultaneously from both lists
receives a diagnosis of ADHD Combined Type.
While the diagnostic definition and specific terminology of ADHD will
undoubtedly continue to change throughout the years, the interest in and
commitment to this disorder will likely continue. Children and adults with
111
Psychology Basics
ADHD, as well as the people around them, have difficult lives to lead. The
research community is committed to finding better explanations of the eti-
ology and treatment of this common disorder.

Barkley, Russell A. “Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder.” In Treatment of
Childhood Disorders, edited by E. J. Mash and R. A. Barkley. 2d ed. New
York: Guilford Press, 1998. This chapter provides a thorough discussion of
different treatments for ADHD children, including stimulant medication,
antidepressant medication, behavior therapy, parent training, teacher
training, and cognitive-behavioral therapy. Each treatment modality is dis-
cussed in a fair and objective manner, and empirical research is provided
to support the conclusions given.
__________. Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder: A Handbook for Diagnosis
and Treatment. 2d ed. New York: Guilford Press, 1998. Provides compre-
hensive discussion of nearly all aspects of ADHD, including assessment,
diagnosis, and treatment. Also notable for a thorough discussion of
ADHD in older adolescents and adults. This excellent and comprehen-
sive book is written by one of the leading researchers in the investigation
of ADHD.
Kendall, Philip C. “Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder.” In Childhood
Disorders. Hove, East Sussex, England: Psychology Press, 2000. A volume
in the series Clinical Psychology, A Modular Course. A succinct but thor-
ough discussion of ADHD, including current research on cognitive and
neuropsychological performance of children with the disorder.
Wender, Paul H. ADHD: Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder in Children and
Adults. New York: Oxford University Press, 2000. A comprehensive over-
view of ADHD history, diagnosis, treatment. Discusses strengths associ-
ated with ADHD as well as problems associated with the disorder.
Wodrich, David L. Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder: What Every Parent
Wants to Know. 2d ed. Baltimore: Paul H. Brookes, 2000. A book aimed at
the general public, containing practical advice and clear descriptions of
ADHD and related disorders, as well as resources for treatment.
Vicky Phares; updated by Virginia Slaughter
See also: Cognitive Behavior Therapy; Drug Therapies; Learning Disor-

ders.
112
Attraction Theories
Field of study: Interpersonal relations
Theories of interpersonal attraction attempt to specify the conditions that lead people to
like, and in some cases love, each other. Attraction is a two-way process, involving not
only the person who is attracted but also the attractor.
Key concepts
• equity theory
• matching phenomenon
• mere exposure
• physical attractiveness stereotype
• proximity
• reciprocity
• reinforcement model
• social exchange theory
Relationships are central to human social existence. Personal accounts by

people who have been forced to endure long periods of isolation serve as re-
minders of people’s dependence on others, and research suggests that close
relationships are the most vital ingredient in a happy and meaningful life. In
short, questions dealing with attraction are among the most fundamental in
social psychology.
The major theories addressing interpersonal attraction have a common
theme: reinforcement. The principle of reinforcement is one of the most
basic notions in all of psychology. Put simply, it states that behaviors that are
followed by desirable consequences (often these take the form of rewards)
tend to be repeated. Applied to interpersonal relations, this principle sug-
gests that when one person finds something rewarding in an interaction
with another person (or if that person anticipates some reward in a relation-
ship that has not yet been established), then the person should desire fur-
ther interaction with that other individual. In behavioral terms, this is what
is meant by the term “interpersonal attraction,” which emerges in everyday
language in such terms as “liking” or, in the case of deep involvement, “lov-
ing.” Appropriately, these theories, based on the notion that individuals are
drawn to relationships that are rewarding and avoid those that are not, are
known as reinforcement or reward models of interpersonal attraction.
The first and most basic theory of this type was proposed in the early
1970’s by Donn Byrne and Gerald Clore. Known as the reinforcement-affect
model of attraction (“affect” means “feeling” or “emotion”), this theory pro-
poses that people will be attracted not only to other people who reward
them but also to those people whom they associate with rewards. In other
words, a person can learn to like others through their connections to experi-
ences that are positive for that individual. It is important to recognize that a
113
Psychology Basics
major implication here is that it is possible to like someone not so much be-
cause of that person himself or herself but rather as a consequence of that
person’s merely being part of a rewarding situation; positive feelings toward
the experience itself get transferred to that other person. (It also follows
that a person associated with something unpleasant will tend to be disliked.)
This is called indirect reinforcement.
For example, in one experiment done during the summer, people who
evaluated new acquaintances in a cool and comfortable room liked them
better than when in a hot and uncomfortable room. In another, similar,
study subjects rating photographs of strangers gave more favorable evalua-
tions when in a nicely furnished room than when they were in a dirty room
with shabby furniture. These findings provide some insight into why mar-
ried couples may find that their relationship benefits from a weekend trip
away from the children or a romantic dinner at a favorite restaurant; the
pleasant event enhances their feelings for each other.
There are other models of interpersonal attraction that involve the no-
tion of rewards but consider the degree to which they are offset by the costs
associated with a relationship. Social exchange theory suggests that people
tend to evaluate social situations. In the context of a relationship, a person
will compare the costs and benefits of beginning or continuing that relation-
ship. Imagine, for example, that Karen is considering a date with Dave, who
is kind, attractive, and financially stable but fifteen years older. Karen may
decide that this relationship is not worth pursuing because of the disap-
proval of her mother and father, who believe strongly that their daughter
should be dating a man her own age. Karen’s decision will be influenced by
how much she values the approval of her parents and by whether she has
dating alternatives available.
A third model of attraction, equity theory, extends social exchange the-
ory. This approach suggests that it is essential to take into account how both
parties involved in a relationship assess the costs and benefits. When each
person believes that his or her own ratio of costs to benefits is fair (or equita-
ble), then attraction between the two tends to be promoted. On the other
hand, a relationship may be placed in jeopardy if one person thinks that the
time, effort, and other resources being invested are justified, while the other
person does not feel that way.
Considering the rewards involved in the process of interpersonal attrac-
tion provides a useful model but one that is rather general. To understand
attraction fully, one must look more specifically at what people find reward-
ing in relationships. Social psychological research has established some defi-
nite principles governing attraction that can be applied within the reward
framework.
Factors of Attraction
The first determinant of attraction, reciprocity, is probably fairly obvious, as
it most directly reflects the reinforcement process; nevertheless, it is a pow-
114
Attraction Theories
Image not available
Determinants of attraction include reciprocity and proximity. (CLEO Photography)
erful force: People tend to like others who like them. There are few things
more rewarding than genuine affection, support, concern, and other indi-
cators that one is liked by another person.
The second principle, proximity, suggests that simple physical closeness
tends to promote attraction. Research has confirmed what many people
probably already know: People are most likely to become friends (or roman-
tic partners) with others with whom they have worked, grown up, or gone to
school. Other studies have shown that people living in dormitories or apart-
ments tend to become friends with the neighbors who live closest to them.
Simply being around people gives an individual a chance to interact with
them, which in turn provides the opportunity to learn who is capable of pro-
viding the rewards sought in a relationship.
It seems, however, that there is yet another force at work, a very basic psy-
chological process known as the mere exposure phenomenon. Research has
demonstrated consistently that repeated exposure to something new tends
to increase one’s liking for it, and examples of the process are quite com-
mon in everyday life. It is not uncommon, for example, for a person to buy a
new tape or compact disc by a favorite musical artist without actually having
heard the new material, only to be disappointed upon listening to it. The lis-
tener soon discovers, however, that the album “grows” on him or her and
finds himself or herself liking it quite a bit after hearing it a few times. Such
occurrences probably involve the mere exposure phenomenon. In short,
familiarity breeds liking, and physical closeness makes it possible for that
familiarity to develop.
115
Psychology Basics
Beauty and Romance

Generally speaking, the same factors that promote the development of
friendships also foster romantic attraction. The third principle of attraction,
physical attractiveness, is somewhat of an exception, however, as it is more
powerful in the romantic context.
In a classic study published by Elaine Hatfield Walster and her associates
in 1966, first-year men and women at the University of Minnesota were ran-
domly paired for dates to a dance. Prior to the date, these students had pro-
vided considerable information about themselves, some of it through per-
sonality tests. During the evening, each person individually completed a
questionnaire that focused primarily on how much that person liked his or
her date, and the participants were contacted for follow-up six months later.
Despite the study of complex facts about attraction, such as what kinds of
personality traits within a couple promote it, the only significant factor in
this experiment’s results was physical appearance. For both sexes, the
better-looking the partner, the more the person liked his or her date, the
stronger was the desire to date the person again, and the more likely the in-
dividual was actually to do so during the next six months.
The potent effect of physical attractiveness in this study sparked much in-
terest in this variable on the part of researchers over the next decade or so.
The earliest studies determined rather quickly that both men and women,
given the opportunity to select a date from among several members of the
opposite sex, almost invariably would select the most attractive one. In real-
life dating, however, there is usually the chance that the person asking
another out might be turned down. When later experiments began build-
ing the possibility of rejection into their procedures, an interesting effect
emerged, one that has been termed the “matching phenomenon.” People
tend to select romantic partners whose degree of attractiveness is very simi-
lar to their own.
Other research revealed that physically attractive people are often judged
favorably on qualities other than their appearance. Even when nothing is
known but what the person looks like, the physically attractive individual is
thought to be happier, more intelligent, and more successful than someone
who is less attractive. This finding is referred to as the “physical attractive-
ness stereotype,” and it has implications that extend the role of appearance
well beyond the matter of dating. Studies have shown, for example, that
work (such as a writing sample) will be assessed more favorably when pro-
duced by an attractive person than when by someone less attractive, and that
a cute child who misbehaves will be treated more leniently than a homely
one. What is beautiful is also good, so to speak. Finally, one may note that
physical attractiveness fits well with the reward model: It is pleasant and rein-
forcing both to look at an attractive person and to be seen with him or her,
particularly if that person is one’s date.
The last principle of attraction, similarity, is the most important one in
long-term relationships, regardless of whether they are friendships or ro-
116
Attraction Theories
mances. An extremely large body of research has demonstrated consistently

that the more similar two people are, especially attitudinally, the more they
will like each other. It turns out that the old adage, “opposites attract,” is sim-
ply false. (Note that the matching phenomenon also reflects similarity.) A
friend or spouse who holds attitudes similar to one’s own will provide re-
wards by confirming that one’s own feelings and beliefs are correct; it is in-
deed reinforcing when someone else agrees.
Evolutionary Theories of Attraction

Evolutionary psychologists have provided an important new way to look at
why individuals are attracted to others. Borrowing from the basic theorizing
of the English biologist Charles Darwin, psychologists are paying increasing
attention to the information provided by both physical and social features of
living creatures. Everyone is influenced by what people look like; they form
impressions of others before they even hear them speak. People often use
the appearance and behavior of others to make a variety of judgments about
them. These judgments are made quickly and unconsciously and are fairly
resistant to change. What sort of impressions are formed? What aspects of a
person are focused upon? Evolutionary psychology has some answers to
these questions.
Specifically, evolutionary psychologists suggest that the attractiveness of a
person’s body serves as a valuable and subtle indicator of social behavior, so-
cial relationship potential, fitness, reproductive value, and health. Evolu-
tionary psychologists place heavy emphasis on clearly observable features of
human bodies and do not focus as much on internal, unobservable aspects
of personality such as kindness or trustworthiness. There is a growing body
of research that supports these ideas. For example, significant relationships
were found between attractiveness and measures of mental health, social
anxiety, and popularity, so the idea behind evolutionary theory does seem to
be relevant.
Most work studying how body characteristics relate to attractiveness has
focused on a single factor, such as the face, although many features of the
body can influence attractiveness. Faces are often the first part of a person
that is looked at. Furthermore, the face is almost always clearly visible (ex-
cept for those of women in cultures that forbid it). Social psychologists
have shown that people often make quick judgments about others based on
their faces, and more than 80 percent of studies on judging attractiveness
have focused on the face alone. The sex, age, and past experiences of the
perceiver, specific facial features such as large lips for women and strong
jaws for men, body and facial symmetry, and specific body ratios such as the
waist-to-hip ratio (WHR, the number attained by dividing the waist measure-
ment by the circumference of the hips) all influence judgments of attractive-
ness. Consistent with this idea are findings that some standards of attractive-
ness are consistent across time and cultures. For example, people with
symmetrical faces—those whose eyes and ears appear to be of equal size and
117
Psychology Basics
equal distances apart—are preferred over people who do not have symmet-
rical faces.
Female Shapeliness
Another example of a body characteristic that is tied to attractiveness
from an evolutionary perspective is women’s WHR. Around the world, men
prefer women with lower WHRs (between 0.7 and 0.8). Evolutionary psy-
chology research emphasizes the importance of WHRs as a major force in
social perception and attraction because shape is a very visible sign of the lo-
cation of fat stores. This consequently signals reproductive potential and
health. Low WHRs do indeed directly map onto higher fertility, lower stress
levels, and resistance to major diseases. For example, women with WHRs of
0.8 are almost 10 percent more likely to get pregnant than women with
WHRs around 0.9.
Although not as much research has focused on the female breast as a sig-
naler of reproductive fitness, a variety of studies suggest that it is also an im-
portant factor, although the evidence is mixed. Some studies support the
commonly held stereotype that men prefer larger breasts, although others
seem to show no such preference. In contrast, some studies have showed
that small and medium breasts are preferred to larger breasts, but much of
this work focused either on the bust or on WHRs, not both together. Unfor-
tunately, methodological restrictions and poor stimulus materials limit the
generalizability of most previous work using WHRs and other bodily fea-
tures. For example, many studies used line drawings of figures or verbal de-
scriptions of figures instead of pictures of real people. Research is currently
under way to provide clearer tests of evolutionary psychology theories of at-
traction.
The most consistently documented finding on the evolutionary basis of
attraction relates to gender differences in human mate choice. Consistent
with Darwin’s ideas that humans are naturally programmed to behave in
ways to ensure that their genes will be passed on to future generations (en-
suring survival), evidence indicates that men tend to prefer young, healthy-
looking mates, as these characteristics are associated with the delivery of
healthy babies. An examination of the content of more than eight hundred
personal advertisements found that men stressed attractiveness and youth
in mates more than did women, a finding supported by marriage statistics
throughout the twentieth century. Women have been shown to place more
emphasis on a prospective mate’s social status and financial status, and these
traits are often related to being able to take good care of children. The fact
that women in Western societies are achieving higher economic positions,
however, would suggest that this pattern of preferences may change in time.
Historical Development
Although it would seem to be of obvious importance, physical appearance as
a determinant of romantic attraction was simply neglected by researchers
118
Attraction Theories
until the mid-1960’s. Perhaps they mistakenly assumed the widespread exis-
tence of an old ideal that one should judge someone on the basis of his or
her intrinsic worth, not on the basis of a superficial characteristic. Neverthe-
less, when the Minnesota study discussed earlier produced a physical attrac-
tiveness effect so strong as to eliminate, or at least obscure, any other factors
related to attraction in the context of dating, social psychologists took no-
tice. In any science, surprising or otherwise remarkable findings usually
tend to stimulate additional research, and such a pattern definitely de-
scribes the course of events in this area of inquiry.
By around 1980, social psychology had achieved a rather solid under-
standing of the determinants of attraction to strangers, and the field began
turning more of its attention to the nature of continuing relationships. So-
cial psychologist Zick Rubin had first proposed a theory of love in 1970, and
research on that topic flourished in the 1980’s as investigators examined
such topics as the components of love, different types of love, the nature of
love in different kinds of relationships, and the characteristics of interac-
tion in successful long-term relationships. Still other lines of research ex-
plored how people end relationships or attempt to repair those that are in
trouble.
People view relationships with family, friends, and lovers as central to
their happiness, a research finding that is totally consistent with common
experience. One need only look at the content of motion pictures, televi-
sion programs, song lyrics, novels, and poetry, in which relationships, partic-
ularly romantic ones, are so commonly a theme, to find evidence for that
point. Nearly half of all marriages end in divorce, however, and the lack of
love in the relationship is usually a precipitating factor. Whatever social psy-
chology can teach people about what determines and maintains attraction
can help improve the human condition.

Berscheid, Ellen, and Harry T. Reis. “Attraction and Close Relationships.”
In The Handbook of Social Psychology, Vol. 2, edited by Daniel T. Gilbert, Su-
san T. Fiske, and Gardner Lindsey. 4th ed. Boston: McGraw-Hill, 1998. An
in-depth review of theories of attraction and a good summary of research
findings.
Berscheid, Ellen, and Elaine Hatfield Walster. Interpersonal Attraction. 2d ed.
Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley, 1978. Presents a solid overview of the
psychology of attraction. Directed toward the reader with no background
in social psychology, the book is quite readable. It is highly regarded and
frequently cited within the field. Clever illustrations feature many car-
toons.
Buss, David M. Evolutionary Psychology: The New Science of the Mind. Boston:
Allyn & Bacon, 1999. A readable book about the ways in which evolution-
ary science can help the study of social behavior. Good sections on mat-
ing strategies and the factors determining attraction.
119
Psychology Basics
Duck, Steve. Relating to Others. Chicago: Dorsey Press, 1988. Deals briefly
with the traditional work on interpersonal attraction but is most notable
for being devoted primarily to reviewing the research on personal rela-
tionships, which became important in the 1980’s. Covers such topics as
developing and maintaining relationships, exclusivity in relationships,
and repairing and ending them.
Hatfield, Elaine, and Susan Sprecher. Mirror, Mirror: The Importance of Looks
in Everyday Life. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1986. A thor-
ough and readable review of all the different effects of personal appear-
ance. Explores how judgments of attractiveness are made and addresses
the effects of beauty across the entire life span. Nicely supported with ef-
fective photographs and illustrations.
Langlois, Judith H., et al. “Maxims or Myths or Beauty? A Meta-analytic and
Theoretical Review.” Psychological Bulletin 126, no. 3 (2000): 390-423. Pro-
vides a wonderful resource by reviewing many articles that look at the fac-
tors that predict attractiveness. Also uses the evolutionary approach to ex-
plain some of the findings.
Myers, David G. Social Psychology. 6th ed. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1999. This
popular social psychology textbook features an unusually good chapter
on interpersonal attraction. Offers a solid survey of the research relating
to the principles of attraction and provides good coverage of work on
love. The author’s engaging writing style makes this an excellent starting
point for further exploration of the topic.
Steve A. Nida; updated by Regan A. R. Gurung
See also: Affiliation and Friendship.
120
Autism
Aspects of autism, a poorly understood, nonschizophrenic psychosocial disorder, in-
clude great social unresponsiveness, speech and language impairment, ritualistic play
activity, and resistance to change. The causes of and treatments for autism have not
been conclusively determined, although behavior therapy is a promising alternative.
Key concepts
• affective
• cognitive
• dopamine
• echolalia
• electroencephalogram (EEG)
• epileptic seizure
• norepinephrine
• schizophrenia
• secretin
• serotonin
The modern term “autism” was originated by Leo Kanner in the 1940’s. In
“Autistic Disturbances of Affective Contact” (1943), he described a group of
autistic children; he viewed them as much more similar to one another than
to schizophrenics, with whom they generally had been associated. Until that
time, the classical definition for autism (still seen in some dictionaries) was
“a form of childhood schizophrenia characterized by acting out and with-
drawal from reality.” Kanner believed that these children represented an en-
tirely different clinical psychiatric disorder. He noted four main symptoms
associated with the disease: social withdrawal or “extreme autistic alone-
ness”; either muteness or failure to use spoken language “to convey mean-
ing to others”; an “obsessive desire for maintenance of sameness”; and pre-
occupation with highly repetitive play habits, producing “severe limitation
of spontaneous activity.” Kanner also noted that autism—unlike other types
of childhood psychoses—began in or near infancy and had both cognitive
and affective components.
Over the years, several attempts have been made to establish precise diag-
nostic criteria for autism. Among the criteria given in the American Psychi-
atric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (rev.
4th ed., 2000, DSM-IV-TR) are pervasive lack of responsiveness to other peo-
ple; gross deficits in language development; if speech is present, peculiar
patterns (such as echolalia and pronoun reversals); bizarre reaction to envi-
ronmental aspects (resistance to change); and the absence of any symptoms
of schizophrenia. These criteria are largely a restatement of Kanner’s view-
point.
121
Psychology Basics
The prevalence of autism is generally estimated at between 3 to 9 percent

of the population of the United States. Study of the sex distribution shows
that it is 2.5 to 4 times as common in males as in females. The causes of au-
tism have not been conclusively determined, although the possibilities are
wide-ranging and said to be rooted in both biology and environment. As an
example of the latter, one of the most widely cited causes has been vaccina-
tion, particularly the mumps, measles, and rubella (MMR) vaccine that is
given at approximately eighteen months of age and often corresponds with
the earliest detected symptoms of autism. Still, researchers in the United
States and Europe have determined that this vaccine does not cause autism,
based on the fact that vaccination rates held steady throughout the 1990’s at
almost 97 percent of children, yet the rate of autism diagnosis increased
sevenfold during the same time period.
Possible physiological causes include genetics (siblings of autistic chil-
dren are two hundred times more likely than the general population to be
diagnosed with autism themselves), neurochemistry (abnormal levels of the
neurotransmitters norepinephrine, serotonin, and dopamine have been es-
tablished in children with autism as well as their relatives), low birth weight,
older mothers, and brain abnormalities such as reduction of tissue in the
cerebellum and enlarged ventricles in the cerebrum.
Largely because of Kanner’s original sample (now known to have been
atypical), many people believe that autistic children come from professional
families. Subsequent studies have indicated that this is not so. Rather, autis-
tic children come from families within a wide socioeconomic range, and
more than 75 percent of them score in the moderately mentally retarded
range on intelligence tests prior to or in the absence of effective treatment.
The behavior that characterizes the autistic personality strongly suggests
that the disorder is related to other types of neurologic dysfunction. Iden-
tified neurological correlations include soft neurologic signs (such as poor
coordination), seizure disorders (such as phenylketonuria), abnormal elec-
troencephalograms, and unusual sleep patterns. This emphasis on neuro-
logic—or organic—explanations for autism is relatively new; autism was pre-
viously thought to be an entirely emotional disorder.
The difficulties that autistic children show in social relationships are ex-
hibited in many ways. Most apparent is a child’s failure to form social bonds.
For example, such youngsters rarely initiate any interactions with other chil-
dren. Moreover, unlike nonautistic children, they do not seek parental com-
pany or run to parents for solace when distressed. Many sources even point
to frequent parental statements that autistic children are not as “cuddly” as
normal babies and do not respond to their mothers or to affectionate ac-
tions. Autistic children avoid direct eye contact and tend to look through or
past other people. In addition, autistic children rarely indulge in any coop-
erative play activities or strike up close friendships with peers.
Sometimes speech does not develop at all. When speech development
does occur, it is very slow and may even disappear again. Another prominent
122
Autism
DSM-IV-TR Criteria for Autism

Autistic Disorder (DSM code 299.00)
Six or more criteria from three lists
1) Qualitative impairment in social interaction, manifested by at least two
of the following:
• marked impairment in use of multiple nonverbal behaviors (eye-to-eye
gaze, facial expression, body postures, gestures)
• failure to develop peer relationships appropriate to developmental level
• lack of spontaneous seeking to share enjoyment, interests, or achieve-
ments with others
• lack of social or emotional reciprocity
2) Qualitative impairments in communication, manifested by at least one

of the following:
• delay in, or total lack of, development of spoken language, not accompa-
nied by attempts to compensate through alternative modes of commu-
nication such as gesture or mime
• in individuals with adequate speech, marked impairment in ability to ini-
tiate or sustain conversation
• stereotyped and repetitive use of language or idiosyncratic language
• lack of varied, spontaneous make-believe play or social imitative play ap-
propriate to developmental level
3) Restricted, repetitive, and stereotyped patterns of behavior, interests,
and activities, manifested by at least one of the following:
• preoccupation with one or more stereotyped and restricted patterns of
interest abnormal in either intensity or focus
• apparently inflexible adherence to specific, nonfunctional routines or
rituals
• stereotyped and repetitive motor mannerisms (hand or finger flapping,
complex whole-body movements)
• persistent preoccupation with parts of objects
Delays or abnormal functioning in at least one of the following areas, with

onset prior to age three:
• social interaction
• language as used in social communication
• symbolic or imaginative play
Symptoms not better explained by Rett’s Disorder or Childhood Disinte-

grative Disorder
123
Psychology Basics
speech pathology in autism is either immediate or delayed repetition of

something heard but simply parroted back (such as a television commer-
cial), phenomena called immediate and delayed echolalia, respectively. Yet
another problem seen is lack of true language comprehension, shown by
the fact that an autistic child’s ability to follow instructions is often depen-
dent on situational cues. For example, such a child may understand the re-
quest to come and eat dinner only when a parent is eating or sitting at the
dinner table.
Behavior denoting resistance to change is often best exemplified by rigid
and repetitive play patterns, the interruption of which results in tantrums
and even self-injury. Some autistic children also develop very ritualistic pre-
occupations with an object or a schedule. For example, they may become ex-
tremely distressed with events as minor as the rearrangement of furniture in
a particular room at home.
Treatment
Autistic children can be very frustrating to both parents and siblings, dis-
rupting their lives greatly. Often, individuals with autism also cause grief and
guilt feelings in parents. According to Mary Van Bourgondien, Gary Mesi-
bov, and Geraldine Dawson, this can be ameliorated by psychodynamic, bio-
logical, or behavioral techniques. These authors point out that all psycho-
dynamic therapy views autism as an emotional problem, recommending
extensive psychotherapy for the individual with autism and the rest of the
family. In contrast, biological methodology applies psychoactive drugs and
vitamins. Finally, behavioral therapy uses the axioms of experimental psy-
chology, along with special education techniques that teach and reinforce
appropriate behavior.
Psychodynamic approaches are based on the formation of interpersonal
relationships between the child and others. One example of these is holding
therapy, which involves the mother holding the child for long periods of
time so that a supposedly damaged bond between the two can be mended.
Floor time, joining the child in his or her activities, is a more active method
of establishing a bond with a child. However, both of these methods lack em-
pirical verification of their effectiveness.
Biological methods, on the other hand, involve affecting how the brain
receives and processes information. Sensory integration is favored by occu-
pational therapists from the perspective that the nervous system is attempt-
ing to regain homeostasis, causing the individual to behave oddly. The ap-
proach, an attempt to meet the sensory needs through a “sensory diet” of
activities throughout the day, is not supported by scientific research and is
not even implemented in an agreed-upon fashion by all of its practitioners.
Auditory integration training (AIT) works in the same way as sensory inte-
gration with regard to the sensation of sound but is not generally accepted
by professionals as being effective. Drug therapies include antiseizure medi-
cations, tranquilizers, stimulants, antidepressants, and antianxiety medica-
124
Autism
tions that have varying results. One of the most controversial drug therapies
is the injection of the hormone secretin, which reportedly causes remark-
able improvements in the symptoms of some children but no change in oth-
ers. Dietary interventions include megadoses of vitamins and minerals that
could have very harmful side effects and are not reliably beneficial. Some
parents also follow a gluten-free and casein-free regimen with their chil-
dren, effectively eliminating all milk and wheat products from their diets.
Only anecdotal evidence exists of the effectiveness of this and other special
diets.
The last category of therapies, behavioral or skill-based techniques, is the
most empirically supported. The Treatment and Education of Autistic and
Related Communication Handicapped Children (TEACCH) program em-
phasizes modification of the environment to improve the adaptive function-
ing of the individual given his or her unique characteristics and teaching
others to accommodate autistic children at their particular level of function-
ing. In contrast, applied behavior analysis programs, such as those advo-
cated by Norwegian psychologist Ivar Lovaas, involve manipulating the envi-
ronment only for the initial purpose of shaping an individual’s skills toward
more normal functioning, with the eventual goal of mainstreaming the
child with his or her typically developing peers in the regular education set-
ting, an outcome that is estimated to be more likely for children whose treat-
ment begins by two or three years of age.
Changing Perceptions of Autism

It is widely reported that autistic children, as defined by Kanner in the
1940’s, were at first perceived as victims of an affective disorder brought on
by their emotionally cold, very intellectual, and compulsive parents. The
personality traits of these parents, it was theorized, encouraged such chil-
dren to withdraw from social contact with them, and then with all other peo-
ple.
In the years that have followed, additional data—as well as conceptual
changes in medicine and psychology—have led to the belief that autism,
which may actually be a constellation of disorders that exhibit similar symp-
toms, has a biological basis that may reside in subtle brain and hormone ab-
normalities. These concepts have been investigated and are leading to de-
finitive changes in the therapy used to treat individual autistic children.
Although no general treatment or unifying concept of autism has devel-
oped, promising leads include modalities that utilize drugs which alter lev-
els of serotonin and other neurotransmitters, as well as examination of pa-
tients by nuclear magnetic resonance and other techniques useful for
studying the brain and the nervous system.
The evolution of educational methodology aimed at helping individuals
with autism has also been useful, aided by legislation aimed at bringing se-
verely developmentally disabled children into the mainstream. Some cities
and states have developed widespread programs for educating autistic peo-
125
Psychology Basics
ple of all ages. Instrumental here has been the development of the National
Society for Autistic Children, which has focused some of its efforts on deal-
ing with autistic adolescents and adults.
Combined therapy, biological intervention, and educational techniques
have helped autistic persons and their families to cope, have decreased be-
havior problems in autists, have enhanced the scholastic function of a num-
ber of these people, and have produced hope for autistic adults, once nearly
all institutionalized.

Herin, L. Juane, and Richard L. Simpson. “Interventions for Children and
Youth with Autism: Prudent Choices in a World of Exaggerated Claims
and Empty Promises. Part I: Intervention and Treatment Option Review.”
Focus on Autism and Other Developmental Disabilities 13 (1998): 194-211.
Covers the specific interventions from the psychodynamic, biological,
and behavioral categories and gives an overview of the research support
for each.
Kalat, James W. Biological Psychology. 8th ed. Belmont, Calif.: Thomson
Wadsworth, 2004. A basic text that explains the role of physiological fac-
tors in behavior.
Kaye, James A., Maria del Mar Melero-Montes, and Hershel Jick. “Mumps,
Measles, and Rubella Vaccine and the Incidence of Autism Recorded by
General Practitioners: A Time-Trend Analysis.” British Medical Journal 322
(2001): 460-463. Describes evidence refuting the hypothesis that the
MMR vaccination causes autism.
Lonsdale, Derrick, and Raymond J. Shamberger. “A Clinical Study of Se-
cretin in Autism and Pervasive Developmental Delay.” Journal of Nutri-
tional and Environmental Medicine 10 (2000): 271-280. Describes an experi-
ment to measure the effectiveness of secretin injections for alleviating the
symptoms of autism.
Lovaas, Ivar, and Tristam Smith. “Intensive Behavioral Treatment for Young
Autistic Children.” In Advances in Clinical Child Psychology, edited by B. B.
Lahey and A. E. Kazdin. New York: Plenum Press, 1988. A detailed de-
scription of ABA therapy and specific research findings relating to the
topic.
Maurice, Catherine, Gina Green, and Stephen C. Luce, eds. Behavioral Inter-
vention for Young Children with Autism: A Manual for Parents and Profes-
sionals. Austin, Tex.: Pro-Ed, 1996. Edited by the mother of two children
who were diagnosed with autism and successfully treated with behavior
therapy, it provides clear guidance for parents embarking on a search for
effective treatment methods for their children and the professionals who
are helping them. Included is information on the effectiveness of various
treatments, funding behavior therapy, working with educators and other
professionals, and what is involved in behavior therapy.
Murray, John B. “Psychophysiological Aspects of Autistic Disorders: Over-
126
Autism
view.” Journal of Psychology 130 (1996): 145-158. Covers the symptoms and
potential causes of autism.
Sundberg, Mark L., and James W. Partington. Teaching Language to Children
with Autism or Other Developmental Disabilities. Pleasant Hill, Calif.: Behav-
ior Analysts, 1998. Gives technical guidelines on applied behavior analy-
sis techniques used to teach the different components of language in a
skill-based intervention.
Van Bourgondien, Mary E., Gary B. Mesibov, and Geraldine Dawson. “Per-
vasive Developmental Disorders: Autism.” In The Practical Assessment and
Management of Children with Disorders of Development and Learning, edited by
Mark L. Wolraich. Chicago: Year Book Medical Publishers, 1987. Suc-
cinctly and clearly describes autism, including its definition, incidence,
etiologies and pathophysiologies, assessment and findings, and manage-
ment. Also included are 133 useful references. Although technically writ-
ten, the article is nevertheless very useful to the beginning reader.
Sanford S. Singer; updated by April Michele Williams
See also: Abnormality: Psychological Models; Language; Schizophrenia:

Background, Types, and Symptoms; Schizophrenia: Theoretical Explana-
tions.
127
Behaviorism
Date: Founded in 1912
Type of psychology: Learning
Fields of study: Behavioral and cognitive models; experimental
methodologies; instrumental conditioning; methodological issues;
nervous system; Pavlovian conditioning; thought
Behaviorism uses the methods of natural science to search for relationships between be-
havior and the observable social and physical environment. The focus on observable
and measurable behavior-environment relationships distinguishes behaviorism from
other psychological perspectives that rely on unobservable and hypothetical explana-
tions such as the mind, ego, the self, and consciousness.
Key concepts
• classical conditioning
• operant behavior
• punisher
• reflex
• reinforcer
• stimulus control
Behaviorism was founded in 1912 by the American psychologist John Broadus

Watson (1878-1958). Watson’s position was formed as a reaction to the con-
temporary focus of psychology on consciousness and the method of re-
search known as introspection, which he considered to be highly subjective.
Using the research of the Russian Nobel Prize-winning physiologist Ivan
Petrovich Pavlov (1849-1936), Watson argued that psychology could be-
come a natural science only by truly adopting the methods of science. For
him, psychological study must have an empirical, objective subject matter
and that the events to be investigated as possible causes of behavior must
also be described objectively and verified empirically through experimental
research. This latter point meant that introspection would have to be aban-
doned, for it was unscientific. Watson therefore presented the goals of psy-
chology as the prediction and control of behavior rather than as the under-
standing of the mind and consciousness.
Watson’s behaviorism was an extension of Pavlov’s discovery of the condi-
tioning of stimulus-response reflexive relationships. The term “reflex” re-
fers to the connection between some environmental event, or stimulus, and
the response that it elicits. The response is involuntary—inborn or un-
learned—and relatively simple. In addition, no prior learning is necessary
for the response to occur when the stimulus is presented. What Pavlov had
already demonstrated experimentally was how previously neutral parts of
the environment could become effective in stimulating or eliciting an ani-
128
Behaviorism
mal’s salivation response. By repeatedly pairing a bell with food powder,

which elicited salivation, and then presenting the bell alone, Pavlov showed
that the bell by itself could then elicit salivation. This process, termed classi-
cal conditioning (the process is also known as Pavlovian or respondent con-
ditioning), in turn offered Watson an explanation for behavior that relied
on observable elements, thus eliminating the need to use unobservable and
hypothetical mental explanations.
Watson’s significant contribution resulted from his attempt to show how
Pavlov’s discovery of the conditioning process with animals could also ex-
plain the behavior of human beings. Watson assumed that human behavior
and the behavior of animals were both governed by the same laws of nature.
Given this assumption, the objective methods of study that were appropriate
for the scientific study of nonhuman animals were therefore appropriate for
the study of human beings as well. Watson demonstrated the application of
these methods in the famous but ethically controversial case study of “Little
Albert.” In this study, Watson and his graduate student, Rosalie Rayner,
showed how human emotional responses could come to be conditioned to
previously neutral environmental stimuli. “Little Albert” was eleven months
old at the time of the study, which Watson and Rayner began by showing that
Albert initially approached and smiled when he was shown a live rat. At a
time when the rat was not present, Watson struck a metal bar with a hammer.
Albert then flinched and began to cry. Next, the rat and the loud, unex-
pected sound were presented together on seven occasions. On these occa-
sions, Albert reacted to the sound of the hammer striking the metal bar,
withdrawing from the rat, moving away from the sound, whimpering, and
then crying. Finally, the rat alone was shown to Albert. Now, when only the
rat was placed before Albert, he would instantly move away from the rat,
whimper, and then cry. Watson and Rayner had demonstrated through the
process of classical conditioning that the once-neutral object, the rat, would
now produce, or elicit, a strong emotional response.
Watson attempted to present an objective, behavioristic account of the
full range of human behavior in Behaviorism (1924), written for a popular
audience. In that book, Watson proposed that the stimulus-response reflex
was the essential building block of all human behaviors. A collection of sepa-
rate elemental reflexive responses, unlearned and as-yet unconditioned,
could become integrated into a complex habit through the regular presen-
tation of the appropriate stimuli by the physical and social environment by
parents, siblings, teachers, and others. The result would be, in Watson’s
words, “habits, such as tennis, fencing, shoe-making, mother-reactions, reli-
gious reactions, and the like.” The process by which these habits were
formed was presumably the conditioning process discovered by Pavlov. In
addition to such “habits,” Watson attempted to show that the conditioning
of neutral environmental stimuli to existing reflexive responses could also
account for thinking and the personality.
129
Psychology Basics
B. F. Skinner and Radical Behaviorism

A very different form of behaviorism came from the work of the American
psychologist Burrhus Frederic Skinner (1904-1990). Skinner, too, focused
his research on behavior. He also continued to search for lawful relation-
ships between behavior and the environment. Skinner’s thinking began
with an acceptance of the stimulus-response approach of Watson, but Skin-
ner ultimately took behaviorism in a different direction. The first presenta-
tion of Skinner’s approach was in The Behavior of Organisms (1938). In this
book, he described the methods and results of systematic research that dem-
onstrated the key points of what was later to become known as radical behav-
iorism: Stimulus-response relationships, or reflexes, include only a narrow
range of behavior; classical, or Pavlovian, conditioning could not account
for the development of new behavior or the complexity of human behavior;
behavior does show lawful relationships with the environment; the conse-
quences immediately following a behavior determine the future strength of
that behavior; new behavior can be acquired by the process of shaping
(from existing behavior, elemental forms can be strengthened by conse-
quences which follow the step-by-step approximations until the new behav-
ior is present); once acquired, behavior is maintained by a particular ar-
rangement of environmental consequences; and certain events are present
when a behavior is strengthened. Often, one of those antecedent events is,
by design, especially correlated with the behavior and the consequence that
makes that behavior stronger in the future. At a later time, the presence of
that antecedent event by itself will make the behavior more likely to occur.
Skinner named the process that he used to investigate these behavior-
environment relationships operant conditioning. He called the behavior in
this process operant behavior because it operates or acts on the environ-
ment. In operating, or acting, on the environment, the behavior produces
consequences, or changes, in the environment. Consequences in turn affect
the behavior for the future. Skinner was able to detect this relationship be-
tween present consequences to the behavior and their later effect on behav-
ior by the method that he used for his research. This method, used initially
with rats and later with pigeons, allowed him to observe and measure the be-
havior of interest continuously and over long periods of time. Not only was
the behavior observed at the time that the consequence to it occurred, but it
was also observed continuously subsequent to the consequence.
Skinner observed two effects of consequences on the future strength of
behavior. Some consequences resulted in stronger behavior (reinforced the
behavior), while other consequences resulted in weaker behavior (pun-
ished the behavior). For Skinner and his followers, the consequent events to
behavior that serve as reinforcers or punishers are defined only in terms of
their effects on the future strength of some behavior. Events or things in
themselves are not reinforcers or punishers. For example, a harsh com-
mand to a learner in the classroom (“Sit down and get to work!”) is assumed
by many teachers to “punish” wandering around the room and inattentive-
130
Behaviorism
ness to seatwork. In countless instances, however, the teacher’s consequence

serves only to strengthen or maintain the learner’s wandering and inatten-
tiveness. In this case, the teacher’s remarks function as a reinforcer, irrespec-
tive of what the teacher believes.
Skinner also showed that once a behavior had been acquired and was
maintained, the occurrence of the behavior could be made more or less
probable by the presentation or removal of events that preceded the behav-
ior. These antecedent events—for example, the ringing of a telephone—
have been reliably present when one picks up the telephone and says
“Hello.” If one picks up the telephone and says “Hello” when the telephone
has not rung, the voice of another person responding to the greeting is ex-
tremely unlikely. The term for this process is “stimulus control,” defined as
the effect that events preceding a behavior can have on the likelihood of
that behavior occurring. Stimulus control comes about because of the pres-
ence of particular events when a behavior is reinforced.
The Causes of Behavior

For Skinner, the causes of behavior lie in humans’ genetic endowment and
the environment in which they live. The specific ways in which the environ-
ment causes behavior can be seen in the experimentally derived principles
noted previously.
Skinner’s approach differs sharply from most psychological theories that
put the causes of behavior inside the person. Skinner believed that these in-
ternal causes were either not scientific explanations but actually behaviors
themselves in need of explanation or were explanations taken from disci-
plines other than psychology.
Skinner regarded the “mind” as an unscientific explanation because of its
status as an inference from the behavior that it was supposed to explain.
While psychological theory has, since the 1970’s, redefined the “mind” in
two broad ways, Skinner noted that the redefining did not solve the prob-
lems posed by the requirements of science. On one hand, mental processes
have become cognitive processes, a metaphor based on computer opera-
tions. Humans are said to “process” information by “encoding, decoding,
storing, and retrieving” information. However, all these hypothesized activi-
ties remain inferences from the behavior that they are said to explain. There
is no independent observation of these hypothetical activities.
On the other hand, the mind has been translated to mean the brain,
which can be studied scientifically. Thus, the physiology of the brain is
thought to explain behavior. Neither Skinner nor other radical behaviorists
deny the role of the brain in a complete understanding of behavior. How-
ever, psychology and brain physiology look for the causes of behavior at dif-
ferent levels of observation. Psychology is viewed as a separate discipline
with its own methods of scientific investigation leading to the discovery of
distinct psychological explanations for behavior. In addition, research re-
sults suggest that rather than brain physiology explaining behavior, changes
131
Psychology Basics
in the brain and changes in behavior appear to result from changes in the
environment. Changes in behavior are correlated with changes in the brain,
but changes at both levels appear to be the result of the environment.
Thoughts and feelings are also considered to be causes of behavior. One
thinks about talking with a friend and then goes to the telephone and dials
the friend’s number. These two people talk together on the telephone regu-
larly because they feel affection for each other. The “thinking” or “feeling”
referred to as causes for the actions involved in dialing the telephone and
talking with each other are themselves viewed as responses in need of expla-
nation. What gave rise to thinking in early development, and what now
makes thoughts of this particular friend so strong? How have feelings of af-
fection become associated with this friend? From the radical behaviorist per-
spective, both the thoughts and the feeling are explained by the principles
of operant or classical conditioning.
Radical Behaviorism and Complex Human Behavior

Some of the facts of human experience include talking, thinking, seeing,
problem solving, conceptualizing, and creating new ideas and things. A
common point of view holds that behaviorism either rejects or neglects
these aspects of human experience. However, a fuller reading of Skinner’s
works reveals that he offered a serious examination of these topics and dem-
onstrated that behavioral principles could account for their presence in the
repertoire of human behavior.
For example, Skinner’s examination of verbal behavior resulted in Verbal
Behavior (1957). In this book, he showed that behavioral principles were ca-
pable of explaining the acquisition and continuation of behaviors such as
talking, reading, and thinking. Basic processes such as imitation, reinforce-
ment, shaping, and stimulus control were all shown to have likely roles in
the various aspects of verbal behavior.
Behaviorism’s analysis of verbal behavior is directly related to the more
complex forms of human behavior, often referred to as higher mental pro-
cesses. For example, radical behaviorism views thinking as an activity de-
rived from talking out loud. Parents and teachers encourage children to talk
to themselves, initially by encouraging whispering, then moving the lips as
in speaking but without making sounds. What results, then, is talking pri-
vately, “in our own heads.” In a similar fashion, a parent asks a child to “think
before you act” and a teacher asks learners to “think through” the solution
to a problem in mathematics or ethics. The social environment thus encour-
ages people to think, often shows them how to do so, and then reinforces
them for doing so when the overt results of their thinking are praised or
given high scores.
More complex behavior-environment relationships such as those found
in concept formation have also been analyzed in terms of the principles of
behaviorism. The term “concept” is defined as a characteristic that is com-
mon to a number of objects that are otherwise different from one another.
132
Behaviorism
People are said to have concepts in their heads which produce the behaviors
they observe. A radical behavioral analysis, however, views concepts as the
appropriate response to the common characteristic. The appropriate re-
sponse has been reinforced only when it occurs in the presence of the spe-
cific characteristic. For example, a child is said to understand the concept of
“red” when the child reliably says “red” in response to the question “What
color are these objects?” in the presence of a red hat, red fire truck, red to-
mato, and red crayon.
Applications of the Principles of Behaviorism

The behaviorism of Watson has resulted in applications in psychology and
many other disciplines. The most notable form of application of Watson’s
behaviorism is the psychological treatment known as systematic desensitiza-
tion. This treatment was created by South African psychiatrist Joseph Wolpe
(1915-1997). Systematic desensitization was designed to reverse the out-
come of the classical conditioning process in which extremely intense nega-
tive emotional responses, such as fear or anxiety, are elicited by everyday as-
pects of the environment. This outcome is referred to as a phobia. The
treatment first requires training in relaxation. The second component of
treatment takes a person through a hierarchy of steps beginning with a set-
ting very distant from the feared stimulus and ending with the problem set-
ting. At each step, the individual is asked to note and in some manner signal
the experiencing of fear or anxiety and then is instructed to relax. Move-
ment through the hierarchy is repeated until the person can experience
each step, including the one that includes the feared stimulus, and report
feeling relaxed at every step. This treatment has been employed in both the
clinic and in real-life settings. Systematic desensitization has been shown to
be an effective intervention for fears associated with, for example, dental
treatment and flying, as well as the intense anxiety that accompanies social
phobia and panic disorder.
Applied behavior analysis is the field of application that has arisen out of
Skinner’s behavioral principles. Applied behavior analysis was introduced
first in educational settings. Applications in education have occurred at ev-
ery level from preschool to university classrooms. Equally important has
been repeated successful application to learners with autism, severe and
profound delays in behavioral development, and attention deficit disorder,
with and without hyperactive behavior. The application of behavioral princi-
ples has been shown to be effective across behaviors, settings, individuals,
and teachers.
Applications of behavioral principles have also been shown to be effec-
tive in reducing behaviors that pose a threat to public health, including
smoking, overeating, essential hypertension, and domestic violence. Finally,
behavioral principles have found application in the arena of public safety.
For example, researchers using techniques based on Skinner’s science of be-
havior have increased seat belt usage by automobile drivers.
133
Psychology Basics

Alberto, Paul A., and Anne C. Troutman. Applied Behavior Analysis for Teachers.
5th ed. Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1999. A readable intro-
duction to applied behavior analysis principles and methods for use in
the classroom.
Baum, William J. Understanding Behaviorism: Science, Behavior, and Culture.
New York: HarperCollins College Publishers, 1994. Written by a well-
known radical behaviorist. A thorough review of Skinner’s behaviorism in
relation to philosophy of science and in its societal implications.
Johnson, Kent R., and T. V. Joe Layng. “Breaking the Structuralist Barrier:
Literacy and Numeracy with Fluency.” American Psychologist 47, no. 11
(1992): 1475-1490. Demonstrates the application of Skinner’s principles
to the design of maximally effective academic curricula for children and
adults. Accessible reading that does not require a background in statis-
tics.
Pierce, W. David, and Carl D. Cheney. Behavior Analysis and Learning. 3d ed.
Mahwah, N.J.: L. Erlbaum Associates, 2004. An excellent introduction at
the college level to basic Skinnerian principles and experimental meth-
ods for basic behavioral research.
Skinner, B. F. About Behaviorism. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1974. Skinner’s
analysis of thinking, perceiving, emotions, and the self.
__________. Walden Two. 1948. Reprint. New York: Macmillan, 1990. A fic-
tional account of the application of behavioral principles in a utopian
community.
Watson, John B. Behaviorism. 1924. Reprint. New Brunswick, N.J.: Transac-
tion, 1998. Early principles of behaviorism in the words of its founder.
Robert Jensen
See also: Conditioning; Habituation and Sensitization; Learned Helpless-

ness; Learning; Pavlovian Conditioning; Phobias; Radical Behaviorism: B. F.
Skinner; Reflexes; Thought: Study and Measurement.
134
Bipolar Disorder
Type of psychology: Biological bases of behavior; psychopathology;
psychotherapy
Fields of study: Biological treatments; depression
Knowledge about bipolar disorder, a serious mental illness that is characterized by de-
pressive episodes and manic episodes, has grown extensively since the 1970’s. Ad-
vanced neurobiological research and assessment techniques have shown the biochemi-
cal origins and genetic element of this disorder. Recent research indicates the ways in
which stress may play a role in precipitating recurrence of episodes.
Key concepts
• diathesis-stress model
• lithium carbonate
• mania
• melatonin
• neurotransmitter
• psychotic symptoms
• seasonal affective disorder (SAD)
Although mood fluctuations are a normal part of life, individuals with bi-
polar affective disorder experience extreme mood changes. Bipolar affec-
tive disorder, or bipolar disorder (also called manic-depressive disorder),
has been identified as a major psychiatric disorder characterized by dra-
matic mood and behavior changes. These changes, ranging from episodes
of high euphoric moods to deep depressions, with accompanying behav-
ioral and personality changes, are devastating to the victims of the disorder
and perplexing to the loved ones of those affected. Prevalence rates have
been estimated at about 1.6 (0.8 to 2.6) percent of the American popula-
tion. The disorder is divided fairly equally between males and females. Clini-
cal psychiatry has been effective in providing biochemical intervention in
the form of lithium carbonate to stabilize or modulate the ups and downs of
this illness. However, lithium treatment has only been effective for approxi-
mately 70 percent of those to whom it is administered. Mood-stabilizing
anticonvulsant medications such as Depakote, Tegretol, and Lamictal, are
showing promise in helping some people who were formerly referred to as
lithium nonresponders. Psychotherapy is seen by most practitioners as a
necessary adjunct to medication.
Symptoms
In the manic phase of a bipolar episode, the individual may experience in-
appropriately good moods, or “highs,” or may become extremely irritable.
During a manic phase, the person may overcommit to work projects and
meetings, social activities, or family responsibilities in the belief that he or
she can accomplish anything; this is known as manic grandiosity. At times,
135
Psychology Basics
DSM-IV-TR Criteria for Bipolar I Disorder

Bipolar I Disorder, Single Manic Episode (DSM code 296.0x)
Only one Manic Episode and no past Major Depressive Episodes
Manic Episode not better accounted for by Schizoaffective Disorder and
not superimposed on Schizophrenia, Schizophreniform Disorder, Delusional
Disorder, or Psychotic Disorder Not Otherwise Specified
Specify mixed if symptoms meet criteria for Mixed Episode
Specify for current or most recent episode: Severity/Psychotic/Remission
Specifiers; with Catatonic Features; with Postpartum Onset
Bipolar I Disorder, Most Recent Episode Hypomanic
(DSM code 296.40)
Currently or most recently in Hypomanic Episode
Previously at least one Manic Episode or Mixed Episode
Episodes not better accounted for by Schizoaffective Disorder and not su-
perimposed on Schizophrenia, Schizophreniform Disorder, Delusional Disor-
der, or Psychotic Disorder Not Otherwise Specified
Specify: Longitudinal Course Specifiers (with and Without Interepisode
Recovery); with Seasonal Pattern (applies only to pattern of Major Depressive
Episodes); with Rapid Cycling
psychotic symptoms such as delusions, severe paranoia, and hallucinations

may accompany a manic episode. These symptoms may lead to a misdiag-
nosis of another psychotic disorder such as schizophrenia. However, skilled
clinicians can make a differential diagnosis between schizophrenia and bi-
polar disorder.
The initial episode of bipolar disorder is typically one of mania or ela-
tion, although in some people a depressive episode may signal the begin-
ning of the disorder. Episodes of bipolar disorder can recur rapidly—within
hours or days—or may have a much slower recurrence rate, even of years.
The duration of each episode, whether it is depression or mania, varies
widely among individuals but normally remains fairly consistent for each in-
dividual.
Types
According to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders: DSM-IV-
TR (rev. 4th ed., 2000), the diagnostic manual of the American Psychiatric
Association, there are several types of bipolar disorder, which are catego-
rized according to the extent of severity, the types of the symptoms, and the
duration of the symptoms. Bipolar I disorder is characterized by alternating
136
Bipolar Disorder
periods of mania and depression. At times, severe bipolar disorder may be

accompanied by psychotic symptoms such as delusions and hallucinations.
For this reason, Bipolar I disorder is also considered a psychotic disorder. Bi-
polar II disorder is characterized by alternating episodes of a milder form of
mania (known as hypomania) and depression. Cyclothymia is a form of bi-
polar disorder in which hypomania alternates with a low-level, chronic de-
pressive state. Seasonal affective disorder (SAD) is characterized by alternat-
ing mood episodes that vary according to seasonal patterns; the mood
changes are thought to be related to changes in the amount of sunlight and
accompanying effects on the levels of hormone melatonin. In the Northern
Hemisphere, the typical pattern is associated with manic symptoms in the
spring and summer and depression in the fall and winter. Manic episodes of-
ten have a shorter duration than the depressive episodes. Bipolar disorder
must be differentiated from depressive disorders, which include major de-
pression (unipolar depression) and dysthymia, a milder but chronic form of
depression.
Causes
The causes of bipolar disorder are not fully understood, but genetic factors
play a major role. Approximately 80 percent of individuals with bipolar dis-
order have a relative with some form of mood disorder, whether bipolar dis-
order or depression. It is not uncommon to see families in which several
DSM-IV-TR Criteria for Bipolar II Disorder

(DSM code 296.89)
Presence or history of one or more Major Depressive Episodes
Presence or history of at least one Hypomanic Episode
No Manic Episodes or Mixed Episodes
Mood symptoms not better accounted for by Schizoaffective Disorder and
not superimposed on Schizophrenia, Schizophreniform Disorder, Delusional
Disorder, or Psychotic Disorder Not Otherwise Specified
Specify for current or most recent episode: Hypomanic (currently or most
recently in Hypomanic Episode) or Depressed (currently or most recently in
Major Depressive Episode)
Specify for current or most recent Major Depressive Episode (only if the
most recent type of mood episode): Severity/Psychotic/Remission Specifiers;
Chronic; with Catatonic Features; with Melancholic Features; with Atypical
Features; with Postpartum Onset
Recovery); with Seasonal Pattern (applies only to pattern of Major Depressive
Episodes); with Rapid Cycling
137
Psychology Basics
generations are affected by bipolar disorder. Serotonin, norepinephrine,

and dopamine, brain chemicals known as neurotransmitters that regulate
mood, arousal, and energy, respectively, may be altered in bipolar disorder.
A diathesis-stress model has been proposed for some psychosomatic dis-
orders such as hypertension and ulcers. This model has also been applied to
bipolar disorder. In a diathesis-stress model, there is a susceptibility (the
diathesis) for the disorder. An individual who has a diathesis is at risk for the
disorder but may not show signs of the disorder unless there is sufficient
stress. In this model, a genetic or biochemical predisposition toward the dis-
order (the bipolar diathesis) may lie dormant until stress triggers the emer-
gence of the illness. The stress may be psychosocial, biological, neuro-
chemical, or a combination of these factors.
A diathesis-stress model can also account for some of the recurrent epi-
sodes of mania in bipolar disorder. Investigators suggest that positive life
events, such as the birth of a baby or a job promotion, as well as negative life
events, such as divorce or the loss of a job, may trigger the onset of episodes
in individuals with bipolar disorder. Stressful life events and the social
rhythm disruptions that they cause can have adverse effects on a person’s
circadian rhythms. Circadian rhythms are normal biologic rhythms that
govern such functions as sleeping and waking, body temperature, and oxy-
gen consumption. Circadian rhythms affect hormonal levels and have sig-
nificant effects on both emotional and physical well-being. For those rea-
sons, many clinicians encourage individuals with bipolar disorder to work
toward maintaining consistency in their social rhythms.
More recently, investigators have compared the course of bipolar disor-
der to kindling, a process in which epileptic seizures increase the likelihood
of further seizures. According to the kindling hypothesis, triggered mood
episodes may leave the individual’s brain in a sustained sensitized state that
makes the person more vulnerable to further episodes. After a while, exter-
nal factors are less necessary for a mood episode to be triggered. Episode
sensitization may also account for rapid-cycling states, in which the individ-
ual shifts from depression to mania over the course of a few hours or days.
Impact
The impact of bipolar disorder is considerable. Some believe that the illness
puts people on an “emotional roller coaster” in which their ups and downs
are so severe that resulting behavior can have its own disastrous conse-
quences. For example, people suffering from episodes of mania sometimes
use drugs, alcohol, money, or sex to excess, then later have to deal with an
additional set of problems and trauma brought about by their behavior and
impulsiveness.
Organizations such as the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill (NAMI)
and support groups such as the Depressive and Manic Depressive Associa-
tion (DMDA) have provided a way for people with bipolar disorder to share
their pain as well as to triumph over the illness. Many people have found
138
Bipolar Disorder
comfort in knowing that others have suffered from the mood shifts, and
they can draw strength from one another. Family members and friends can
be the strongest supporters and advocates for those who have bipolar disor-
der or other psychiatric illnesses. Many patients have credited their families’
constant, uncritical support, in addition to competent effective treatment
including medications and psychotherapy, with pulling them through the
devastating effects of the illness.
Treatment Approaches
Medications have been developed to aid in correcting the biochemical im-
balances thought to be part of bipolar disorder. Lithium carbonate is usually
effective for approximately 70 percent of those who take it. Many brilliant
and successful people have reportedly suffered from bipolar disorder and
have been able to function successfully with competent and responsible
treatment. Some people who have taken lithium for bipolar disorder, how-
ever, have complained that it robs them of their energy and creativity and
said that they actually miss the energy associated with manic phases of the ill-
ness. This perceived loss, some of it realistic, can be a factor in relapse associ-
ated with lithium noncompliance.
Other medications have been developed to help those individuals who
are considered lithium nonresponders or who find the side effects of lith-
ium intolerable. Anticonvulsant medications, such as Depakote (valproic
acid), Tegretol (carbamazepine), and Lamictal (lamotrigine), which have
been found to have mood-stabilizing effects, are often prescribed to individ-
uals with bipolar disorder. During the depressive phase of the disorder,
electroconvulsive (shock) therapy (ECT) has also been administered to help
restore the individual’s mood to a normal level. Phototherapy is particularly
useful for individuals who have SAD. Psychotherapy, especially cognitive-
behavioral therapy or interpersonal social rhythm therapy, is viewed by most
practitioners as a necessary adjunct to medication. Indeed, psychotherapy
has been found to assist individuals with bipolar disorder in maintaining
medication compliance.
Local mental health associations are able to recommend psychiatric
treatment by board-certified psychiatrists and licensed psychologists who
specialize in the treatment of mood disorders. Often, temporary hospitaliza-
tion is necessary for complete diagnostic assessment, initial mood stabiliza-
tion, and intensive treatment, medication adjustment, or monitoring of an
individual who feels suicidal. As many as 15 percent of those with bipolar dis-
order commit suicide. This frightening reality makes early intervention, re-
lapse prevention, and treatment of the disorder necessary to prevent such a
tragic outcome.

Goldberg, J., and Martin Harrow, eds. Bipolar Disorders: Clinical Course and
Outcome. Washington, D.C.: American Psychiatric Press, 1999. This edited
139
Psychology Basics
volume summarizes recent research regarding the course and outcome

of bipolar disorder. Chapters are written by experts in the field.
Goodwin, Frederick K., and Kay R. Jamison. Manic Depressive Illness. New
York: Oxford University Press, 1990. This comprehensive book on bi-
polar disorder provides information on diagnosis, theories regarding the
etiology of the disorder, and treatment options.
Jamison, Kay R. An Unquiet Mind. New York: A. A. Knopf, 1995. An insightful
first-person account of a psychiatrist’s experience with bipolar disorder.
Offers descriptions of mania as well as depression and discusses relevant
issues such as the genetic basis of the disorder.
Johnson, Sheri L., and John E. Roberts. “Life Events and Bipolar Disorder:
Implications from Biological Theories.” Psychological Bulletin 117, no. 3
(1995): 434-449. This theoretical article was written for psychologists but
is readily accessible to laypeople. The authors review research and ac-
counts for ways in which life events, both positive and negative ones, may
trigger the onset of episodes in individuals with bipolar disorder.
Diane C. Gooding and Karen Wolford
See also: Anxiety Disorders; Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder

(ADHD); Clinical Depression; Depression; Drug Therapies; Madness: His-
torical Concepts; Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder; Personality Disorders;
Schizophrenia: Background, Types, and Symptoms; Schizophrenia: Theo-
retical Explanations.
140
Brain Structure
Type of psychology: Biological bases of behavior
Fields of study: Biological influences on learning; nervous system;
thought
Different areas of the brain have specialized functions that control activities ranging
from basic biological processes to complex psychological operations. Understanding the
distinctive features of different neurological areas provides insight into why people
and other animals act, feel, and think as they do.
Key concepts
• cerebral cortex
• cerebral hemispheres
• forebrain
• hindbrain
• lobes
• midbrain
• neural tube
• neurons
About two weeks after conception, a fluid-filled cavity called the neural tube
begins to form on the back of the human embryo. This neural tube will sink
under the surface of the skin, and the two major structures of the central
nervous system (CNS) will begin to differentiate. The top part of the tube
will enlarge and become the brain; the bottom part will become the spinal
cord. The cavity will persist through development and become the fluid-
filled central canal of the spinal cord and the four ventricles of the brain.
The ventricles and the central canal contain cerebrospinal fluid, a clear
plasmalike fluid that supports and cushions the brain and also provides nu-
tritive and eliminative functions for the CNS. At birth the average human
brain weighs approximately 12 ounces (350 grams), a quarter of the size of
the average adult brain, which is about 3 pounds (1,200 to 1,400 grams). De-
velopment of the brain in the first year is rapid, with the brain doubling in
weight in the first six months.
The development of different brain areas depends on intrinsic and ex-
trinsic factors. Internally, chemicals called neurotrophins promote the sur-
vival of neurons (the basic cells of the nervous system that are specialized to
communicate electrochemically with one another) and help determine
where and when neurons will form connections and become diverse neuro-
logical structures. Externally, diverse experiences enhance the survival of
neurons and play a major role in the degree of development of different
neurological areas. Research has demonstrated that the greater the expo-
sure a child receives to a particular experience, the greater the development
of the neurological area involved in processing that type of stimulation.
While this phenomenon occurs throughout the life span, the greatest im-
141
Psychology Basics
pact of environmental stimulation in restructuring and reorganizing the

brain occurs in the earliest years of life.
Experience can alter the shape of the brain, but its basic architecture is
determined before birth. The brain consists of three major subdivisions:
the hindbrain (rhombencephalon, or “parallelogram-brain”), the midbrain
(mesencephalon, or “midbrain”), and the forebrain (prosencephalon, or
“forward brain”). The hindbrain is further subdivided into the myelen-
cephalon (“marrow-brain”) and the metencephalon (“after-brain”), while
the forebrain is divided into the diencephalon (“between-brain”) and the
telencephalon (“end-brain”). To visualize roughly the locations of these
brain areas in a person, one can hold an arm out, bend the elbow 90 de-
grees, and make a fist. If the forearm is the spinal cord, where the wrist en-
larges into the base of the hand corresponds to the hindbrain, with the
metencephalon farther up than the myelencephalon. The palm of the
hand, enclosed by the fingers, would be the midbrain. The fingers would be
analogous to the forebrain, with the topmost surface parts of the fingers be-
ing the telencephalon.
One can take the analogy a step further. If a fist is made with the fingers of
the other hand and placed next to the fist previously made, each fist would
represent the two cerebral hemispheres of the forebrain, with the skin of the
fingers representing the forebrain’s cerebral cortex, the six layers of cells
that cover the two hemispheres. Finally, like close-fitting gloves, the menin-
ges cover the cortex. The three layers of the meninges play a protective and
nutritive role for the brain.
The more advanced the species, the greater the development of the
forebrain in general and the cortex in particular. The emphasis here is
placed on a neuroanatomical examination of the human brain, beginning
with a look at the hindbrain and progressing to an investigation of the cere-
bral cortex. The terms “anterior” (“toward the front”) and “posterior” (“to-
ward the back”) will be used frequently in describing the location of dif-
ferent brain structures. Additionally, the words “superior” (“above”) and
“inferior” (“below”) will be used to describe vertical locations.
The Hindbrain
As the spinal cord enters the skull, it enlarges into the bottommost structure
of the brain, the medulla (or medulla oblongata). The medulla controls
many of the most basic physiological functions for survival, particularly
breathing and the beating of the heart. Reflexes such as vomiting, cough-
ing, sneezing, and salivating are also controlled by the medulla. The me-
dulla is sensitive to opiate and amphetamine drugs, and overdoses of these
drugs can impair its normal functioning. Severe impairment can lead to a
fatal shutdown of the respiratory and cardiovascular systems.
Just above the medulla lie the pons, parts of the reticular formation, the
raphe system, and the locus coeruleus. All these structures play a role in
arousal and sleep. The pons plays a major role in initiating rapid eye move-
142
Brain Structure
Anatomy of the Brain
ment (REM) sleep. REM sleep is characterized by repeated horizontal eye

movements, increased brain activity, and frequent dreaming. The reticular
system (sometimes called the reticular activating system, or RAS) stretches
from the pons through the midbrain to projections into the cerebral cortex.
Activation of the reticular system, by sensory stimulation or thinking, causes
increases in arousal and alertness in diverse areas of the brain. For the brain
to pay attention to something, there must be activation from the reticular
formation. The raphe system, like the reticular system, can increase the
brain’s readiness to respond to stimuli. However, unlike the reticular forma-
tion, the raphe system can decrease alertness to stimulation, decrease sensi-
tivity to pain, and initiate sleep. Raphe system activity is modulated some-
what by an adjacent structure called the locus coeruleus. Abnormal
functioning of this structure has been linked with depression and anxiety.
The largest structure in the metencephalon is the cerebellum, which
branches off from the base of the brain and occupies a considerable space in
the back of the head. The cerebellum’s primary function is the learning and
control of coordinated perceptual-motor activities. Learning to walk, run,
jump, throw a ball, ride a bike, or perform any other complex motor activity
143
Psychology Basics
causes chemical changes to occur in the cerebellum that result in the con-
struction of a sort of program for controlling the muscles involved in the
particular motor skills. Activation of specific programs enables the perfor-
mance of particular motor activities. The cerebellum is also involved in
other types of learning and performance. Learning language, reading, shift-
ing attention from auditory to visual stimuli, and timing (such as in music or
the tapping of fingers) are just a few tasks for which normal cerebellar func-
tioning is essential. People diagnosed with learning disabilities often are
found to have abnormalities in the cerebellum.
The Midbrain
The superior and posterior part of the midbrain is called the tectum. There
are two enlargements on both sides of the tectum known as the colliculi.
The superior colliculus controls visual reflexes such as tracking the flight of
a ball, while the inferior colliculus controls auditory reflexes such as turning
toward the sound of a buzzing insect. Above and between the colliculi lies
the pineal gland, which contains melatonin, a hormone that greatly influ-
ences the sleep-wake cycle. Melatonin levels are high when it is dark and low
when it is light. High levels of melatonin induce sleepiness, which is one rea-
son that people sleep better when it is darker. Another structure near the
colliculi is the periaqueductal gray (PAG) area of the ventricular system.
Stimulation of the PAG helps to block the sensation of pain.
Beneath the tectum is the tegmentum, which includes some structures
involved in movement. Red nucleus activity is high during twisting move-
ments, especially of the hands and fingers. The substantia nigra smooths out
movements and is influential in maintaining good posture. The characteris-
tic limb trembling and posture difficulties of Parkinson’s disease are attrib-
utable to neuronal damage in the substantia nigra.
The Forebrain
Right above the midbrain, in the center of the brain, lies the thalamus,
which is the center of sensory processing. All incoming sensory informa-
tion, except for the sense of smell, goes to the thalamus first before it is sent
on to the cerebral cortex and other areas of the brain. Anterior to and
slightly below the thalamus is the hypothalamus. Hypothalamic activity is in-
volved in numerous motivated behaviors such as eating, drinking, sexual ac-
tivity, temperature regulation, and aggression. Its activity occurs largely
through its regulation of the pituitary gland, which is beneath the hypothal-
amus. The pituitary gland controls the release of hormones that circulate in
the endocrine system.
subcortical structures. Numerous structures lie beneath the cere-
bral cortex in pairs, one in each hemisphere. Many of these structures are
highly interconnected with one another and are therefore seen to be part of
a system. Furthermore, most of the subcortical structures can be catego-
rized as belonging to one of two major systems. Surrounding the thalamus is
144
Brain Structure
one system called the basal ganglia, which is most prominently involved in
movements and muscle tone. The basal ganglia deteriorate in Parkinson’s
and Huntington’s diseases, both disorders of motor activity. The three ma-
jor structures of the basal ganglia are the caudate nucleus and putamen,
which form the striatum, and the globus pallidus. The activities of the basal
ganglia extend beyond motor control. The striatum, for instance, plays a
significant role in the learning of habits as well as in obsessive-compulsive
disorder, a disorder of excessive habits. In addition, disorders of memory, at-
tention, and emotional expression (especially depression) frequently in-
volve abnormal functioning of the basal ganglia.
The nucleus basalis, while not considered part of the basal ganglia, never-
theless is highly interconnected with those structures (and the hypothala-
mus) and receives direct input from them. Nucleus basalis activity is essen-
tial for attention and arousal.
The other major subcortical system is the limbic system. The limbic sys-
tem was originally thought to be involved in motivated or emotional behav-
iors and little else. Later research, however, demonstrated that many of
these structures are crucial for memory formation. The fact that people
have heightened recall for emotionally significant events is likely a conse-
quence of the limbic system’s strong involvement in both memory and moti-
vation or emotion.
Two limbic structures are essential for memory formation. The hippo-
campus plays the key role in making personal events and facts into long-
term memories. For a person to remember information of this nature for
more than thirty minutes, the hippocampus must be active. In people with
Alzheimer’s disease, deterioration of the hippocampus is accompanied by
memory loss. Brain damage involving the hippocampus is manifested by
amnesias, indecisiveness, and confusion. The hippocampus takes several
years to develop fully. This is thought to be a major reason that adults tend to
remember very little from their first five years of life, a phenomenon called
infantile amnesia.
The second limbic structure that is essential for learning and memory is
the amygdala. The amygdala provides the hippocampus with information
about the emotional context of events. It is also crucial for emotional per-
ception, particularly in determining how threatening events are. When a
person feels threatened, that person’s amygdala will become very active.
Early experiences in life can fine-tune how sensitive a person’s amygdala will
be to potentially threatening events. A child raised in an abusive environ-
ment will likely develop an amygdala that is oversensitive, predisposing that
person to interpret too many circumstances as threatening. Two additional
limbic structures work with the amygdala in the perception and expression
of threatening events, the septal nuclei and the cingulate gyrus. High activ-
ity in the former structure inclines one to an interpretation that an event is
not threatening. Activity in the latter structure is linked to positive or nega-
tive emotional expressions such as worried, happy, or angry looks.
145
Psychology Basics
Other major structures of the limbic system include the olfactory bulbs
and nuclei, the nucleus accumbens, and the mammillary bodies. The olfac-
tory bulbs and nuclei are the primary structures for smell perception. Expe-
riencing pleasure involves the nucleus accumbens, which is also often stimu-
lated by anything that can become addictive. The mammillary bodies are
involved in learning and memory.
cortical lobes. The most complex thinking abilities are primarily at-
tributable to the thin layers that cover the two cerebral hemispheres—the
cortex. It is this covering of the brain that makes for the greatest differences
between the intellectual capabilities of humans and other animals. Both
hemispheres are typically divided into four main lobes, the distinct cortical
areas of specialized functioning. There are, however, many differences
among people, not only in the relative size of different lobes but also in how
much cerebral cortex is not directly attributable to any of the four lobes.
The occipital lobe is located at the back of the cerebral cortex. The most
posterior tissue of this lobe is called the striate cortex because of its distinc-
tive striped appearance. The striate cortex is also called the primary visual
cortex because it is there that most visual information is eventually pro-
cessed. Each of the layers of this cortical area is specialized to analyze differ-
ent features of visual input. The synthesis of visual information and the in-
terpretation of that result involve other lobes of the brain. The occipital
lobe also plays the primary role in various aspects of spatial reasoning. Activ-
ities such as spatial orientation, map reading, or knowing what an object will
look like if rotated a certain amount of degrees all depend on this lobe.
Looking down on the top of the brain, a deep groove called the central
sulcus can be seen roughly in the middle of the brain. Between the central
sulcus and the occipital lobe is the parietal lobe. The parietal lobe’s predom-
inate function is the processing of the bodily sensations: taste, touch, tem-
perature, pain, and kinesthesia (feedback from muscles and joints). A pari-
etal band of tissue called the postcentral gyrus that is adjacent to the central
sulcus (posterior and runs parallel to it) contains the somatosensory cortex
in which the surface of the body is represented upside down in a maplike
fashion. Each location along this cortical area corresponds to sensations
from a different body part. Furthermore, the left side of the body is repre-
sented on the right hemisphere and vice versa. Damage to the right pari-
etal cortex usually leads to sensory neglect of the left side of the body—the
person ignores sensory input from that side. However, damage to the left
parietal cortex causes no or little sensory neglect of the right side of the
body.
The parietal lobe is involved with some aspects of distance sensation. The
posterior parietal lobe plays a role in the visual location of objects and the
bringing together of different types of sensory information, such as coordi-
nating sight and sound when a person looks at someone who just called his
or her name. Some aspects of the learning of language also engage the oper-
ation of the parietal cortex.
146
Brain Structure
On the sides of each hemisphere, next to the temples of the head, reside
the temporal lobes. The lobes closest to the ears are the primary sites of the
interpretation of sounds. This task is accomplished in the primary auditory
cortex, which is tucked into a groove in each temporal lobe, called a lateral
sulcus. Low-frequency sounds are analyzed on the outer part of this sulcus;
higher-pitched sounds are represented deeper inside this groove. Closely
linked with auditory perception are two other major functions of the tempo-
ral lobe: language and music comprehension. Posterior areas, particularly
Wernicke’s area, play key roles in word understanding and retrieval. More
medial areas are involved in different aspects of music perception, espe-
cially the planum temporale.
The temporal cortex is the primary site of two important visual functions.
Recognition of visual objects is dependent on inferior temporal areas.
These areas of the brain are very active during visual hallucinations. One
area in this location, the fusiform gyrus, is very active during the perception
of faces and complex visual stimuli. A superior temporal area near the con-
junction of the parietal and occipital lobes is essential for reading and writ-
ing.
The temporal lobe is in close proximity to, and shares strong connections
with, the limbic system. Thus, it is not surprising that the temporal lobe plays
a significant role in memory and emotions. Damage to the temporal cortex
leads to major deficits in the ability to learn and in maintaining a normal
emotional balance.
The largest cerebral lobe, comprising one-third of the cerebral cortex, is
the frontal lobe. It is involved in the greatest variety of neurological func-
tions. The frontal lobe consists of several anatomically distinct and function-
ally distinguishable areas that can be grouped into three main regions.
Starting at the central sulcus (which divides the parietal and frontal lobes)
and moving toward the anterior limits of the brain, one finds, in order, the
precentral cortex, the premotor cortex, and the prefrontal cortex. Each of
these areas is responsible for different types of activities.
In 1870 German physicians Gustav Fritsch and Eduard Hitzig were the
first to stimulate the brain electrically. They found that stimulating different
regions of the precentral cortex resulted in different parts of the body mov-
ing. Subsequent research identified a “motor map” that represents the body
in a fashion similar to the adjacent and posteriorly located somatosensory
map of the parietal lobe. The precentral cortex, therefore, can be consid-
ered the primary area for the execution of movements.
The premotor cortex is responsible for planning the operations of the
precentral cortex. In other words, the premotor cortex generates the plan
to pick up a pencil, while the precentral cortex directs the arm to do so.
Thinking about picking up the pencil, but not doing so, involves more activ-
ity in the premotor cortex than in the precentral cortex. An inferior
premotor area essential for speaking was discovered in 1861 by Paul Broca
and has since been named for him. Broca’s area, usually found only in the
147
Psychology Basics
left hemisphere, is responsible for coordinating the various operations nec-

essary for the production of speech.
The prefrontal cortex is the part of the brain most responsible for a vari-
ety of complex thinking activities, foremost among them being decision
making and abstract reasoning. Damage to the prefrontal cortex often leads
to an impaired ability to make decisions, rendering the person lethargic and
greatly lacking in spontaneous behavior. Numerous aspects of abstract rea-
soning, such as planning, organizing, keeping time, and thinking hypotheti-
cally, are also greatly disturbed by injuries to the prefrontal cortex.
Research with patients who have prefrontal disturbances has demon-
strated the important role of this neurological area in personality and social
behavior. Patients with posterior prefrontal damage exhibit many symptoms
of depression: apathy, restlessness, irritability, lack of drive, and lack of ambi-
tion. Anterior abnormalities, particularly in an inferior prefrontal region
called the orbitofrontal area, result in numerous symptoms of psychopathy:
lack of restraint, impulsiveness, egocentricity, lack of responsibility for one’s
actions, and indifference to others’ opinions and rights.
The prefrontal cortex also contributes to the emotional value of deci-
sions, smell perception, working memory (the current ability to use mem-
ory), and the capacity to concentrate or shift attention. Children correctly
diagnosed with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) often have
prefrontal abnormalities.
hemispheric differences. The two cerebral hemispheres are con-
nected by a large band of fibers called the corpus callosum and several small
connections called commissures. In the early 1940’s, American surgeon Wil-
liam van Wagenen, in order to stop the spread of epileptic seizures from
crossing from one hemisphere to the other, performed the first procedure
of cutting the 200 million fibers of the corpus callosum. The results were
mixed, however, and it was not until the 1960’s that two other American sur-
geons, Joe Bogen and P. J. Vogel, decided to try the operation again, this
time also including some cutting of commissure fibers. The results reduced
or stopped the seizures in most patients. However, extensive testing by
American psychobiologist Roger Sperry and his colleagues demonstrated
unique behavioral changes in the patients, called split-brain syndrome. Re-
search with split-brain syndrome and less invasive imaging techniques of the
brain, such as computed tomography (CT) and positron-emission tomogra-
phy (PET) scans, has demonstrated many anatomical and functional differ-
ences between the left and right hemispheres.
The degree of differences between the two cerebral hemispheres varies
greatly, depending on a number of factors. Males develop the greatest
lateralization—differences between the hemispheres—and develop the dif-
ferences soonest. Those with a dominant right hand have greater laterali-
zation than left- or mixed-handers. Therefore, when there is talk of “left
brain versus right brain,” it is important to keep in mind that a greater de-
gree of difference exists in right-handed males. A minority of people, usu-
148
Brain Structure
ally left-handers, show little differences between the left and right hemi-
spheres.
The right hemisphere (RH) tends to be larger and heavier than the left
hemisphere (LH), with the greatest difference in the frontal lobe. Con-
versely, several other neurological areas have been found to be larger in the
LH: the occipital lobe, the planum temporale, Wernicke’s area, and the
Sylvian fissure. An interesting gender difference in hemispheric operation
is that the LH amygdala is more active in females, whereas the RH amygdala
is more active in males.
The left-brain/right-brain functional dichotomy has been the subject of
much popular literature. While there are many differences in operation be-
tween the two hemispheres, many of these differences are subtle, and in
many regards both hemispheres are involved in the psychological function
in question, only to different degrees.
The most striking difference between the two hemispheres is that the RH
is responsible for sensory and motor functions of the left side of the body,
and the LH controls those same functions for the body’s right side. This
contralateral control is found, to a lesser degree, for hearing and, due to the
optic chiasm, not at all for vision.
In the domain of sound and communication, the LH plays a greater role
in speech production, language comprehension, phonetic and semantic
analysis, visual word recognition, grammar, verbal learning, lyric recitation,
musical performance, and rhythm keeping. A greater RH contribution is
found in interpreting nonlanguage sounds, reading Braille, using emo-
tional tone in language, understanding humor and sarcasm, expressing and
interpreting nonverbal communication (facial and bodily expressions), and
perceiving music. Categorical decisions, the understanding of metaphors,
and the figurative aspects of language involve both hemispheres.
Regarding other domains, the RH plays a greater role in mathematical
operations, but the LH is essential for remembering numerical facts and the
reading and writing of numbers. Visually, the RH contributes more to men-
tal rotation, facial perception, figured/ground distinctions, map reading,
and pattern perception. Detail perception draws more on LH resources.
The RH is linked more with negative emotions such as fear, anger, pain, and
sadness, while positive affect is associated more with the LH. Exceptions are
that schizophrenia, anxiety, and panic attacks have been found to be related
more to increases in LH activity.
Summary
It has been estimated that the adult human brain contains 100 billion neu-
rons, forming more than 13 trillion connections with one another. These
connections are constantly changing, depending on how much learning is
occurring and on the health of the brain. In this dynamic system of different
neurological areas concerned with diverse functions, the question arises of
how a sense of wholeness and stability emerges. In other words, where is the
149
Psychology Basics
“me” in the mind? While some areas of the brain, such as the frontal lobe,
appear more closely linked with such intimate aspects of identity as plan-
ning and making choices, it is likely that no single structure or particular
function can be equated with the self. It may take the activity of the whole
brain to give a sense of wholeness to life. Moreover, the self is not to be
found anyplace in the brain itself. Instead, it is what the brain does—its pat-
terns of activity—that defines the self.

Goldberg, Stephen. Clinical Neuroanatomy Made Ridiculously Simple. Miami:
MedMaster, 2000. One of a series of books intended to help students in
the medical professions by presenting an abbreviated version of various
medical subjects. The use of mnemonic devices, humor, and case studies
makes the book accessible to a college-educated audience.
Hendleman, Walter J. Atlas of Functional Neuroanatomy. Boca Raton, Fla.:
CRC Press, 2000. Presents a visual tour of the brain through drawings,
photographs, and computer-generated illustrations. Three-dimensional
images of the brain can be observed by using the accompanying CD-
ROM.
Kalat, James W. Biological Psychology. 8th ed. Belmont, Calif.: Thomson
Wadsworth, 2004. A top-selling book in the area of physiological psychol-
ogy. While intended for college students, this engaging, easy-to-read text
is accessible to general audiences. Two chapters contain excellent over-
views of brain anatomy and functioning.
Ornstein, Robert. The Right Mind: Making Sense of the Hemispheres. New York:
Harcourt Brace, 1997. The author who helped popularize the left-brain/
right-brain dichotomy in The Psychology of Consciousness (1972) reexam-
ines the functioning of the two hemispheres in this book. The result is an
easy-to-read, entertaining view of hemispheric lateralization that dispels
many myths about differences in hemispheric functioning.
Ornstein, Robert, and Richard F. Thompson. The Amazing Brain. Boston:
Houghton Mifflin, 1991. One of the best introductory books about the
brain, written with a light and humorous touch. The lay reader will enjoy
the accessibility of the text, the excellent (and unique) sketches, and the
fanciful flare the authors use in examining a complicated subject.
Paul J. Chara, Jr.
See also: Animal Experimentation; Consciousness; Consciousness: Altered

States; Endocrine System; Hormones and Behavior; Memory; Memory: Ani-
mal Research; Nervous System; Neuropsychology.
150
Case-Study Methodologies
Field of study: Descriptive methodologies
Case-study methodologies include a number of techniques for studying people, events,
or other phenomena within their natural settings. Typically, case studies involve care-
ful observations made over an extended period of time in situations where it is not pos-
sible to control the behaviors under observation. The results and interpretation of the
data are recorded in narrative form.
Key concepts
• extraneous variable
• independent variable
• laboratory setting research
• naturalistic observation
• quasi-experiments
According to social scientist Robert Yin, case-study research is one of the

most frequently misunderstood methods used to study behaviors. Yin, in his
book Case Study Research: Design and Methods (1984), points out that miscon-
ceptions have come about because of the limited coverage that case-study re-
search receives in the average textbook on research methods. In addition,
most texts typically confuse the case-study approach with either qualitative
research methods or specific types of quasi-experimental designs (experi-
ments that do not allow subjects to be assigned randomly to treatment con-
ditions).
Yin defines a case study as a method for studying contemporary phenom-
ena within their natural settings, particularly when the behaviors under
study cannot be manipulated or brought under the experimenter’s control.
Thus, unlike studies that are performed in the sometimes rigidly sterile lab-
oratory setting (in which phenomena are studied in an artificial environ-
ment with rigorous procedures in place to control for outside influences),
the case-study approach collects data where the behaviors occur, in real-life
contexts. Although behavior in natural settings can lead to a wealth of data
waiting to be mined, case-study methodology also has its drawbacks. Some-
one using this approach needs to recognize that the lack of control over ex-
traneous variables can compound the difficulty associated with trying to
identify the underlying variables that are causing the behaviors. Extraneous
variables can be defined as those that have a detrimental effect on a research
study, making it difficult to determine if the result is attributable to the vari-
able under study or to some unknown variable not controlled for. Despite
this concern, case-study methods are seen as valuable research tools to help
unlock the mysteries behind events and behaviors. The approach has been
used by psychologists, sociologists, political scientists, anthropologists, histo-
rians, and economists, to name a few.
151
Psychology Basics
History of Case Studies

Long before the scientific community began to formalize the procedures as-
sociated with conducting case studies, scientists, philosophers, and physi-
cians were studying phenomena in their natural contexts by making direct
observations and later systematically recording them. Although it is difficult
to pinpoint how long this method has been used, there are a number of doc-
umented cases dating back to the second and third centuries. Galen, a lead-
ing physician in Rome in the second century, spent five years as a surgeon to
the gladiators in the Roman Colosseum. During this time, he made pains-
taking observations correlating head injuries that the gladiators received
with loss of intellectual abilities. In a sense, this was a prelude to the case
study of today.
Psychology has been heavily influenced by the natural sciences. Since the
natural sciences gave birth to the scientific method—a particular technique
for gaining knowledge which includes the testing of hypotheses in ways that
can be verified—it is not surprising that psychology adopted a modified ver-
sion of the scientific method that could be applied to the study of people
and other organisms. It soon became apparent, however, that not all situa-
tions lend themselves to study by an experiment. Thus, it was important for
alternative methodologies to be developed and used. The case study is an
outgrowth of this quest to find alternative methods for studying complex
phenomena.
Design Types and Purposes

Yin suggests that case-study designs vary according to two distinct dimen-
sions. One dimension accounts for the number of “cases” being studied: the
presence of either single- or multiple-case designs. A second dimension al-
lows for case studies to be either “holistic” (studying the entire unit of analy-
sis as a single global entity) or “embedded” (allowing multiple units of analy-
sis to be studied for the purpose of understanding their interworkings).
According to Yin, this classification system leaves the researcher with a
choice among four different design types: single-case (holistic) design, sin-
gle-case (embedded) design, multiple-case (holistic) design, and multiple-
case (embedded) design. Choosing among these designs involves the kinds
of research questions that the researcher is attempting to answer.
Case-study methods are initiated for a variety of reasons, one of which is
to serve as a vehicle for exploratory research. As a new research area begins
to develop, the initial uncharted territory is sometimes best studied (particu-
larly when the research questions are ill-defined) using a case-study method
to determine which direction should be pursued first. This method has there-
fore been commonly misperceived as being able to contribute only in a lim-
ited exploratory capacity; however, the case study can, and should, be used
not only to help focus initial research questions but also to describe and ex-
plain behaviors. As Yin makes clear, both “how” questions and “why” ques-
tions can be answered by this approach.
152
Experiments Versus Case Studies

A frequently asked question is, “When should one choose to conduct a case
study, rather than an experiment?” To answer this question, it is important
to understand some basic differences between case-study methods and ex-
perimental designs. Experiments allow the researcher to manipulate the in-
dependent variables (those under the control of the experimenter) that are
being studied.
For example, in a study to determine the most effective treatment ap-
proach for severe depression, subjects could be randomly assigned to one of
three different treatments. The treatments are under the control of the re-
searcher in the sense that he or she determines who will get a particular
treatment and exactly what it will be. On the other hand, case studies are
used in situations where the variables cannot be manipulated. Experiments
typically, although not exclusively, are performed in a laboratory setting.
Case studies occur in naturalistic settings, a research environment in which,
in contrast to laboratory research, subjects are studied in the environment
in which they live, with little or no intervention on the part of the re-
searcher. Experiments are characterized as having rigorous control over ex-
traneous variables. Case studies typically lack such control. Experiments
place a heavy emphasis on data-analysis procedures that use numbers and
statistical testing. Case studies emphasize direct observation and systematic
interviewing techniques, and they are communicated in a narrative form.
Experiments are designed so that they can be repeated. Case studies, by
their very nature, can be quite difficult to repeat.
Single-Case Versus Multiple-Case Studies

One of Yin’s dimensions for classifying case studies involves single-case ver-
sus multiple-case studies. In some instances, only a single-case study is neces-
sary or at times even possible; this is true when a unique case comes along
that presents a valuable source of information. For example, a social scien-
tist wanting to explore the emotional impact of a national tragedy on ele-
mentary-school children might choose to study the Challenger space shuttle
disaster or the World Trade Center attacks, as a single-case study.
Eminent Russian psychologist Aleksandr Luria, in his book The Mind of a
Mnemonist: A Little Book About a Vast Memory (1968), has, in a most engaging
style, described a single-case (holistic) study. The case involved a man by the
name of Shereshevskii (identified in the book as subject “S”) who possessed
an extraordinary memory. Luria began to observe “S” systematically in the
1920’s, after “S” had asked him to test his memory. Luria was so astounded
by the man’s ability to study information for brief periods of time and then
repeat it back to him without an error that he continued to observe and test
“S” over the following thirty years. Luria was convinced that this man pos-
sessed one of the best memories ever studied.
Because of the nature of the phenomenon—an unusually vast memory—
and the fact that this man was capable of performing memory feats never
153
Psychology Basics
before witnessed, a single-case (holistic) study was begun. When studying

rare phenomena, as in this instance, it is not possible to find the number of
subjects typically required for an experiment; thus, the case-study approach
presents the best alternative. Over the ensuing thirty years, Luria carefully
documented the results of literally hundreds of memory feats. In some in-
stances, Luria presented “S” with a list of words to memorize and asked him
to recall them immediately. At other times, without any forewarning, Luria
asked “S” to recall words from lists given more than fifteen years before. In
most of these instances, “S” recalled the list with only a few errors. Luria
commented on much more than the results of these memory tests; he also
carefully studied the personality of “S.” Luria wanted to understand him as a
whole person, not only as a person with a great memory. Closely involved
with his subject, Luria personally gave the instructions and collected the
data. Whereas the data from the memory tasks provided some degree of ob-
jectivity to the study, most of the information came from the subjective ob-
servations and judgments made by Luria himself. The study was reported in
a book-length narrative.
Hawthorne Studies
A second example involves a case study that was part of a larger group
known as the Hawthorne studies, conducted at the Western Electric Com-
pany, near Chicago, in the 1920’s. One particular study, called the Bank
Wiring Observation Room Study, was initiated to examine the informal so-
cial interactions that occur within a small group of employees in an indus-
trial plant.
A group of fourteen men was moved to a self-contained work room that
simulated the plant environment; a psychologist was assigned to observe the
behavior of the group. No manipulation of any variables occurred; there was
only passive observation of the employees’ behavior. As might be expected,
the presence of the observer discouraged many of the men from behaving
as they normally would if someone were not present. The men were suspi-
cious that the psychologist would inform their supervisor of any behaviors
that were not allowed on the job. After a month passed, however, the men
became accustomed to the observer and started to behave as they normally
did inside the plant. (One should note the length of time needed to begin
observing “normal” work behaviors; most experiments would have been ter-
minated long before the natural behaviors surfaced.) The informal social
interactions of this group were studied for a total of eight months.
This study was significant in that it exposed a number of interesting social
phenomena that occur in a small division at work. One finding was that in-
formal rules were inherent in the group and were strictly enforced by the
group. For example, workers always reported that the same number of units
were assembled for that day, regardless of how many were actually assem-
bled. This unspoken rule came from a group that had considerable influ-
ence over the rate of production. Also, despite a company policy that for-
154
bade an employee to perform a job he was not trained to do, men frequently
rotated job assignments to counteract the boredom that typically occurs in
this kind of work.
This study was important because it systematically observed the naturally
occurring relationships and informal social interactions that exist in an in-
dustrial setting. The case-study method proved to be very effective in bring-
ing this information to light.
Case Study Criticisms

Over the years, case-study methods have not received universal acceptance,
which can be seen in the limited exposure that they receive in social science
textbooks on methodology; it is not uncommon for a textbook to devote
only a few paragraphs to this method. This attitude is attributable in part to
some of the criticisms raised about case-study designs. One criticism is that
this technique lends itself to distortions or falsifications while the data are
being collected. Because direct observation may rely on subjective criteria,
in many instances based on general impressions, it is alleged that this data
should not be trusted. A second criticism is that it is difficult to draw cause-
and-effect conclusions because of the lack of control measures to rule out al-
ternative rival hypotheses. Third, the issue of generalization is important af-
ter the data have been collected and interpreted. There will often be a ques-
tion regarding the population to which the results can be applied.
In the second half of the twentieth century, there appears to have been a
resurgence of the use of case-study methods. Part of the impetus for this
change came from a reactionary movement against the more traditional
methods that collect data in artificial settings. The case-study method plays a
significant role in studying behavior in real-life situations, under a set of cir-
cumstances that would make it impossible to use any other alternative.

Baker, Therese L. Doing Social Research. 3d ed. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1998.
Gives the reader a general introduction to field research, observational
studies, data collection methods, survey research, and sampling tech-
niques as well as other topics which will help the reader evaluate “good”
field experiments from those that are poorly constructed.
Berg, Bruce L. Qualitative Research Methods for the Social Sciences. 4th ed. Bos-
ton: Allyn & Bacon, 2000. Discusses a field strategy used by anthropolo-
gists and sociologists to study groups of people; in addition, discusses the
ethical issues that arise while conducting research. Looks at the dangers
of covert research and provides the guidelines established by the Na-
tional Research Act.
Griffin, John H. Black Like Me. Reprint. New York: Signet, 1996. This excel-
lent book, first published in 1962, is a narrative of the author’s experi-
ences traveling around the United States observing how people react to
him after he takes on the appearance of a black man. This monumental
155
Psychology Basics
field study, which contributed to an understanding of social prejudice,

provides the reader with an excellent example of the significance of and
need for conducting field research.
Luria, Aleksandr R. The Mind of a Mnemonist: A Little Book About a Vast Memory.
1968. Reprint. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 1988. A fasci-
nating case study, written by a founder of neuropsychology and one of the
most significant Russian psychologists. Directed toward a general audi-
ence. The case study focuses on his subject, Shereshevskii (subject “S”),
and his extraordinary memory.
Singleton, Royce, Jr., et al. Approaches to Social Research. 3d ed. New York: Ox-
ford University Press, 1999. This well-written text discusses various aspects
of field experimentation, such as how to select a research setting and
gather information, how to get into the field, and when a field study
should be adopted. The chapter on experimentation can be used to con-
trast “true” experiments with field studies.
Spradley, James. Participant Observation. New York: International Thomp-
son, 1997. A guide to constructing and carrying out a participant obser-
vation study, from a chiefly anthropological perspective.
Yin, Robert K. Case Study Research: Design and Methods. 3d ed. Thousand
Oaks, Calif.: Sage, 2003. This volume is perhaps the finest single source
on case-study methods in print. Yin shows the reader exactly how to de-
sign, conduct, analyze, and even write up a case study. Approximately
forty examples of case studies are cited with brief explanations. Not
highly technical.
Bryan C. Auday
See also: Animal Experimentation; Experimentation: Independent, De-

pendent, and Control Variables; Survey Research: Questionnaires and In-
terviews.
156
Clinical Depression
Field of study: Depression
Clinical depression is an emotional disorder characterized by extreme sadness or a loss
of ability to experience pleasure. Its clinical features also include symptoms that are
cognitive (for example, low self-worth), behavioral (for example, decreased activity
level), and physical (for example, fatigue). Depression is a frequently diagnosed disor-
der in both inpatient and outpatient mental health settings.
Key concepts
• anhedonia
• Beck Depression Inventory (BDI)
• Children’s Depression Inventory (CDI)
• cognitive therapy for depression
• dysphoria
• dysthymic disorder
• helplessness
• monoamine oxidase inhibitors (MAOIs)
• tricyclics
Clinical depression is a severe emotional disorder that is characterized by

four classes of symptoms: emotional, cognitive, behavioral, and physical.
The major emotional symptoms, at least one of which is necessary for the di-
agnosis of depression, are dysphoria (extreme sadness or depressed mood)
and anhedonia (lack of capacity to experience pleasure). Depressed individ-
uals also experience cognitive symptoms. They may have feelings of worth-
lessness or excessive or inappropriate guilt. Some may have recurrent
thoughts of death or suicidal ideation; others actually attempt suicide or cre-
ate a specific plan for doing so. Behavioral symptoms of depression may in-
clude either restlessness or agitation, diminished ability to think or concen-
trate, and indecisiveness. Depressed individuals also experience several
physical symptoms. They become easily fatigued, experience a loss or gain
in appetite, show significant weight loss or gain, and experience sleep distur-
bances, such as insomnia (an inability to fall asleep) or hypersomnia (exces-
sive sleepiness).
Prevalence
Depression is one of the more commonly experienced mental disorders.
For example, in 1985, psychologists John Wing and Paul Bebbington exam-
ined research that used psychological tests to measure the prevalence of (or
lifetime risk for) depression in the general population. They found that esti-
mates of the prevalence of depression generally ranged from about 5 to 10
percent. Interestingly, all the studies examined by Wing and Bebbington
agreed that depression was more common in women than in men. Estimates
157
Psychology Basics
of the prevalence of depression ranged from 2.6 to 4.5 percent in men and
from 5.9 to 9.0 percent in women.
Depression is also related to other characteristics. Risk for depression in-
creases with age. The evidence is clear that depression is more common in
adults and the elderly than in children or adolescents. Interest in childhood
depression has increased since the early 1970’s, however, and the number of
children and adolescents who have been diagnosed as depressed has in-
creased since that time. Depression is also related to socioeconomic status.
In general, people who are unemployed and who are in lower income
groups have higher risks for depression than others. This may be a result of
the higher levels of stress experienced by individuals in lower-income groups.
Finally, family history is related to depression. That is, clinical depression
tends to run in families. This is consistent with both biological and psycho-
logical theories of depression.
Psychologists face several difficulties when attempting to determine the
prevalence of depression. First, the symptoms of depression range in sever-
ity from mild to severe. It may not always be clear at which point these symp-
toms move from the mild nuisances associated with “normal” levels of sad-
ness to significant symptoms associated with clinical depression. Since the
early 1970’s, clinical psychologists have devoted an increased amount of at-
tention to depressions that occur at mild to moderate levels. Even though
these milder depressions are not as debilitating as clinical depression, they
produce significant distress for the individual and so warrant attention. In
1980 the term “dysthymic disorder” was introduced to describe depressions
which, although mild to moderate, persist chronically.
Another complication in determining the prevalence of depression is
that it may occur either as a primary or as a secondary problem. As a primary
problem, depression is the initial or major disorder which should be the fo-
cus of clinical intervention. On the other hand, as a secondary problem, de-
pression occurs in reaction to or as a consequence of another disorder. For
example, many patients experience such discomfort or distress from medi-
cal or mental disorders that they eventually develop the symptoms of depres-
sion. In this case, the primary disorder and not depression is usually the fo-
cus of treatment.
There are several major approaches to the treatment of clinical depression,
each focusing on one of the four classes of symptoms of depression. Psycho-
analytic therapists believe that the cause of depression is emotional: under-
lying anger that stems from some childhood loss and that has been turned
inward. Psychoanalysts therefore treat depression by helping the patient to
identify the cause of the underlying anger and to cope with it in an effective
manner.
Psychiatrist Aaron T. Beck views depression primarily as a cognitive dis-
order. He holds that depressives have negative views of self, world, and fu-
158
Clinical Depression
ture, and that they interpret their experiences in a distorted fashion so as

to support these pessimistic views. A related cognitive model of depression
is that of Martin E. P. Seligman. He argues that depression results from the
perception that one is helpless or has little or no control over the events
in one’s life. Seligman has shown that laboratory-induced helplessness
produces many of the symptoms of depression. Cognitive therapy for de-
pression, which Beck described in 1979, aims at helping depressed pa-
tients identify and then change their negative and inaccurate patterns of
thinking.
Behavioral therapists view depression as the result of conditioning. Psy-
chologist Peter Lewinsohn suggests that depression results from low amounts
of reinforcement. His behavioral therapy for depression aims at increasing
reinforcement levels, through scheduling pleasant activities and improving
the patient’s social skills.
Biologically oriented therapies exist as well. Two classes of antidepressant
medications, monoamine oxidase inhibitors (MAOIs) and tricyclics, are ef-
fective both in treating clinical depression and in preventing future epi-
sodes of depression. Electroconvulsive (shock) therapy (ECT) has also been
found to be effective in treating severe depression. Although the reasons the
biological treatments work have not been conclusively identified, it is thought
that they are effective because they increase the activity or amounts of
norepinephrine and serotonin, two neurotransmitters which are important
in the transmission of impulses in the nervous system.
Depression Measures
In 1983, Eugene Levitt, Bernard Lubin, and James Brooks reported the re-
sults of the National Depression Survey, which attempted to determine the
prevalence and correlates of depression in the general population. They in-
terviewed more than 3,000 people, including 622 teenagers, who were ran-
domly selected to be a representative sample of the entire United States’
population. Subjects completed a brief self-report measure of depression
and answered questions concerning their age, occupation, education, reli-
gion, and other variables.
Levitt, Lubin, and Brooks found that slightly more than 3 percent of the
population was experiencing depression that was severe enough to warrant
clinical intervention and so could be termed clinical depression. This figure
is similar to that found by other investigators. In addition, Levitt, Lubin, and
Brooks found that depression was related to sex, age, occupational status,
and income. Depression was higher for subjects who were female, older,
lower in occupational status, and either low or high in income (earning less
than $6,000 or more than $25,000).
One of the most widely used measures of depression is the Beck Depres-
sion Inventory (BDI). Beck introduced this test in 1961 to assess the severity
of depression in individuals who are known or suspected to have depression.
The BDI has twenty-one items, each concerning a symptom of depression
159
Psychology Basics
DSM-IV-TR Criteria for Major Depression

Major Depressive Episode
Five or more of the following symptoms present during the same two-week
period and representing a change from previous functioning:
• depressed mood or loss of interest or pleasure (at least one); does not
include symptoms clearly due to a general medical condition, mood-
incongruent delusions, or hallucinations
• depressed mood most of the day, nearly every day, as indicated by either
subjective report or observation made by others; in children and adoles-
cents, can be irritable mood
• markedly diminished interest or pleasure in all, or almost all, activities
most of the day, nearly every day, as indicated by either subjective ac-
count or observation made by others
• significant weight loss (when not dieting) or weight gain or decrease/
increase in appetite nearly every day; in children, consider failure to
make expected weight gains
• insomnia or hypersomnia nearly every day
• psychomotor agitation or retardation nearly every day observable by
others, not merely subjective feelings of restlessness or being slowed
down
• fatigue or loss of energy nearly every day
• feelings of worthlessness or excessive or inappropriate guilt (which may
be delusional) nearly every day, not merely self-reproach or guilt about
being sick
• diminished ability to think or concentrate, or indecisiveness, nearly ev-
ery day, either by subjective account or as observed by others
• recurrent thoughts of death (not just fear of dying), recurrent suicidal
ideation without a specific plan, or suicide attempt or specific plan for
committing suicide
Criteria for Mixed Episode not met
(for example, weight loss, suicidal thinking) which is rated for severity. The
BDI can be self-administered or can be completed by an interviewer.
Since its introduction, the BDI has become one of the most widely used
measures of depression for both research and clinical purposes. Many stud-
ies have shown that the BDI is an accurate and useful measure of depression.
For example, BDI scores have been found to be related to both clinicians’
ratings of the severity of a patient’s depression and clinical improvements
during the course of treatment for depression as well as being able to discrimi-
160
Clinical Depression
Symptoms not due to direct physiological effects of a substance or general

medical condition
Symptoms not better accounted for by bereavement, persist for longer than
two months, or characterized by marked functional impairment, morbid pre-
occupation with worthlessness, suicidal ideation, psychotic symptoms, or psy-
chomotor retardation
Major Depressive Disorder, Single Episode (DSM code 296.2x)
Presence of single Major Depressive Episode
Major Depressive Episode not better accounted for by Schizoaffective Dis-
order and not superimposed on Schizophrenia, Schizophreniform Disorder,
Delusional Disorder, or Psychotic Disorder Not Otherwise Specified
No Manic Episodes, Mixed Episodes, or Hypomanic Episodes, unless all
manic-like, mixed-like, or hypomanic-like episodes are substance- or treatment-
induced or due to direct physiological effects of a general medical condition
Specifiers; Chronic; with Catatonic Features; with Melancholic Features; with
Atypical Features; with Postpartum Onset
Major Depressive Disorder, Recurrent (DSM code 296.3x)
Presence of two or more Major Depressive Episodes; with an interval of at
least two consecutive months in which criteria not met for Major Depressive
Episode
Major Depressive Episodes not better accounted for by Schizoaffective Dis-
order and not superimposed on Schizophrenia, Schizophreniform Disorder,
Delusional Disorder, or Psychotic Disorder Not Otherwise Specified
No Manic Episodes, Mixed Episodes, or Hypomanic Episodes, unless all
manic-like, mixed-like, or hypomanic-like episodes are substance- or treatment-
induced or due to direct physiological effects of a general medical condition
Specifiers; Chronic; with Catatonic Features; with Melancholic Features; with
Atypical Features; with Postpartum Onset
Recovery); with Seasonal Pattern
nate between the diagnosis of clinical depression and other conditions.

Psychologist Maria Kovacs developed the Children’s Depression Inven-
tory (CDI) by modifying the BDI for use with children. Similar in format to
the BDI, the CDI contains twenty-eight items, each of which concerns a
symptom of depression that is rated for severity. Research has supported the
utility of the CDI. CDI ratings have been found to be related to clinicians’
ratings of childhood depression. CDI scores have also been found to dis-
criminate children hospitalized for depression from children hospitalized
161
Psychology Basics
for other disorders. The CDI (along with other measures of childhood de-
pression) has contributed to psychology’s research on and understanding of
the causes and treatment of childhood depression.
Depression Research
Many research projects since the 1970’s have examined the effectiveness of
cognitive and behavioral treatments of depression. Beck and his colleagues
have demonstrated that cognitive therapy for depression is superior to no
treatment whatsoever and to placebos (inactive psychological or medical in-
terventions which should have no real effect but which the patient believes
have therapeutic value). In addition, this research has shown that cognitive
therapy is about as effective as both antidepressant medications and behav-
ior therapy. Similarly, Lewinsohn and others have shown the effectiveness of
behavior therapy on depression by demonstrating that it is superior to no
treatment and to placebo conditions.
One of the most important studies of the treatment of depression is the
Treatment of Depression Collaborative Research Program, begun by the
National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) in the mid-1980’s. Members of
a group of 250 clinically depressed patients were randomly assigned to one
of four treatment conditions: interpersonal psychotherapy, cognitive behav-
ioral psychotherapy, tricyclic antidepressant medication, and placebo medi-
cation. Treatment was presented over sixteen to twenty sessions. Patients
were assessed by both self-report and a clinical evaluator before treatment,
after every fourth session, and at six-, twelve-, and eighteen-month follow-
ups after the end of treatment.
This study found that patients in all four treatment conditions improved
significantly over the course of therapy. In general, patients who received
antidepressant medication improved the most, patients who received the
placebo improved the least, and patients who received the two forms of psy-
chotherapy improved to an intermediate degree (but were closer in im-
provement to those receiving antidepressant medication than to those re-
ceiving the placebo). This study also found that, for patients in general,
there was no significant difference between the effectiveness rates of the an-
tidepressant medication and the two forms of psychotherapy.
For severely depressed patients, however, antidepressant medication and
interpersonal psychotherapy were found to be more effective than other
treatments; for less severely depressed patients, there were no differences in
effectiveness across the four treatment conditions.
Theories
Clinical depression is one of the most prevalent psychological disorders. Be-
cause depression is associated with an increased risk for suicide, it is also one
of the more severe disorders. For these reasons, psychologists have devoted
much effort to determining the causes of depression and developing effec-
tive treatments.
162
Clinical Depression
Theories and treatments of depression can be classified into four groups:

emotional, cognitive, behavioral, and physical. In the first half of the twenti-
eth century, the psychoanalytic theory of depression, which emphasizes the
role of the emotion of anger, dominated clinical psychology’s thinking
about the causes and treatment of depression. Following the discovery of
the first antidepressant medications in the 1950’s, psychologists increased
their attention to physical theories and treatments of depression. Since the
early 1970’s, Beck’s and Seligman’s cognitive approaches and Lewinsohn’s
behavioral theory have received increased amounts of attention. By the
1990’s, the biological, cognitive, and behavioral theories of depression had
all surpassed the psychoanalytic theory of depression in terms of research
support for their respective proposed causes and treatments.
Another shift in emphasis in psychology’s thinking about depression con-
cerns childhood depression. Prior to the 1970’s, psychologists paid rela-
tively little attention to depression in children; classical psychoanalytic the-
ory suggested that children had not yet completed a crucial step of their
psychological development that psychoanalysts believed was necessary for a
person to become depressed. Thus, many psychologists believed that chil-
dren did not experience depression or that, if they did become depressed,
their depressions were not severe. Research in the 1970’s demonstrated that
children do experience depression and that, when depressed, children ex-
hibit symptoms similar to those of depressed adults. Since the 1970’s, psy-
chologists have devoted much effort to understanding the cause and treat-
ment of childhood depression. Much of this work has examined how the
biological, cognitive, and behavioral models of depression, originally devel-
oped for and applied to adults, may generalize to children.
Another shift in psychology’s thinking about depression concerns the at-
tention paid to mild and moderate depressions. Since the 1960’s, clinical
psychology has been interested in the early detection and treatment of mi-
nor conditions in order to prevent the development of more severe disor-
ders. This emphasis on prevention has influenced the field’s thinking about
depression. Since the early 1970’s, psychologists have applied cognitive and
behavioral models of depression to nonpatients who obtain high scores on
measures of depression. Even though these individuals are not clinically de-
pressed, they still experience significant distress and so may benefit from the
attention of psychologists. By using cognitive or behavioral interventions
with these individuals, psychologists may prevent the development of more
severe depressions.

Beck, Aaron T., A. J. Rush, B. F. Shaw, and G. Emery. Cognitive Therapy of De-
pression. 1979. Reprint. New York: Guilford Press, 1987. Summarizes the
cognitive theory of depression and describes how this model can be ap-
plied in the treatment of depressed patients.
Beutler, Larry E., John F. Clarkin, and Bruce Bongar. Guidelines for the System-
163
Psychology Basics
atic Treatment of the Depressed Patient. New York: Oxford University Press,
2000. Summarizes the state of research and extracts treatment principles
that can be applied by mental health professionals from a wide range of
theoretical backgrounds.
Blazer, Dan. Depression in Late Life. 3d ed. New York: Springer, 2002. A com-
prehensive review of the treatment of depression among the elderly.
Covers epidemiology, pharmacology, depression and cognitive impair-
ment, unipolar and bipolar disorders, bereavement, and existential de-
pression.
Hammen, Constance. Depression. New York: Psychology Press, 1997. A modu-
lar course presenting research-based information on the diagnosis and
treatment of depression. Written for students and mental health profes-
sionals.
Lewinsohn, Peter M., Rebecca Forster, and M. A. Youngren. Control Your De-
pression. Rev. ed. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1992. A self-help book for a
general audience. Describes Lewinsohn’s behavioral therapy, which has
been found to be an effective treatment for depression.
Nezu, Arthur M., George F. Ronan, Elizabeth A. Meadows, and Kelly S.
McClure, eds. Practitioner’s Guide to Empirically Based Measures of Depression.
New York: Plenum Press, 2000. Reviews and compares more than ninety
measures of depression in terms of requirements, suitability, costs, ad-
ministration, reliability, and validity.
Seligman, Martin E. P. Helplessness: On Depression, Development, and Death.
1975. Reprint. San Francisco: W. H. Freeman, 1992. Seligman explains
the learned helplessness theory of depression, describing his early re-
search and comparing the symptoms of laboratory-induced helplessness
to those of clinical depression.
Michael Wierzbicki
See also: Bipolar Disorder; Cognitive Behavior Therapy; Cognitive Ther-

apy; Depression; Diagnosis; Drug Therapies; Mood Disorders; Suicide.
164
Cognitive Behavior Therapy
Field of study: Behavioral therapies
A number of approaches to therapy fall within the scope of cognitive behavior therapy.
These approaches all share a theoretical perspective that assumes that internal cognitive
processes, called thinking or cognition, affect behavior; that this cognitive activity may be
monitored; and that desired behavior change may be effected through cognitive change.
Key concepts
• behavior therapy
• cognition
• cognitive restructuring
• cognitive therapy
• depression
The cognitive behavior therapies are not a single therapeutic approach but
rather a loosely organized collection of therapeutic approaches that share a
similar set of assumptions. At their core, cognitive behavior therapies share
three fundamental propositions: Cognitive activity affects behavior; cogni-
tive activity may be monitored and altered; and desired behavior change
may be effected through cognitive change.
The first of the three fundamental propositions of cognitive behavior ther-
apy suggests that it is not the external situation which determines feelings and
behavior but rather the person’s view or perception of that external situation
that determines feelings and behavior. For example, if one has failed the first
examination of a course, one could appraise it as a temporary setback to be
overcome or as a horrible loss. While the situation remains the same, the
thinking about that situation is radically different in the two examples cited.
Each of these views will lead to significantly different emotions and behaviors.
The third cognitive behavioral assumption suggests that desired behavior
change may be effected through cognitive change. Thus, while cognitive be-
havior theorists do not reject the notion that rewards and punishment (rein-
forcement contingencies) can alter behavior, they are likely to emphasize
that there are alternative methods for behavior change, one in particular
being cognitive change. Many approaches to therapy fall within the scope of
cognitive behavior therapy as it is defined above. While these approaches
share the theoretical assumptions described above, a review of the major
therapeutic procedures subsumed under the heading of cognitive behavior
therapy reveals a diverse amalgam of principles and procedures, represent-
ing a variety of theoretical and philosophical perspectives.
Rational Therapies
Rational-emotive therapy, developed by psychologist Albert Ellis, is regarded
by many as one of the premier examples of the cognitive behavioral ap-
165
Psychology Basics
proach; it was introduced in the early 1960’s. Ellis proposed that many peo-
ple are made unhappy by their faulty, irrational beliefs, which influence the
way they interpret events. The therapist will interact with the patient, at-
tempting to direct him or her to more positive and realistic views. Cognitive
therapy, pioneered by Aaron T. Beck, has been applied to such problems as
depression and stress. For stress reduction, ideas and thoughts that are pro-
ducing stress in the patient will be questioned; the therapist will get the pa-
tient to examine the validity of these thoughts. Thought processes can then
be restructured so the situations seem less stressful. Cognitive therapy has
been found to be quite effective in treating depression, as compared to
other therapeutic methods. Beck held that depression is caused by certain
types of negative thoughts, such as devaluing the self or viewing the future in
a consistently pessimistic way.
Rational behavior therapy, developed by psychiatrist Maxie Maultsby, is a
close relative of Ellis’s rational-emotive therapy. In this approach, Maultsby
combines several approaches to include rational-emotive therapy, neuropsy-
chology, classical and operant conditioning, and psychosomatic research;
however, Maultsby was primarily influenced by his association with Albert
Ellis. In this approach, Maultsby attempts to couch his theory of emotional
disturbance in terms of neuropsychophysiology and learning theory. Ratio-
nal behavior therapy assumes that repeated pairings of a perception with
evaluative thoughts lead to rational or irrational emotive and behavioral re-
actions. Maultsby suggests that self-talk, which originates in the left hemi-
sphere of the brain, triggers corresponding right-hemisphere emotional
equivalents. Thus, in order to maintain a state of psychological health, indi-
viduals must practice rational self-talk that will, in turn, cause the right brain
to convert left-brain language into appropriate emotional and behavioral
reactions.
Rational behavior therapy techniques are quite similar to those of rational-
emotive therapy. Both therapies stress the importance of monitoring one’s
thoughts in order to become aware of the elements of the emotional distur-
bance. In addition, Maultsby advocates the use of rational-emotive imagery,
behavioral practice, and relaxation methods in order to minimize emo-
tional distress.
Self-Instructional Training
Self-instructional training was developed by psychologist Donald Meichen-
baum in the early 1970’s. In contrast to Ellis and Beck, whose prior training
was in psychoanalysis, Meichenbaum’s roots are in behaviorism and the be-
havioral therapies. Thus Meichenbaum’s approach is heavily couched in be-
havioral terminology and procedures. Meichenbaum’s work stems from his
earlier research in training schizophrenic patients to emit “healthy speech.”
By chance, Meichenbaum observed that patients who engaged in spontane-
ous self-instruction were less distracted and demonstrated superior task per-
formance on a variety of tasks. As a result, Meichenbaum emphasizes the
166
critical role of “self-instructions”—simple instructions such as “Relax. . . Just

attend to the task”—and their noticeable effect on subsequent behavior.
Meichenbaum developed self-instructional training to treat the deficits in
self-instructions manifested in impulsive children. The ultimate goal of this
program was to decrease impulsive behavior. The way to accomplish this goal,
as hypothesized by Meichenbaum, was to train impulsive children to gener-
ate verbal self-commands, to respond to their verbal self-commands, and to
encourage the children to self-reinforce their behavior appropriately.
The specific procedures employed in self-instructional training involve
having the child observe a model performing a task. While the model is per-
forming the task, he or she is talking aloud. The child then performs the
same task while the model gives verbal instructions. Subsequently, the child
performs the task while instructing himself or herself aloud, then while whis-
pering the instructions. Finally, the child performs the task covertly. The
self-instructions employed in the program included questions about the na-
ture and demands of the task, answers to these questions in the form of cog-
nitive rehearsal, self-instructions in the form of self-guidance while perform-
ing the task, and self-reinforcement. Meichenbaum and his associates have
found that this self-instructional training program significantly improves
the task performance of impulsive children across a number of measures.
Systematic Rational Restructuring

Systematic rational restructuring is a cognitive behavioral procedure devel-
oped by psychologist Marvin Goldfried in the mid-1970’s. This procedure is
a variation on Ellis’s rational-emotive therapy; however, it is more clearly
structured than Ellis’s method. In systematic rational restructuring, Gold-
fried suggests that early social learning experiences teach individuals to la-
bel situations in different ways. Further, Goldfried suggests that emotional
reactions may be understood as responses to the way individuals label situa-
tions, as opposed to responses to the situations themselves. The goal of sys-
tematic rational restructuring is to train patients to perceive situational cues
more accurately.
The process of systematic rational restructuring is similar to systematic de-
sensitization, in which a subject is to imagine fearful scenes in a graduated
order from the least fear-provoking to the most fear-provoking scenes. In
systematic rational restructuring, the patient is asked to imagine a hierarchy
of anxiety-eliciting situations. At each step, the patient is instructed to iden-
tify irrational thoughts associated with the specific situation, to dispute them,
and to reevaluate the situation more rationally. In addition, patients are in-
structed to practice rational restructuring in specific real-life situations.
Stress Inoculation
Stress inoculation training incorporates several of the specific therapies al-
ready described. This procedure was developed by Meichenbaum. Stress in-
oculation training is analogous to being inoculated against disease. That is,
167
Psychology Basics
it prepares patients to deal with stress-inducing events by teaching them to

use coping skills at low levels of the stressful situation and then gradually to
cope with more and more stressful situations. Stress inoculation training in-
volves three phases: conceptualization, skills acquisition and rehearsal, and
application and follow-through.
In the conceptualization phase of stress inoculation training, patients are
given an adaptive way of viewing and understanding their negative reactions
to stressful events. In the skills-acquisition and rehearsal phase, patients
learn coping skills appropriate to the type of stress they are experiencing.
With interpersonal anxiety, a patient might develop skills that would make
the feared situation less threatening (for example, learning to initiate and
maintain conversations). The patient might also learn deep muscle relax-
ation to lessen tension. In cases of anger, patients learn to view potential
provocations as problems that require a solution rather than as threats that
require an attack. Patients are also taught to rehearse alternative strategies
for solving the problem at hand.
The application and follow-through phase of stress inoculation training
involves the patients practicing and applying the coping skills. Initially, pa-
tients are exposed to low levels of stressful situations in imagery. They prac-
tice applying their coping skills to handle the stressful events, and they
overtly role-play dealing with stressful events. Next, patients are given home-
work assignments that involve gradual exposure to actual stressful events in
his or her everyday life. Stress inoculation training has been effectively ap-
plied to many types of problems. It has been used to help people cope with
anger, anxiety, fear, pain, and health-related problems (for example, cancer
and hypertension). It appears to be suitable for all age levels.
Problem-Solving Therapy
Problem-solving therapy, as developed by psychologists Thomas D’Zurilla
and Marvin Goldfried, is also considered one of the cognitive behavioral ap-
proaches. In essence, problem-solving therapy is the application of prob-
lem-solving theory and research to the domain of personal and emotional
problems. Indeed, the ability to solve problems is seen as the necessary and
sufficient condition for emotional and behavioral stability. Problem solving
is, in one way or another, a part of all psychotherapies.
Cognitive behavior therapists have taught general problem- solving skills to
patients with two specific aims: to alleviate the particular personal problems
for which patients have sought therapy and to provide patients with a gen-
eral coping strategy for personal problems.
The actual steps of problem solving that patients are taught to carry out
systematically are as follows. First, it is necessary to define the dilemma as a
problem to be solved. Next, a goal must be selected which reflects the ulti-
mate outcome a patient desires. The patient then generates a list of many
different possible solutions, without evaluating their potential merit (a kind
of brainstorming). Now the patient evaluates the pros and cons of each op-
168
tion in terms of the probability that it will meet the goal selected and its prac-
ticality, which involves considering the potential consequences to oneself
and to others of each solution. The possible solutions are ranked in terms of
desirability and practicality, and the highest one is selected. Next, the pa-
tient tries to implement the solution chosen. Finally, the patient evaluates
the therapy, assessing whether the solution alleviated the problem and met
the goal, and, if not, what went wrong—in other words, which of the steps in
problem solving needs to be redone.
Problem-solving therapies have been used to treat a variety of target be-
haviors with a wide range of patients. Examples include peer relationship
difficulties among children and adolescents, examination and interper-
sonal anxiety among college students, relapse following a program to re-
duce smoking, disharmony among family members, and the inability of
chronic psychiatric patients to cope with interpersonal problems.
Self-Control Therapy
Self-control therapy for depression, developed by psychologist Lynn Rehm,
is an approach to treating depression which combines the self-regulatory
notions of behavior therapy and the cognitive focus of the cognitive behav-
ioral approaches. Essentially, Rehm believes that depressed people show
deficits in one or some combination of the following areas: monitoring (se-
lectively attending to negative events), self-evaluation (setting unrealistically
high goals), and self-reinforcement (emitting high rates of self-punishment
and low rates of self-reward). These three components are further broken
down into a total of six functional areas.
According to Rehm, the varied symptom picture in clinically depressed
patients is a function of different subsets of these deficits. Over the course of
therapy with a patient, each of the six self-control deficits is described, with
emphasis on how a particular deficit is causally related to depression, and on
what can be done to remedy the deficit. A variety of clinical strategies are
employed to teach patients self-control skills, including group discussion,
overt and covert reinforcement, behavioral assignments, self-monitoring,
and modeling.
Structural Psychotherapy
Structural psychotherapy is a cognitive behavioral approach that derives
from the work of two Italian mental health professionals, psychiatrist Vit-
torio Guidano and psychologist Gianni Liotti. These doctors are strongly per-
suaded by cognitive psychology, social learning theory, evolutionary episte-
mology, psychodynamic theory, and cognitive therapy. Guidano and Liotti
suggest that for an understanding of the full complexity of an emotional dis-
order and subsequent development of an adequate model of psychotherapy,
an appreciation of the development and the active role of an individual’s
knowledge of self and the world is critical. In short, in order to understand a
patient, one must understand the structure of that person’s world.
169
Psychology Basics
Guidano and Liotti’s therapeutic process utilizes the empirical problem-

solving approach of the scientist. Indeed, the two suggest that therapists
should assist patients in disengaging themselves from certain ingrained be-
liefs and judgments and in considering them as hypotheses and theories
subject to disproof, confirmation, and logical challenge. A variety of behav-
ioral experiments and cognitive techniques are used to assist the patient in
assessing and critically evaluating his or her beliefs.
Other Therapies
As can be seen, the area of cognitive behavior therapy involves a wide collec-
tion of therapeutic approaches and techniques. The approaches described
here are but a representative sample of possible cognitive behavioral ap-
proaches. Also included within this domain are anxiety management train-
ing, which comes from the work of psychologist Richard Suinn, and per-
sonal science, from the work of psychologist Michael Mahoney.
The cognitive behavioral approaches are derived from a variety of per-
spectives, including cognitive theory, classical and operant conditioning ap-
proaches, problem-solving theory, and developmental theory. All these ap-
proaches share the perspective that internal cognitive processes, called
thinking or cognition, affect behavior, and that behavior change may be ef-
fected through cognitive change.
These approaches have several other similarities. One is that all the ap-
proaches see therapy as time-limited. This is in sharp distinction to the tradi-
tional psychoanalytic therapies, which are generally open-ended. The cogni-
tive behavior therapies attempt to effect change rapidly, often with specific,
preset lengths of therapeutic contact. Another similarity among the cognitive
behavior therapies is that their target of change is also limited. For example,
in the treatment of depression, the target of change is the symptoms of de-
pression. Thus, in the cognitive behavioral approaches to treatment, one sees
a time-limited focus and a limited target of change.
Evolution
Cognitive behavior therapy evolved from two lines of clinical and research
activity. First, it derives from the work of the early cognitive therapists (Al-
bert Ellis and Aaron Beck); second, it was strongly influenced by the careful
empirical work of the early behaviorists.
Within the domain of behaviorism, cognitive processes were not always
seen as a legitimate focus of attention. In behavior therapy, there has always
been a strong commitment to an applied science of clinical treatment. In
the behavior therapy of the 1950’s and 1960’s, this emphasis on scientific
methods and procedures meant that behavior therapists focused on events
that were directly observable and measurable. Within this framework, be-
havior was seen as a function of external stimuli which determined or were
reliably associated with observable responses. Also during this period, there
was a deliberate avoidance of such “nebulous” concepts as thoughts, cogni-
170
tions, or images. It was believed that these processes were by their very na-
ture vague, and one could never be confident that one was reliably observ-
ing or measuring these processes.
By following scientific principles, researchers developed major new treat-
ment approaches which in many ways revolutionized clinical practice (among
them are systematic desensitization and the use of a token economy). During
the 1960’s, however, several developments within behavior therapy had em-
phasized the limitations of a strict conditioning model to understanding hu-
man behavior.
In 1969, psychologist Albert Bandura published his influential volume
Principles of Behavior Modification. In this book, Bandura emphasized the role
of internal or cognitive factors in the causation and maintenance of behav-
ior. Following from the dissatisfaction of the radical behavioral approaches
to understanding complex human behavior and the publication of Ban-
dura’s 1969 volume, behavior therapists began actively to seek and study the
role of cognitive processes in human behavior.

D’Zurilla, Thomas J., and Arthur M. Nezu. “Social Problem-Solving in
Adults.” In Advances in Cognitive-Behavioral Research and Therapy, edited by
Philip C. Kendall. Vol. 1. New York: Academic Press, 1982. An excellent
summary of problem-solving therapy. As indicated by its title, the Kendall
book in which this article appears also contains other informative articles
dealing with cognitive behavior therapy.
Goldfried, Marvin R. “The Use of Relaxation and Cognitive Relabeling as
Coping Skills.” In Behavioral Self-Management: Strategies, Techniques, and
Outcomes, edited by Richard B. Stuart. New York: Brunner/Mazel, 1977. A
description of systematic rational restructuring by Marvin Goldfried, who
developed the technique; reveals its similarities to and differences from
rational-emotive therapy.
Maultsby, Maxie C., Jr. Rational Behavior Therapy. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.:
Prentice-Hall, 1984. An excellent summary of rational behavior therapy,
as developed by Maultsby; discusses self-talk and its emotional and behav-
ioral consequences.
Meichenbaum, Donald. Cognitive Behavior Modification. New York: Plenum
Press, 1979. A well-written introduction to Meichenbaum’s approaches,
with clear examples of the applications of self-instructional training to
impulsive children and schizophrenic patients.
_________. Stress Inoculation Training. New York: Pergamon Press, 1985. This
short training manual presents a clear, useful overview of stress inocula-
tion training, along with a detailed account of the empirical research
completed in testing the approach.
Donald G. Beal
See also: Cognitive Social Learning: Walter Mischel; Cognitive Therapy.

171
Cognitive Development
Jean Piaget
Field of study: Cognitive development
Piaget, in one of the twentieth century’s most influential development theories, pro-
posed a sequence of maturational changes in thinking: From the sensorimotor re-
sponses of infancy, the child acquires symbols. Later, the child begins relating these
symbols in such logical operations as categorizing and quantifying. In adolescence,
abstract and hypothetical mental manipulations become possible.
Key concepts
• concrete operations stage
• conservation
• egocentric
• formal operations stage
• operations
• preoperational stage
• schema (pl. schemata)
• sensorimotor stage
Jean Piaget (1896-1980), a Swiss psychologist, generated the twentieth cen-

tury’s most influential and comprehensive theory of cognitive develop-
ment. Piaget’s theory describes how the maturing child’s interactions with
the environment result in predictable sequences of changes in certain cru-
cial understandings of the world about him or her. Such changes occur in
the child’s comprehension of time and space, quantitative relationships,
cause and effect, and even right and wrong. The child is always treated as an
actor in his or her own development.
Advances result from the active desire to develop concepts, or schemata,
which are sufficiently similar to the real world that this real world can be fit-
ted or assimilated into these schemata. Schemata can be defined as any
process of interpreting an object or event, including habitual responses,
symbols, or mental manipulations. When a schema (“Cats smell nice”) is suf-
ficiently discrepant from reality (“That cat stinks”), the schema itself must
be accommodated or altered (“That catlike creature is a skunk”).
For children everywhere, neurologically based advances in mental capac-
ity introduce new perceptions that make the old ways of construing reality
unsatisfactory and compel a fundamentally new construction of reality—
a new stage of development. Piaget conceptualizes four such stages: sensori-
motor (in infancy), preoperational (the preschool child), concrete opera-
tional (the school-age child), and formal operational (adolescence and
adulthood).
172
Cognitive Development: Jean Piaget
Sensorimotor Stage
In the sensorimotor stage, the infant orients himself or herself to objects in
the world by consistent physical (motor) movements in response to those
sensory stimuli that represent the same object (for example, the sight of a
face, the sound of footsteps, or a voice all represent “mother”). The relation-
ship between motor responses and reappearing objects becomes progres-
sively more complex and varied in the normal course of development. First,
reflexes such as sucking become more efficient; then sequences of learned
actions that bring pleasure are repeated (circular reactions). These learned
reactions are directed first toward the infant’s own body (thumb sucking),
then toward objects in the environment (the infant’s stuffed toy).
The baby seems to lack an awareness that objects continue to exist when
they are outside the range of his or her senses. When the familiar toy of an
infant is hidden, he or she does not search for it; it is as if it has disappeared
from reality. As the sensorimotor infant matures, the infant becomes con-
vinced of the continuing existence of objects that disappear in less obvious
ways for longer intervals of time. By eighteen months of age, most toddlers
have achieved such a conviction of continuing existence, or object perma-
nence.
Preoperational Stage
In the preoperational stage, the preschool child begins to represent these
permanent objects by internal processes or mental representations. Now
the development of mental representations of useful objects proceeds at an
astounding pace. In symbolic play, blocks may represent cars and trains. Ca-
pable of deferred imitation, the child may pretend to be a cowboy according
to his or her memory image of a motion-picture cowboy. The most impor-
tant of all representations are the hundreds of new words the child learns to
speak.
As one might infer from the word “preoperational,” this period, lasting
from about age two through ages six or seven, is transitional. The preschool
child still lacks the attention, memory capacity, and mental flexibility to em-
ploy his or her increasing supply of symbolic representations in logical rea-
soning (operations). It is as if the child remains so focused upon the individ-
ual frames of a motion picture that he or she fails to comprehend the
underlying plot. Piaget calls this narrow focusing on a single object or sa-
lient dimension “centration.” The child may say, for example, that a quart of
milk he or she has just seen transferred into two pint containers is now “less
milk” because the child focuses upon the smaller size of the new containers.
Fido is seen as a dog, not as an animal or a mammal. The child uncritically
assumes that other people, regardless of their situation, share his or her own
tastes and perspectives. A two-year-old closes his eyes and says, “Now you
don’t see me, Daddy.” Piaget calls this egocentrism.
173
Psychology Basics
Concrete Operations Stage

The concrete operations stage begins at age six or seven, when the school-
age child becomes capable of keeping in mind and logically manipulating
several concrete objects at the same time. The child is no longer the pris-
oner of the momentary appearance of things. In no case is the change more
evident than in the sort of problem in which a number of objects (such as
twelve black checkers) are spread out into four groups of three. While the
four-year-old, preoperational child would be likely to say that now there are
more checkers because they take up a larger area, to the eight-year-old it is
obvious that this transformation could easily be reversed by regrouping the
checkers. Piaget describes the capacity to visualize the reversibility of such
transformations as “conservation.” This understanding is fundamental to
the comprehension of simple arithmetical manipulations. It is also fun-
damental to a second operational skill: categorization. To the concrete-
operational child, it seems obvious that while Rover the dog can for other
purposes be classified as a household pet, an animal, or a living organism, it
will still be a “dog” and still be “Rover.” A related skill is seriation: keeping in
mind that an entire series of objects can be arranged along a single dimen-
sion, such as size (from smallest to largest). The child now is also capable
of role-taking, of understanding the different perspective of a parent or
teacher. No longer egocentric (assuming that everyone shares one’s own
perspective and cognitively unable to understand the different perspective
of another), the child becomes able to see himself or herself as others see
him or her and to temper the harshness of absolute rules with a comprehen-
sion of the viewpoints of others.
Formal Operations Stage

The formal operational stage begins in early adolescence. In childhood, log-
ical operations are concrete ones, limited to objects that can be visualized,
touched, or directly experienced. The advance of the early adolescent into
formal operational thinking involves the capacity to deal with possibilities
that are purely speculative. This permits coping with new classes of prob-
lems: those involving relationships that are purely abstract or hypothetical
or that involve the higher-level analysis of a problem by the systematic con-
sideration of every logical (sometimes fanciful) possibility. The logical ade-
quacy of an argument can be examined apart from the truth or falsity of its
conclusions.
Concepts such as “forces,” “infinity,” or “justice,” nowhere directly experi-
enced, can now be comprehended. Formal operational thought permits the
midadolescent or adult to hold abstract ideals and to initiate scientific inves-
tigations.
Illustrating Stage Development

Piaget was particularly clever in the invention of problems which illustrate
the underlying premises of the child’s thought. The crucial capability that
174
signals the end of the sensorimotor period is object permanence, the child’s
conviction of the continuing existence of objects that are outside the range
of his or her senses. Piaget established the gradual emergence of object per-
manence by hiding from the child familiar toys for progressively longer pe-
riods of time, with the act of hiding progressively less obvious to the child.
Full object permanence is not considered achieved until the child will
search for a familiar missing object even when he or she could not have ob-
served its being hidden.
The fundamental test of concrete operational thought is conservation. In
a typical conservation task, the child is shown two identical balls of putty.
The child generally affirms their obvious equivalence. Then one of the balls
of putty is reworked into an elongated, wormlike shape while the child
watches. The child is again asked about their relative size. Younger children
are likely to say that the wormlike shape is smaller, but the child who has at-
tained conservation of mass will state that the size must still be the same. In-
quiries concerning whether the weights of the differently shaped material
(conservation of weight) are the same and whether they would displace the
same amount of water (conservation of volume) are more difficult ques-
tions, generally not answerable until the child is older.
Standardized Tests
Since Piaget’s original demonstrations, further progress has necessitated
the standardization of these problems with materials, questions, proce-
dures, and scoring so clearly specified that examiners can replicate one an-
other’s results. Such standardization permits the explanation of the general
applicability of Piaget’s concepts. Standardized tests have been developed
for measuring object permanence, egocentricity, and role-taking skills. The
Concept Assessment Kit, for example, provides six standard conservation
tasks for which comparison data (norms) are available for children in sev-
eral widely diverse cultures. The relative conceptual attainments of an indi-
vidual child (or culture) can be measured. Those who attain such basic skills
as conservation early have been shown to be advanced in many other educa-
tional and cognitive achievements.
Implications for Education

Piaget’s views of cognitive development have broad implications for educa-
tional institutions charged with fostering such development. The child is
viewed as an active seeker of knowledge. This pursuit is advanced by his or
her experimental engagement with problems which are slightly more com-
plex than those problems successfully worked through in the past. The
teacher is a facilitator of the opportunities for such cognitive growth, not a
lecturer or a drillmaster. The teacher provides physical materials that can be
experimentally manipulated. Such materials can be simple: Blocks, stones,
bottle caps, and plastic containers all can be classified, immersed in water,
thrown into fire, dropped, thrown, or balanced. Facilitating peer relation-
175
Psychology Basics
ships and cooperation in playing games is also helpful in encouraging social

role-taking and moral development.
Because each student pursues knowledge at his or her own pace and in
his or her own idiom, great freedom and variety may be permitted in an es-
sentially open classroom. The teacher may nudge the student toward cogni-
tive advancement by presenting a problem slightly more complex than that
already comprehended by the student. A student who understands conser-
vation of number may be ready for problems involving the conservation of
length, for example. The teacher, however, does not reinforce correct an-
swers or criticize incorrect ones. Sequencing is crucial. The presentation of
knowledge or skill before the child is ready can result in superficial, uncom-
prehended verbalisms. Piaget does not totally reject the necessity of the
inculcation of social and cultural niceties (social-arbitrary knowledge), the
focus of traditional education. He would maintain, however, that an experi-
mentally based understanding of physical and social relationships is crucial
for a creative, thoughtful society.
Finessing Piaget’s Research

Piaget hypothesized sequences of age-related changes in ways of dealing
with reality. His conclusions were based on the careful observation of a few
selected cases. The voluminous research since Piaget’s time overwhelmingly
supports the sequence he outlined. The process almost never reverses.
Once a child understands the conservation of substance, for example, his or
her former conclusion that “Now there is more” seems to the child not sim-
ply wrong but absurd. Even within a stage, there is a sequence. Conservation
of mass, for example, precedes conservation of volume.
Post-Piagetian research has nevertheless led to a fine-tuning of some of
Piaget’s conclusions and a modification of others. Piaget believed that tran-
sitions to more advanced cognitive levels awaited neurological maturation
and the child’s spontaneous discoveries. Several researchers have found
that specific training in simplified and graded conservation and categoriza-
tion tasks can lead to an early ripening of these skills. Other research has
called into question Piaget’s timetable. The fact that, within a few months of
birth, infants show subtle differences in their reactions to familiar versus un-
familiar objects suggests that recognition memory for objects may begin ear-
lier than Piaget’s age for object permanence. If conservation tasks are sim-
plified—if all distraction is avoided, and simple language and familiar
materials are used—it can be shown that concrete operations also may begin
earlier than Piaget thought. Formal operations, on the other hand, may not
begin as early or be applied as universally in adult problem solving as sug-
gested by Piaget’s thesis. A significant percentage of older adolescents and
adults fail tests for formal operations, particularly in new problem areas.
More basic than readjustments of his developmental scheduling is the re-
interpretation of Piaget’s stages. The stage concept implies not only an in-
variant sequence of age-related changes but also developmental discon-
176
tinuities involving global and fairly abrupt shifts in an entire pattern or

structure. The prolonged development and domain-specific nature of many
operational skills, however, suggest a process that is neither abrupt nor
global. An alternative view is that Piaget’s sequences can be understood as
the results of continuous improvements in attention, concentration, and
memory. Stages represent only transition points on this continuous dimen-
sion. They are more like the points of a scale on a thermometer than the
stages of the metamorphosis of a caterpillar into a moth.
Piaget’s Impact
Even with the caveat that his stages may reflect, at a more fundamental level,
an underlying continuum, Piaget’s contributions can be seen as a great leap
forward in approximate answers to one of humankind’s oldest riddles: how
human beings know their world. The eighteenth century philosopher Im-
manuel Kant described certain core assumptions, such as quantity, quality,
and cause and effect, which he called “categories of the understanding.”
Human beings make these assumptions when they relate specific objects
and events to one another—when they reason. Piaget’s work became known
to a 1960’s-era American psychology that was dominated by B. F. Skinner’s
behavioral view of a passive child whose plastic nature was simply molded by
the rewards and punishments of parents and culture. The impact of Piaget’s
work shifted psychology’s focus back to a Kantian perspective of the child as
an active reasoner who selectively responds to aspects of culture he or she
finds relevant. Piaget himself outlined the sequence, the pace, and some of
the dynamics of the maturing child’s development of major Kantian catego-
ries. Such subsequent contributions as Lawrence Kohlberg’s work on moral
development and Robert Selman’s work on role-taking can be viewed as an
elaboration and extension of Piaget’s unfinished work. Piaget, like Sigmund
Freud, was one of psychology’s pivotal thinkers. Without him, the entire
field of developmental psychology would be radically different.

Piaget, Jean. The Psychology of the Child. Translated by Helen Weaver. New
York: Basic Books, 2000. Piaget’s seminal presentation of his theories on
children’s cognitive development from infancy to adolescence.
Scholnik, Ellin Kofsky, ed. Conceptual Development: Piaget’s Legacy. Hillsdale,
N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum, 1999. A collection of papers presented at the
centenary of Piaget’s birth at the Jean Piaget Society’s annual sympo-
sium, assessing his legacy and effect on the understanding of children’s
cognitive development.
Serulnikov, Adriana. Piaget for Beginners. New York: Writers and Readers,
2000. A condensed overview of Piaget’s theories for the general public.
Part of the well-known For Beginners series.
Singer, Dorothy G., and Tracey A. Robinson. A Piaget Primer: How a Child
Thinks. Rev. ed. New York: Plume, 1996. An introduction to Piaget’s theo-
177
Psychology Basics
ries aimed at educators, child psychologists, and parents, using examples

and illustrations from classic children’s literature and popular children’s
television programming.
Smith, Lesley M., ed. Critical Readings on Piaget. New York: Routledge, 1996.
A collection of essays assessing Piaget’s theories and their impact, all orig-
inally published between 1990 and 1995. A follow-up to the same editor’s
Piaget: Critical Assessments (1992), which covered the period 1950 to 1990.
Thomas E. DeWolfe
See also: Adolescence: Cognitive Skills; Cognitive Psychology; Develop-

ment; Language; Moral Development.
178
Cognitive Psychology
Type of psychology: Cognition
Fields of study: Cognitive processes; thought
Cognitive psychology is concerned with the scientific study of human mental activities
involved in the acquisition, storage, retrieval, and use of information. Among its wide
concerns are perception, memory, reasoning, problem solving, intelligence, language,
and creativity; research in these areas has widespread practical applications.
Key concepts
• artificial intelligence
• cognitive behavioral therapy
• cognitive science
• episodic memory
• metamemory
• prospective memory
• semantic memory
• working memory
Cognitive psychology is that branch of psychology concerned with human

mental activities. A staggering array of topics fit under such a general head-
ing. In fact, it sometimes seems that there is no clear place to end the catalog
of cognitive topics, as mental operations intrude into virtually all human en-
deavors. As a general guideline, one might consider the subject matter of
cognitive psychology as those mental processes involved in the acquisition,
storage, retrieval, and use of information.
Among the more specific concerns of cognitive psychologists are percep-
tion, attention, memory, and imagery. Studies of perception and attention
might be concerned with how much of people’s vast sensory experience
they can further process and make sense of, and how they recognize incom-
ing information as forming familiar patterns. Questions regarding the qual-
ity of memory include how much information can be maintained, for how
long, and under what conditions; how information is organized in memory
and how is it retrieved or lost; and how accurate the memory is, as well as
what can be done to facilitate a person’s recall skills. Cognitive researchers
concerned with imagery are interested in people’s ability to “see” in their
minds a picture or image of an object, person, or scene that is not physically
present; cognitive researchers are interested in the properties of such im-
ages and how they can be manipulated.
In addition to these concerns, there is great interest in the higher-order
processes of planning, reasoning, problem solving, intelligence, language,
and creativity. Cognitive psychologists want to know, for example, what steps
179
Psychology Basics
are involved in planning a route to a destination or a solution to a problem,

and what factors influence people’s more abstract ability to reason. They
seek to understand the importance of prior knowledge or experience, to
discover which strategies are effective, and to see what obstacles typically im-
pede a person’s thinking. They are interested in the relationships between
language and thought and between creativity and intelligence.
The following exchange is useful in illustrating some of the topics impor-
tant to cognitive psychologists. Imagine that “Jacob” and “Janet” are two
children on a busy playground:
Jacob: Do you want to play some football?

Janet: Sure! Tell me where the ball is and I’ll go get it.
Jacob: The football’s in my locker in the equipment room. Go back in the build-
ing. Go past our classroom, turn right at the water fountain, and it’s the
second door on your left. My locker is number 12, and the combination is 6-
21-13.
Janet: Okay, it’ll just take me a couple of minutes. [As she runs to get the ball,
Janet repeats over and over to herself, “12; 6, 21, 13. . . .”]
Jacob: [shouting] The football field’s being watered; meet me in the gym.
Even such a simple encounter involves and depends upon a rich assort-
ment of cognitive skills. At a basic level, Jacob and Janet have to be aware of
each other. Their sensory systems allow the detection of each other, and
their brains work on the raw data (information) from the senses in order to
perceive or interpret the incoming information. In this case, the data are
recognized as the familiar patterns labeled “Jacob” and “Janet.” During the
course of the brief conversation, the children must also attend to (concen-
trate on) each other, and in doing so they may be less attentive to other de-
tectable sights and sounds of their environment.
This scenario illustrates the use of more than one type of memory. Janet
stores the locker number and combination in short-term memory (STM),
and she maintains the information by rehearsing it. After Janet retrieves the
ball and redirects her attention to choosing teams for the football game, she
may forget this information. Jacob does not need to rehearse his combina-
tion continually to maintain it; rather, his frequent use of his combination
and the meaningfulness of this information have helped him to store it in
long-term memory (LTM). If someone later asks Janet where she got the
football, she will retrieve that information from her episodic LTM. Episodic
memory holds information about how things appeared and when they oc-
curred; it stores things that depend on context. The language comprehen-
sion of the children also illustrates another type of LTM. Semantic LTM, or
semantic memory, holds all the information they need in order to use lan-
guage; it includes not only words and the symbols for them, their meaning
and what they represent but also the rules for manipulating them. When
Janet hears the words “football,” “water fountain,” and “locker,” she effort-
180
lessly retrieves their meanings from LTM. Furthermore, metamemory, an

understanding of the attributes of one’s own memories, is demonstrated.
Janet knows to rehearse the combination to prevent forgetting it.
Jacob probably employed mental imagery and relied on a cognitive map
in order to direct Janet to the equipment room. From his substantial mental
representation of the school environment, Jacob retrieved a specific route,
guided by a particular sequence of meaningful landmarks. In addition to
their language capabilities and their abilities to form and follow routes, a
number of other higher-level mental processes suggest something of the in-
telligence of these children. They appear to be following a plan that will re-
sult in a football game. Simple problem solving is demonstrated by Janet’s
calculation of how long it will take to retrieve the football and in Jacob’s de-
cision to use the gym floor as a substitute for the football field.
Theoretical and Methodological Approaches

To understand cognitive psychology, one must be familiar not only with the
relevant questions—the topic matter of the discipline—but also with the ap-
proach taken to answer these questions. Cognitive psychologists typically
employ an information-processing model to help them better understand
mental events. An assumption of this model is that mental activities (the pro-
cessing of information) can be broken down into a series of interrelated
stages and scientifically studied. A general comparison can be made be-
tween the information processing of a human and a computer. For exam-
ple, both have data input into the system, humans through their sense or-
gans and computers via the keyboard. Both systems then translate and
encode (store) the data. The computer translates the keyboard input into
electromagnetic signals for storage on a disk. People oftentimes translate
the raw data from their senses to a linguistic code which is retained in some
unique human storage device (for example, a piercing, rising-and-falling
pitch may be stored in memory as “baby’s cry”). Both humans and comput-
ers can manipulate the stored information in virtually limitless ways, and
both can later retrieve information from storage for output. Although there
are many dissimilarities between how computers and humans function, this
comparison accurately imparts the flavor of the information-processing
model.
In addition to constructing computational models that specify the stages
and processes involved in human thought, cognitive psychologists use a vari-
ety of observational and experimental methods to determine how the mind
works. Much can be learned, for example, from the study of patients with
neuropsychological disorders such as the progressive dementias, including
Alzheimer’s disease. The “lesion,” or brain injury, study is the oldest and
most widely used technique to study brain function. Examining what hap-
pens when one aspect of cognition is disrupted can reveal much about the
operation of the remaining mechanisms.
Behavioral studies—in contrast to “lesion” studies—examine cognitive
181
Psychology Basics
function in healthy subjects, using a variety of experimental methods devel-

oped throughout the twentieth century. One of the continuing challenges
of cognitive psychology is the construction of experiments in which observ-
able behaviors accurately reveal mental processes. Researchers bring volun-
teers into the laboratory and measure, for example, the time it takes for sub-
jects to judge whether a word they are shown had appeared in a list of words
they had earlier studied.
Other researchers study human cognition in more naturalistic settings
called field studies. In one such study, the average score of grocery shoppers
on a paper-and-pencil arithmetic test was 59 percent, but their proficiency
in the supermarket on analogous tasks reached ceiling level (98 percent).
Much of what is done in the laboratory could be thought of as basic re-
search, whereas field approaches to the study of cognition could be charac-
terized as applied research.
Applied Research in Cognitive Psychology

For many psychologists, the desire to “know about knowing” is sufficient rea-
son to study human cognition; however, there are more tangible benefits.
Examples of these widespread practical applications may be found in the
fields of artificial intelligence, law, and in the everyday world of decision
making.
Artificial intelligence (AI) is a branch of computer science that strives to
create a computer capable of reasoning, processing language, and, in short,
mimicking human intelligence. While this goal has yet to be obtained in
full, research in this area has made important contributions. The search for
AI has improved the understanding of human cognition; it has also pro-
duced applied benefits such as expert systems. Expert systems are computer
programs that simulate human expertise in specific domains. Such pro-
grams have been painstakingly developed by computer scientists who have
essentially extracted knowledge in a subject area from a human expert and
built it into a computer system designed to apply that knowledge. Expert sys-
tems do not qualify as true artificial intelligence, because, while they can
“think,” they can only do so very narrowly, on one particular topic.
A familiar expert system is the “chess computer.” A computerized chess
game is driven by a program that has a vast storehouse of chess knowledge
and the capability of interacting with a human player, “thinking” about each
game in which it is involved. Expert systems are also employed to solve prob-
lems in law, computer programming, and various facets of industry. A medi-
cal expert system has even been developed to consult interactively with pa-
tients and to diagnose and recommend a course of treatment for infectious
diseases.
The cognitive research of Elizabeth Loftus and her colleagues at the Uni-
versity of Washington demonstrates the shortcomings of human long-term
memory. This research is relevant to the interpretation of eyewitness testi-
mony in the courtroom. In one study, Loftus and John Palmer showed their
182
subjects films of automobile accidents and asked them to estimate the

speeds of the cars involved. The critical variable was the verb used in the
question to the subjects. That is, they were asked how fast the cars were go-
ing when they “smashed,” “collided,” “bumped,” “hit,” or “contacted” each
other. Interestingly, the stronger the verb, the greater was the speed esti-
mated. One interpretation of these findings is that the nature of the “lead-
ing question” biased the answers of subjects who were not really positive of
the cars’ speeds. Hence, if the question employed the verb “smashed,” the
subject was led to estimate that the cars were going fast. Any astute attorney
would have no trouble capitalizing on this phenomenon when questioning
witnesses to a crime or accident.
In a second experiment, Loftus and Palmer considered a different expla-
nation for their findings. Again, subjects saw filmed car accidents and were
questioned as to the speeds of the cars, with the key verb being varied as pre-
viously described. As before, those exposed to the verb “smashed” estimated
the fastest speeds. In the second part of the experiment, conducted a week
later, the subjects were asked additional questions about the accident, in-
cluding, “Did you see any broken glass?” Twenty percent of the subjects re-
ported seeing broken glass, though none was in the film. Of particular inter-
est was that the majority of those who made this error were in the group that
had been exposed to the strongest verb, “smashed.”
Loftus and Palmer reasoned that the subjects were melding actual infor-
mation that they had witnessed with information from another source en-
countered after the fact (the verb “smashed” presented by the questioner).
The result was a mental representation of an event that was partly truth and
partly fiction. This interpretation has implications for the evaluation of eye-
witness testimony. Before testifying in court, a witness will likely have been
questioned numerous times (and received many suggestions as to what may
have taken place) and may even have compared notes with other witnesses.
This process is likely to distort the originally experienced information.
Consider next the topic of decision making, an area of research in cogni-
tive psychology loaded with practical implications. Everyone makes scores
of decisions on a daily basis, from choosing clothing to match the weather to
selecting a college or a career objective. Psychologists Amos Tversky and
Daniel Kahneman are well known for their research on decision making
and, in particular, on the use of heuristics. Heuristics are shortcuts or rules
of thumb that are likely, but not guaranteed, to produce a correct decision.
It would seem beneficial for everyone to appreciate the limitations of such
strategies. For example, the availability heuristic often leads people astray
when their decisions involve the estimating of probabilities, as when faced
with questions such as, Which produces more fatalities, breast cancer or dia-
betes? Which are more numerous in the English language, words that begin
with k or words that have k as the third letter? Experimental subjects typi-
cally, and incorrectly, choose the first alternative. Kahneman and Tversky’s
research indicates that people rely heavily on examples that come most eas-
183
Psychology Basics
ily to mind—that is, the information most available in memory. Hence, peo-
ple overestimate the incidence of breast-cancer fatalities because such trage-
dies get more media attention relative to diabetes, a more prolific but less
exotic killer. In a similar vein, words that begin with k come to mind more
easily (probably because people are more likely to organize their vocabular-
ies by the initial sounds of the words) than words with k as the third letter, al-
though the latter, in fact, outnumber the former. One’s decision making will
doubtless be improved if one is aware of the potential drawbacks associated
with the availability heuristic and if one is able to resist the tendency to esti-
mate probabilities based upon the most easily imagined examples.
Cognitive Contexts
The workings of the human mind have been pondered throughout re-
corded history. The science of psychology, however, only dates back to 1879,
when Wilhelm Wundt established the first laboratory for the study of psy-
chology in Leipzig, Germany. Although the term was not yet popular,
Wundt’s primary interest was clearly in cognition. His students laboriously
practiced the technique of introspection (the careful attention to, and the
objective reporting of, one’s own sensations, experiences, and thoughts), as
Wundt hoped to identify through this method the basic elements of human
thought. Wundt’s interests remained fairly popular until around 1920. At
that time, John B. Watson, a noted American psychologist and behaviorist,
spearheaded a campaign to redefine the agenda of psychology. Watson was
convinced that the workings of the mind could not be objectively studied
through introspection and hence mandated that the proper subject matter
for psychologists should be overt, observable behaviors exclusively. In this
way, dissatisfaction with a method of research (introspection) led to the
abandonment of an important psychological topic (mental activity).
In the 1950’s, a number of forces came into play that led to the reemer-
gence of cognitive psychology in the United States. First, during World War
II, considerable research had been devoted to human-factors issues such as
human skills and performance within, for example, the confines of a tank or
cockpit. After the war, researchers showed continued interest in human at-
tention, perception, decision making, and so on, and they were influenced
by a branch of communication science, known as information theory, that
dealt abstractly with questions of information processing. The integration of
these two topics resulted eventually in the modern information-processing
model, mentioned above.
Second, explosive gains were made in the field of computer science. Of
particular interest to psychology were advances in the area of artificial intel-
ligence. It was a natural progression for psychologists to begin comparing
computer and brain processes, and this analogy served to facilitate cognitive
research.
Third, there was growing dissatisfaction with behavioral psychology as de-
fined by Watson and with its seeming inability to explain complex psycho-
184
logical phenomena. In particular, Noam Chomsky, a well-known linguist,

proposed that the structure of language was too complicated to be acquired
via the principles of behaviorism. It became apparent to many psychologists
that to understand truly the diversity of human behavior, internal mental
processes would have to be accepted and scientifically studied.
Working memory emerged as an important theoretical construct in the
1980’s and 1990’s. Everyday cognitive tasks—such as reading a newspaper
article or calculating the appropriate amount to tip in a restaurant—often
involve multiple steps with intermediate results that need to be kept in mind
temporarily to accomplish the task at hand successfully. “Working memory”
refers to the system or mechanism underlying the maintenance of task-
relevant information during the performance of a cognitive task. As the
“hub of cognition,” working memory has been called “perhaps the most sig-
nificant achievement of human mental evolution.” According to Alan Bad-
deley, working memory comprises a visuospatial sketchpad; a phonological
loop, concerned with acoustic and verbal information; a central executive
that is involved in the control and regulation of the system; and an episodic
buffer that combines information from long-term memory with that from
the visuospatial sketchpad and the phonological loop. Prospective memory
is also emerging as an important domain of research in cognitive psychol-
ogy. This type of memory involves the intention to carry out an action in the
future: for instance, to pick up dry cleaning after work.
Cognitive psychology is now a vibrant subdiscipline that has attracted
some of the finest scientific minds. It is a standard component in most un-
dergraduate and graduate psychology programs. More than half a dozen ac-
ademic journals are devoted to its research, and it continues to pursue an-
swers to questions that are important to psychology and other disciplines as
well. The cognitive perspective has heavily influenced other subfields of psy-
chology. For example, many social psychologists are interested in social cog-
nition, the reasoning underlying such phenomena as prejudice, altruism,
and persuasion. Some clinical psychologists are interested in understanding
the abnormal thought processes underlying problems such as depression
and anorexia nervosa. A subspecialty—cognitive behavioral therapy—treats
mental illness using methods that attempt to directly treat these abnormal
thoughts.
The burgeoning field of cognitive science represents a union of cognitive
psychology, neuroscience, computer science, linguistics, and philosophy.
Cognitive scientists are concerned with mental processes but are particu-
larly interested in establishing general, fundamental principles of informa-
tion processing as they may be applied by humans or machines. Their re-
search is often heavily dependent on complex computer models rather than
experimentation with humans. With fast-paced advances in computer tech-
nology, and the exciting potential of expertise shared in an interdisciplinary
fashion, the field of cognitive science holds considerable promise for an-
swering questions about human cognition.
185
Psychology Basics

Ashcraft, Mark H. Human Memory and Cognition. 2d ed. New York: Harper-
Collins College, 1994. A fine textbook, geared for college students who
have had some background in psychology but accessible to the inquisitive
layperson. Ashcraft writes informally and provides chapter outlines and
summaries, a glossary of key terms, and suggested supplemental read-
ings. Perception and attention, memory, language, reasoning, decision
making, and problem solving are all well covered.
Baddeley, Alan D. “The Cognitive Psychology of Everyday Life.” British Jour-
nal of Psychology 72, no. 2 (1981): 257-269. An interesting journal article in
which Baddeley describes his research conducted outside the laboratory
environment. Considers such practical topics as absentmindedness, alco-
hol effects, and the effectiveness of saturation advertising. A must for
those who question the ecological validity (the real-life applicability) of
cognitive research.
Berger, Dale E., Kathy Pezdek, and William P. Banks, eds. Applications of
Cognitive Psychology. Hillsdale, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum, 1987. Five chap-
ters each on three topics: educational applications, teaching of thinking
and problem solving, and human-computer interactions. The chapters
range in sophistication and accessibility, so this book should appeal to
readers of diverse backgrounds. Includes helpful name and subject in-
dexes.
Hochberg, Julian. Perception and Cognition at Century’s End. San Diego, Calif.:
Academic Press, 1998. This book reviews research findings over the pre-
ceding half-century in broad areas of perception and other aspects of
cognitive functioning.
Kahneman, Daniel, Paul Slovic, and Amos Tversky, eds. Judgment Under Un-
certainty: Heuristics and Biases. New York: Cambridge University Press,
1987. A comprehensive source on heuristics and decision making with an
easy-to-understand introductory chapter by the editors. A four-chapter
section is devoted to the availability heuristic, and there is an interesting
chapter on probabilistic reasoning in clinical medicine.
Kendler, Howard H. Historical Foundations of Modern Psychology. Chicago:
Dorsey Press, 1987. A well-written account of the emergence of cognitive
psychology and the contributions of other disciplines such as linguistics,
engineering, and computer science. Approachable for the layperson;
provides a fine historical backdrop. It is of limited use, beyond review, for
the upper-level college student.
Miyake, Akira, and Priti Shah, eds. Models of Working Memory: Mechanisms of
Active Maintenance and Executive Control. New York: Cambridge University
Press, 1999. This volume compares and contrasts existing models of work-
ing memory. It does so by asking each contributor to address the same
comprehensive set of important theoretical questions on working mem-
ory. The answers to these questions provided in the volume elucidate the
emerging general consensus on the nature of working memory among
186
different theorists and crystallize incompatible theoretical claims that

must be resolved in future.
Pinker, Steven. How the Mind Works. New York: W. W. Norton, 1997. Pinker,
one of the world’s leading cognitive scientists, discusses what the mind is,
how it evolved, and how it allows one to see, think, feel, laugh, interact,
enjoy the arts, and ponder the mysteries of life. He explains the mind by
“reverse-engineering” it—figuring out what natural selection designed it
to accomplish in the environment in which humans evolved.
Sternberg, Robert J., and Talia Ben-Zeev. Complex Cognition: The Psychology of
Human Thought. New York: Oxford University Press, 2001. Reviews of the
key concepts and research findings within the field of cognitive psychol-
ogy. The authors offer a synthesis of the two dominant approaches in cog-
nitive studies—normative reference and “bounded rationality”—com-
bining the best elements of each to present an inclusive new theory that
emphasizes multiple points of view, including both the objective and sub-
jective views of the self and others.
Wells, Gary L., and Elizabeth F. Loftus, eds. Eyewitness Testimony: Psychological
Perspectives. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1984. A fourteen-
chapter source with heavy consideration of laboratory research and refer-
ences to courtroom cases as well. There is nice coverage of research on
children as witnesses as well as on “earwitness” testimony and the use of
hypnosis as a memory aid.
Mark B. Alcorn; updated by Allyson M. Washburn
See also: Cognitive Development: Jean Piaget; Language; Logic and Rea-
soning.
187
Cognitive Social Learning
Walter Mischel
Fields of study: Behavioral and cognitive models; personality theory
Mischel’s social learning theory presents a cognitive-social alternative to traditional

personality theories. He posits that behavior is determined by a complex interaction of
situational and cognitive variables and cannot be predicted from a few widely general-
ized traits. Consistent features in behavior result from cognitive person variables, de-
fined as acquired and relatively stable modes of information processing.
Key concepts
• construction competencies
• encoding strategy
• expectancies
• person variable
• personal construct
• personality trait
• prototype
• stimulus value
Psychologist Walter Mischel developed a cognitive social learning approach

to personality that presents a serious challenge to traditional theories and
their central tenet that behavior can be predicted from a few widely general-
ized traits. In his influential book Personality and Assessment (1968), Mischel
reviewed the literature on personality traits. Personality traits can be defined
as a stable disposition to behave in a given way over time and across situa-
tions. Although Mischel found impressive consistencies for some attributes,
such as intelligence, the vast majority of behavior patterns were not consis-
tent, even in highly similar situations. Mischel concluded that behavior is
largely determined by situational variables that interact in complex ways
with individual modes of information processing. Stable features in behav-
ior result from acquired cognitive person variables (relatively stable individ-
ual differences that influence how people interact with their world).
Person Variables
Cognitive and behavioral construction competencies represent the first of
the person variables. Mischel terms them “competencies” to emphasize that
they represent potentials—that is, what people can do, rather than what they
do. Referring to their “constructive” quality implies that people do not pas-
sively store but actively construct their experiences by transforming and syn-
thesizing incoming information in novel ways. Another of these person vari-
ables involves encoding strategies and personal constructs. People encode
information and classify events in personalized, unique ways. For different
188
Cognitive Social Learning: Walter Mischel
individuals, traitlike constructs such as intelligence or honesty may therefore

have some overlapping features but may also have many idiosyncratic ones.
This explains why two people can witness and process the same event but in-
terpret it differently. Both people only attend to stimuli consistent with their
own personal construct systems and ignore discrepant information.
Mischel maintains that besides knowing people’s potentials and how they
construct events, to predict behavior people must also know their expecta-
tions. One type, termed stimulus-outcome expectancies, develops when
people form associations between two events and begin to expect the sec-
ond event as soon as the first occurs. For example, if a child learns to associ-
ate parental frowning with being scolded, any angry face alone may instill
anxiety.
A second type, termed response-outcome expectancies, refers to learned
“if-then rules,” in which specific actions will result in certain outcomes. Out-
come expectancies can have a significant influence on what people do.
When expectations are inconsistent with reality, they can lead to dysfunc-
tional behavior. Expecting relief from alcohol, when drinking actually leads
to multiple problems, illustrates this point.
Subjective stimulus values—subjective values or worth that a person at-
tributes to an object or event—are another type of person variable. In spite
of holding identical outcome expectancies, people may behave differently if
they do not attribute equal value to this outcome. For example, many be-
lieve that practice makes perfect, but not everyone values achievement. Fur-
thermore, the worth of a given outcome often depends on its context. Even
an avid skier might cancel a ski trip on an icy, stormy winter day.
Self-regulatory systems and plans are yet another kind of person variable.
Besides being affected by external rewards and punishments, people are
capable of regulating their own behavior. They set goals and mediate self-
imposed consequences, depending on whether they meet their own stan-
dards. These self-regulatory processes produce individual differences in be-
havior independently from the effects of extrinsically imposed conditions.
More recently, Mischel and his colleagues have proposed that people also
classify events based on cognitive prototypes. These are analogous to tem-
plates, and they contain only the best or most typical features of a concept.
Although prototypes facilitate the classification of input information, they
carry with them the danger of stereotyping. Anyone who, for example, has
mistaken a woman business executive for the secretary can appreciate the
problem resulting from inaccurate classification.
In summary, with the concept of person variables, Mischel can explain
behavioral consistency and at the same time take into account the environ-
ment as an important determinant of human actions. In psychologically
strong situations, person variables play a minimal role (at a church service,
for example, all people behave similarly). In psychologically weak situations
(such as a cocktail party), however, individual differences are pronounced
because there are no consistent cues to signal what behaviors are deemed
189
Psychology Basics
appropriate. Therefore, whether or how much cognitive dispositions influ-

ence behavior varies with the specific situation.
Dispositional and Situational Variables

Despite a widespread tendency among people to describe themselves and
others in traitlike terms (intelligent, friendly, aggressive, domineering, and
so forth), research has shown that a person’s behavior cannot be predicted
from a few broadly generalized personality traits. This does not mean that
behavior is totally inconsistent, but that dispositions alone are insufficient to
explain consistency and that dispositional, as well as situational, variables
need to be taken into account for a complete analysis.
To separate the effects of person and situation variables on behavior,
Mischel and his colleagues conducted a series of experiments. In one study,
the experimenters assessed adolescents’ dispositions toward success or fail-
ure. Weeks later they had them solve skill-related tasks and, regardless of
their actual performance, gave one group success, a second group failure,
and a third group no feedback on their performance. Then the adolescents
had to choose between a less desirable reward, one for which attainment was
independent of performance on similar tasks, and a preferred reward, for
which attainment was performance-dependent. In both bogus feedback
conditions, the situational variables had a powerful effect and completely
overrode preexisting dispositions toward success or failure. Adolescents
who believed they had failed the tasks more often selected the noncon-
tingent reward, while those who believed they had succeeded chose the con-
tingent reward. For subjects in the no-feedback condition, however, the pre-
existing expectancy scores were highly accurate predictors of their reward
choices. This study illustrates how dispositions emerge under weak situa-
tional cues but play a trivial role when the setting provides strong cues for
behavior. Therefore, Mischel (1973) considers it more meaningful to ana-
lyze “behavior-contingency units” that link specific behavior patterns to
those conditions in which they are likely to occur, rather than looking only
at behavior. In other words, instead of labeling people “aggressive,” it would
be more useful to specify under what conditions these people display aggres-
sive behaviors. Such precise specifications would guard against an oversim-
plified trait approach and highlight the complexities and idiosyncrasies of
behavior as well as its interdependence with specific stimulus conditions.
Self-Control
Mischel and his colleagues also have conducted extensive research on self-
control. Their work has been summarized in an article published in 1989 in
the journal Science. In several experiments, the researchers attempted to
clarify why some people are capable of self-regulation, at least in some areas
of their lives, while others fail in such attempts. They found enduring differ-
ences in self-control as early as the preschool years. In one study, for exam-
ple, they showed young children pairs of treats, one less and one more desir-
190
able (for example, two versus five cookies or one versus two marshmallows).
The children were told that the experimenter would leave the room and
that they could obtain the more valuable treat if they waited until he or she
returned. They could also ring the bell to bring the experimenter back
sooner, but then they would receive the lesser treat. During the waiting peri-
od, which lasted a maximum of fifteen minutes, the children were unobtru-
sively observed. Later, the children’s strategies to bridge the waiting period
were analyzed. It became apparent that self-control increased when the chil-
dren used behavioral or cognitive strategies to bridge the delay, such as
avoiding looking at the rewards, distracting themselves with singing, playing
with their fingers, or cognitively transforming the rewards (for example,
thinking of marshmallows as clouds). Interestingly, a follow-up study more
than ten years later revealed that those preschool children who had dis-
played more self-control early were socially and academically more compe-
tent, more attentive, more verbal, and better able than their peers to cope
with stress as adolescents. In a related study, the length of delay time in pre-
school proved to be correlated with the adolescents’ Scholastic Aptitude
Test (SAT) scores, suggesting that greater self-control is related to superior
academic achievement.
These studies provide an excellent illustration of how cognitive person
variables sometimes can have very stable and generalized effects on behav-
ior. The early acquisition of effective cognitive and behavioral strategies to
delay gratification had a positive influence on the children’s long-term ad-
justment. Thus, self-control fulfills the requirements of a “personality dispo-
sition” in Mischel’s sense, because it constitutes an important mediating
mechanism for adaptive social behavior throughout the life cycle.
Although the examples presented above lend support to Mischel’s the-
ory, one might argue that children’s behavior under the constraints of a re-
search setting is artificial and may not reflect what they normally do in their
natural environment. While this argument is plausible, it was not supported
in a later study with six- to twelve-year-old children in a summer residential
treatment facility. Observing children under naturalistic circumstances in
this facility led to comparable results. Children who spontaneously used ef-
fective cognitive-attentional strategies for self-regulation showed greater
self-control in delay situations and were better adjusted than their peers.
An unanswered question is how best to teach children effective informa-
tion-processing skills. If these skills acquire dispositional character and in-
fluence overall adjustment, their attainment would indeed be of vital impor-
tance to healthy development.
Evolution of Research
Until the late 1960’s, the field of personality psychology was dominated by
trait and state theories. Their central assumption, that people have traits
that produce enduring consistencies in their behavior, went unchallenged
for many years. The widespread appeal of these trait assumptions notwith-
191
Psychology Basics
standing, since the late 1960’s personality and social psychologists have been
entangled in the “person-situation debate,” a controversy over whether the
presumed stability in behavior might be based more on illusion than reality.
While doubts about the existence of traits were already raised in the middle
of the twentieth century, the work of Walter Mischel was instrumental in
bringing the controversy into the forefront of academic psychology. In re-
viewing a voluminous body of literature, Mischel showed in 1968 that virtu-
ally all so-called trait measures, except intelligence, change substantially
over time and even more dramatically across situations. Traits such as hon-
esty, assertiveness, or attitudes toward authority typically showed reliability
across situations of .20 to .30. This means that if the correlation of behavior
presumably reflecting a trait in two different situations is .30, less than one-
tenth (.30 × .30 = .09, or 9 percent) of the variability in the behavior can be
attributed to the trait. Mischel therefore concluded that perceptions of be-
havioral stability, while not arbitrary, are often only weakly related to the
phenomenon in question.
Functional Analysis
There is consensus, however, that human actions show at least some degree
of consistency, which is evidenced most strongly by the sense of continuity
people experience in their own selves. How can people reconcile the incon-
sistency between their own impressions and the empirical data? Mischel’s
cognitive social learning perspective presents one possible solution to this
dilemma. Rather than trying to explain behavior by a few generalized traits,
Mischel has shifted the emphasis to a thorough examination of the relation-
ship between behavior patterns and the context in which they occur, as the
following example illustrates. Assume that parents are complaining about
their child’s demanding behavior and the child’s many tantrums. After ob-
serving this behavior in various situations, a traditional personality theorist
might conclude that it manifests an underlying “aggressive drive.” In con-
trast, a social learning theorist might seek to identify the specific conditions
under which the tantrums occur and then change these conditions to see if
the tantrums increase or decrease. This technique, termed “functional anal-
ysis” (as described in Mischel in 1968), systematically introduces and with-
draws stimuli in the situation to examine how the behavior of interest
changes as a function of situational constraints.
The controversy sparked by Mischel’s work has not been completely re-
solved. Few psychologists today, however, would assume an extreme position
and either argue that human actions are completely determined by traits or
advocate a total situation-specificity of behavior. As with so many controver-
sies, the truth probably lies somewhere in the middle.

Lieber, Robert M., and Michael D. Spiegler. Personality: Strategies and Issues.
7th ed. Monterey, Calif.: Brooks/Cole, 1996. Chapter 21 presents a read-
192
able synopsis of Mischel’s cognitive social-learning theory and reviews the

concept of person variables, Mischel’s work on delay of gratification, and
his position on the interaction of emotion and cognition. Highly recom-
mended as an easy introduction to Mischel’s work.
Mischel, Harriet N., and Walter Mischel, eds. Readings in Personality. New
York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1973. Presents a collection of papers
by different authors on some of the central topics and viewpoints in per-
sonality psychology. Provides in-depth analyses of various trait, state, and
social theories of personality. Several chapters by Walter Mischel present
his views on social learning, personality, and his empirical work on self-
control.
Mischel, Walter. Personality and Assessment. 1968. Reprint. Mahwah, N.J.: Law-
rence Erlbaum, 1996. Classic exposition of Mischel’s early work, contain-
ing a compelling critique of traditional trait and state approaches to per-
sonality. Discusses issues relevant to the assessment and modification of
maladaptive social behavior. Should be available in many public and all
university libraries.
__________. “Toward a Cognitive Social Learning Reconceptualization of
Personality.” Psychological Review 80, no. 4 (1973): 252-283. Written in re-
sponse to the many reactions Mischel’s 1968 book provoked in the re-
search community. Clarifies several common misunderstandings of
Mischel’s position (for example, the situation-specificity issue) and gives
a thorough presentation of his five personality variables. No specialized
knowledge in psychology or personality theory is necessary for the reader
to be able to follow the author’s main arguments.
Mischel, Walter, Yuichi Shoda, and Monica L. Rodriguez. “Delay of Gratifi-
cation in Children.” Science 244, no. 4907 (1989): 933-938. Presents an ex-
cellent, brief summary of Mischel’s work on self-control and delay of grat-
ification spanning almost two decades. Discusses a number of stable
individual differences in information-processing and strategic behaviors
used by preschool children that were predictive of adult social adjust-
ment.
Edelgard Wulfert
See also: Cognitive Behavior Therapy; Cognitive Psychology; Cognitive

Therapy; Learning; Personal Constructs: George A. Kelly; Social Learning:
Albert Bandura.
193
Cognitive Therapy
Field of study: Cognitive therapies
Cognitive therapy holds that emotional disorders are largely determined by cognition,
or thinking, that cognitive activity can take the form of language or images, and that
emotional disorders can be treated by helping patients modify their cognitive distor-
tions. Treatment programs based on this model have been highly successful with de-
pression, panic disorder, generalized anxiety disorder, and other emotional problems.
Key concepts
• arbitrary inference
• automatic thoughts
• cognitive specificity hypothesis
• cognitive triad
• schemata
• selective abstraction
Cognitive therapy, originally developed by Aaron T. Beck (born in 1921), is

based on the view that cognition (the process of acquiring knowledge and
forming beliefs) is a primary determinant of mood and behavior. Beck de-
veloped his theory while treating depressed patients. He noticed that these
patients tended to distort whatever happened to them in the direction of
self-blame and catastrophe. Thus, an event interpreted by a normal person
as irritating and inconvenient, for example, the malfunctioning of an auto-
mobile, would be interpreted by the depressed patient as another example
of the utter hopelessness of life. Beck’s central point is that depressives draw
illogical conclusions and come to evaluate negatively themselves, their im-
mediate world, and their future. They see only personal failings, present
misfortunes, and overwhelming difficulties ahead. It is from these cogni-
tions that all the other symptoms of depression derive.
It was from Beck’s early work with depressed patients that cognitive ther-
apy was developed. Shortly thereafter, the concepts and procedures were ap-
plied to other psychological problems, with notable success.
Automatic Thoughts and Schemata

Two concepts of particular relevance to cognitive therapy are the concepts
of automatic thoughts and schemata. Automatic thoughts are thoughts that
appear to be going on all the time. These thoughts are quite brief—only the
essential words in a sentence seem to occur, as in a telegraphic style. Further,
they seem to be autonomous, in that the person made no effort to initiate
them, and they seem plausible or reasonable to the person (although they
may seem far-fetched to somebody else). Thus, as a depressed person is giv-
ing a talk to a group of business colleagues, he or she will have a variety of
thoughts. There will be thoughts about the content of the material. There is
194
Cognitive Therapy
also a second stream of thoughts occurring. In this second channel, the per-
son may experience such thoughts as: “This is a waste of time,” or “They
think I’m dumb.” These are automatic thoughts.
Beck has suggested that although automatic thoughts are occurring all
the time, the person is likely to overlook these thoughts when asked what he
or she is thinking. Thus, it is necessary to train the person to attend to these
automatic thoughts. Beck pointed out that when people are depressed,
these automatic thoughts are filled with negative thoughts of the self, the
world, and the future. Further, these automatic thoughts are quite distorted,
and finally, when these thoughts are carefully examined and modified to be
more in keeping with reality, the depression subsides.
The concept of schemata, or core beliefs, becomes critical in understand-
ing why some people are prone to having emotional difficulties and others
are not. The schema appears to be the root from which the automatic
thoughts derive. Beck suggests that people develop a propensity to think
crookedly as a result of early life experiences. He theorizes that in early life, an
individual forms concepts—realistic as well as unrealistic—from experiences.
Of particular importance are individuals’ attitudes toward themselves, their
environment, and their future. These deeply held core beliefs about oneself
are seen by Beck as critical in the causation of emotional disorders. Accord-
ing to cognitive theory, the reason these early beliefs are so critical is that
once they are formed, the person has a tendency to distort or view subse-
quent experiences to be consistent with these core beliefs. Thus, an individ-
ual who, as a child, was subjected to severe, unprovoked punishment from a
disturbed parent may conclude “I am weak” or “I am inferior.” Once this
conclusion has been formulated, it would appear to be strongly reinforced
over years and years of experiences at the hands of the parent. Thus, when
this individual becomes an adult, he or she tends to interpret even normal
frustrations as more proof of the original belief: “See, I really am inferior.”
Examples of these negative schemata or core beliefs are “I am inferior,” “I
am unlovable,” and “I cannot do anything right.” People holding such core
beliefs about themselves would differ strongly in their views of a frustrating
experience from those people who hold a core belief such as “I am capable.”
Another major contribution of cognitive therapy is Beck’s cognitive spec-
ificity hypothesis. Specifically, Beck has suggested that each of the emotional
disorders is characterized by its own patterns of thinking. In the case of de-
pression, the thought content is concerned with ideas of personal defi-
ciency, impossible environmental demands and obstacles, and nihilistic ex-
pectations. For example, a depressed patient might interpret a frustrating
situation, such as a malfunctioning automobile, as evidence of his or her
own inadequacy: “If I were really competent, I would have anticipated this
problem and been able to avoid it.” Additionally, the depressed patient
might react to the malfunctioning automobile with “This is too much, I can-
not take it anymore.” To the depressed patient, this would simply be another
example of the utter hopelessness of life.
195
Psychology Basics
Patterns of Thought
While the cognitive content of depression emphasizes the negative view of
the self, the world, and the future, anxiety disorders are characterized by
fears of physical and psychological danger. The anxious patient’s thoughts
are filled with themes of danger. These people anticipate detrimental occur-
rences to themselves, their family, their property, their status, and other in-
tangibles that they value.
In phobias, as in anxiety, there is the cognitive theme of danger; however,
the “danger” is confined to definable situations. As long as phobic sufferers
are able to avoid these situations, they do not feel threatened and may be rel-
atively calm. The cognitive content of panic disorder is characterized by a
catastrophic interpretation of bodily or mental experiences. Thus, patients
with panic disorder are prone to regard any unexplained symptom or sensa-
tion as a sign of some impending catastrophe. As a result, their cognitive
processing system focuses their attention on bodily or psychological experi-
ence. For example, one patient saw discomfort in the chest as evidence of an
impending heart attack.
The cognitive feature of the paranoid reaction is the misinterpretation of
experience in terms of mistreatment, abuse, or persecution. The cognitive
theme of the conversion disorder (a disorder characterized by physical com-
plaints such as paralysis or blindness, of which no underlying physical basis
can be determined) is the conviction that one has a physical disorder. As a
result of this belief, the patient experiences sensory or motor abnormalities
that are consistent with the patient’s faulty conception of organic pathology.
Changing the Patient’s Mind

The goal of cognitive therapy is to assist the patient to evaluate his or her
thought processes carefully, to identify cognitive errors, and to substitute
more adaptive, realistic cognitions. This goal is accomplished by therapists
helping patients to see their thinking about themselves (or their situation)
as similar to the activity of a scientist—that they are engaged in the activity of
developing hypotheses (or theories) about their world. Like a scientist, the
patient needs to “test” his or her theory carefully. Thus, patients who have
concluded that they are “worthless” people would be encouraged to test
their “theories” rigorously to determine if this is indeed accurate. Further,
in the event that the theories are not accurate, patients would be encour-
aged to change their theories to make them more consistent with reality
(what they find in their experience).
A slightly different intervention developed by Beck and his colleagues is
to help the patient identify common cognitive distortions. Beck originally
identified four cognitive distortions frequently found in emotional disor-
ders: arbitrary inference, selective abstraction, overgeneralization, and mag-
nification or minimization. These were later expanded to ten or more by
Beck’s colleagues and students.
Arbitrary inference is defined as the process of drawing a conclusion
196
Cognitive Therapy
from a situation, event, or experience when there is no evidence to support

the conclusion or when the conclusion is contrary to the evidence. For ex-
ample, a depressed patient on a shopping trip had the thought, “The sales-
clerk thinks I am a nobody.” The patient then felt sad. On being questioned
by the psychologist, the patient realized that there was no factual basis for
this thought.
Selective abstraction refers to the process of focusing on a detail taken
out of context, ignoring other, more salient features of the situation, and
conceptualizing the whole experience on the basis of this element. For ex-
ample, a patient was praised by friends about the patient’s child-care activi-
ties. Through an oversight, however, the patient failed to have her child vac-
cinated during the appropriate week. Her immediate thought was “I am a
failure as a mother.” This idea became paramount despite all the other evi-
dence of her competence.
Overgeneralization refers to patients’ patterns of drawing a general con-
clusion about their ability, their performance, or their worth on the basis of
a single incident. For example, a student regards his poor performance on
the first examination of the semester as final proof that he “will never make
it in college.” Magnification and minimization refer to gross errors in evalu-
ation. For example, a person, believing that he has completely ruined his
car (magnification) when he sees that there is a slight scratch on the rear
fender, regards himself as “good for nothing.” In contrast, minimization re-
fers to minimizing one’s achievements, protesting that these achievements
do not mean anything. For example, a highly successful businesswoman
who was depressed concluded that her many prior successes “were noth-
ing. . . simply luck.” Using the cognitive distortions, people are taught to ex-
amine their thoughts, to identify any distortions, and then to modify their
thoughts in order to eliminate the distortions.
Therapeutic Techniques
In terms of the therapeutic process, the focus is initially on the automatic
thoughts of patients. Once patients are relatively adept at identifying and
modifying their maladaptive automatic thoughts, the therapy begins to fo-
cus on the maladaptive underlying beliefs or schemata. As previously noted,
these beliefs are fundamental beliefs that people hold about themselves.
These beliefs are not as easy to identify as the automatic thoughts. Rather,
they are identified in an inferential process. Common patterns are ob-
served; for example, the person may seem to be operating by the rule “If I
am not the best _____, then I am a failure,” or “If I am not loved by my
spouse or mate, then I am worthless.” As in the case of the earlier cognitive
work with automatic thoughts, these beliefs are carefully evaluated for their
adaptability or rationality. Maladaptive beliefs are then modified to more
adaptive, realistic beliefs.
A variety of techniques have been developed by cognitive therapists for
modifying maladaptive cognitions. One example of these techniques is self-
197
Psychology Basics
monitoring. This involves the patient’s keeping a careful hour-by-hour re-

cord of his or her activities, associated moods, or other pertinent phenom-
ena. One useful variant is to have the patient record his or her mood on a
simple zero-to-one-hundred scale, where zero represents the worst he or she
has ever felt and one hundred represents the best. In addition, the patient
can record the degree of mastery or pleasure associated with each recorded
activity.
A number of hypotheses can be tested using self-monitoring, such as “It
does not do any good for me to get out of bed,” “I am always miserable; it
never lets up,” and “My schedule is too full for me to accomplish what I
must.” By simply checking the self-monitoring log, one can easily determine
if one’s miserable mood ever ceases. A careful examination of the com-
pleted record is a far better basis for judging such hypotheses than is the pa-
tient’s memory of recent events, because his or her recollections are almost
always tainted by the depression.
As therapy progresses and patients begin to experience more elevated
moods, the focus of treatment becomes more cognitive. Patients are in-
structed to observe and record automatic thoughts, perhaps at a specific
time each evening, as well as recording when they become aware of in-
creased dysphoria. Typically, the thoughts are negative self-referents (“I am
worthless” or “I will never amount to anything”), and initially, the therapist
points out their unreasonable and self-defeating nature. With practice, pa-
tients learn “distancing,” or dealing with such thoughts objectively and eval-
uating them, rather than blindly accepting them. Homework assignments
can facilitate distancing: The patient records an automatic thought, and
next to it he or she writes down a thought that counters the automatic
thought, as the therapist might have done. According to Beck, certain basic
themes soon emerge, such as being abandoned, as well as stylistic patterns
of thinking, such as overgeneralization. The themes reflect the aforemen-
tioned rules, and the ultimate goal of therapy is to assist the patient to mod-
ify them.
Finally, cognitive therapy has been applied to a variety of psychological
disorders with striking success. For example, studies from seven indepen-
dent centers have compared the efficacy of cognitive therapy to antidepres-
sant medication, a treatment of established efficacy. Comparisons of cogni-
tive therapy to drugs have found cognitive therapy to be superior or equal to
antidepressant medication. Further, follow-up studies indicate that cogni-
tive therapy has greater long-term effects than drug therapy. Of special sig-
nificance is the evidence of greater sustained improvement over time with
cognitive therapy.
Cognitive therapy has been successfully applied to panic disorder, result-
ing in practically complete reduction of panic attacks after twelve to sixteen
weeks of treatment. Additionally, cognitive therapy has been successfully ap-
plied to generalized anxiety disorder, eating disorders, and inpatient de-
pression.
198
Cognitive Therapy
Depression and Cognitive Therapy

Cognitive theory and cognitive therapy originated in Beck’s observation
and treatment of depressed patients. Originally trained in psychoanalysis,
Beck observed that his patients experienced specific types of thoughts, of
which they were only dimly aware, that they did not report during their free
associations. Beck noticed that these thoughts were frequently followed by
an unpleasant effect. Further, he noted that as the patients examined and
modified their thoughts, their mood began to improve.
At the time of the emergence of the cognitive model, the treatment world
was dominated primarily by the psychoanalytic model (with its heavy em-
phasis on the unconscious processes) and to a lesser extent by the behav-
ioral model (with its emphasis on the behavioral processes, to the exclusion
of thought). The psychoanalytic model was under attack, primarily because
of a lack of careful empirical support. In contrast, behavior therapists were
actively demonstrating the efficacy of their approaches in carefully designed
studies. Beck and his students began to develop and test cognitive proce-
dures systematically, and they have developed an impressive body of re-
search support for the approach.

Beck, Aaron T. Cognitive Therapy and the Emotional Disorders. New York: Inter-
national Universities Press, 1976. An easy-to-read book that presents a
general overview of the cognitive model and illustrates the cognitive
model of different psychological disorders.
Beck, Aaron T., and Gary Emery. Anxiety Disorders and Phobias: A Cognitive Per-
spective. Reprint. New York: Basic Books, 1990. Presents the cognitive the-
ory and model of anxiety disorders, as well as the clinical techniques used
with anxious patients.
Beck, Aaron T., A. J. Rush, B. F. Shaw, and Gary Emery. Cognitive Therapy of
Depression. Reprint. New York: Guilford Press, 1987. Presents the cogni-
tive theory of depression and actual techniques used with depressed pa-
tients. Makes a theoretical contribution and serves as a clinical handbook
on depression.
Burns, David D. Feeling Good: The New Mood Therapy. Rev. ed. New York: Avon,
1999. Readable introduction to the major concepts and techniques of
cognitive therapy; written by one of Beck’s students.
Emery, Gary, Steven D. Hollom, and Richard C. Bedrosian, eds. New Direc-
tions in Cognitive Therapy: A Casebook. New York: Guilford Press, 1981. Con-
tains cases presented by major cognitive therapists. Focuses on the appli-
cation of cognitive therapy to a wide range of presenting problems (such
as loneliness and agoraphobia) as well as diverse populations.
Donald G. Beal
See also: Cognitive Behavior Therapy; Cognitive Social Learning: Walter

Mischel; Personal Constructs: George A. Kelly.
199
Conditioning
Fields of study: Instrumental conditioning; Pavlovian conditioning
Conditioning and learning are roughly synonymous terms. Both refer to changes in be-
havior resulting from experience, but conditioning has a more specific meaning, refer-
ring to changes in behavior that are the direct result of learning relationships between
environmental events. Two types of relationships are studied by learning psychologists.
The first involves learning the relationship between environmental events that consis-
tently occur together. The second involves learning the environmental consequences of
behavior. These two learning scenarios correspond to classical and operant condition-
ing respectively.
Key concepts
• behavioral approach
• conditioned stimulus (CS)
• conditioned response (CR)
• contiguity
• Law of Effect
• operant response (R)
• reinforcing stimulus (Sr)
• schedules of reinforcement
• shaping
• unconditioned stimulus (US)
• unconditioned response (UR)
Learning refers to any change in behavior or mental processes associated

with experience. Traditionally psychologists interested in learning have
taken a behavioral approach which involves studying the relationship be-
tween environmental events and resulting behavioral changes in detail.
Though the behavioral approach typically involves studying the behavior of
nonhuman subjects in controlled laboratory environments, the results that
have been found in behavioral research have often found wide application
and use in human contexts. Since the early twentieth century behavioral
psychologists have extensively studied two primary forms of learning, classi-
cal and operant conditioning.
Classical Conditioning
Classical conditioning is also referred to as associative learning or Pavlovian
conditioning, after its primary founder, the Russian physiologist Ivan Petro-
vich Pavlov (1849-1936). Pavlov’s original studies involved examining diges-
tion in dogs. The first step in digestion is salivation. Pavlov developed an ap-
paratus that allowed him to measure the amount of saliva a dog produced
when presented with food. Dogs do not need to learn to salivate when food
is given to them—that is an automatic, reflexive response. However, Pavlov
200
Conditioning
noticed that, with experience, the dogs began to salivate before the food was
presented, suggesting that new stimuli had acquired the ability to elicit the
response. In order to examine this unexpected finding, Pavlov selected spe-
cific stimuli, which he systematically presented to the dog just before food
was presented. The classic example is the ringing of a bell, but there was
nothing special about the bell per se. Dogs do not salivate in response to a
bell ringing under normal circumstances. What made the bell special was its
systematic relationship to the delivery of food. Over time, the dogs began to
salivate in response to the ringing of the bell even when the food was not
presented. In other words, the dogs learned to associate the bell with food
so that the response (salivation) could be elicited by either stimulus.
In classical conditioning terminology, the food is the unconditioned
stimulus (US). It is unconditioned (or unlearned) because the animal natu-
rally responds to it before the experiment has begun. The sound of the bell
ringing is referred to as the conditioned stimulus (CS). It is not naturally ef-
fective in eliciting salivation—for it to be so, learning on the part of the sub-
ject is required. Salivating in response to food presentation is referred to as
Ivan Pavlov.
201
Psychology Basics
the unconditioned response (UR), and salivating when the bell is rung is re-
ferred to as the conditioned response (CR). Though it would seem that sa-
liva is saliva, it is important to differentiate the conditioned from the uncon-
ditioned response, because these responses are not always identical. More
important, one is a natural, unlearned response (the UR), while the other
requires specific learning experiences in order to occur (the CR).
Classical conditioning is not limited to dogs and salivation. Modern re-
searchers examine classical conditioning in a variety of ways. What is impor-
tant is the specific pairing of some novel stimulus (the CS) with a stimulus
that already elicits the response (the US). One common experimental pro-
cedure examines eye blink conditioning in rabbits, where a brief puff of air
to the eye serves as the US, and the measured response (UR) is blinking. A
tone, a light, or some other initially ineffective stimulus serves as the CS. Af-
ter many pairings in which the CS precedes the air puff, the rabbit will begin
to blink in response to the CS in the absence of the air puff. Another com-
mon behavior that is studied in classical conditioning research is condi-
tioned suppression. Here a CS is paired with an aversive US, such as a mild
electric shock. Presentation of the shock disrupts whatever behavior the ani-
mal is engaged in at the time, and with appropriate pairing over time, the CS
comes to do so as well. A final example that many humans can relate to is
taste aversion learning. Here a specific taste (CS) is paired with a drug or
procedure that causes the animal to feel ill (US). In the future, the animal
will avoid consuming (CR) the taste (CS) associated with illness (US). Taste
aversions illustrate the fact that all forms of conditioning are not created
equal. To learn a conditioned eye blink or salivation response requires many
CS-US pairings, while taste aversions are often learned with only one pairing
of the taste and illness.
Underlying Factors
Psychologists have long studied the factors that are necessary and sufficient
for producing classical conditioning. One important principle is contiguity,
which refers to events occurring closely together in space or time. Classical
conditioning is most effective when the CS and US are contiguous, though
precisely how closely together they must be presented depends upon the
type of classical conditioning observed. Taste aversion conditioning, for ex-
ample, will occur over much longer CS-US intervals than would be effective
with other conditioning arrangements. Nevertheless, the sooner illness
(US) follows taste (CS), the stronger the aversion (CR) will be.
Though seemingly necessary for classical conditioning, contiguity is not
sufficient. A particularly clear demonstration of this fact is seen when the CS
and US are presented at the exact same moment (a procedure called simul-
taneous conditioning). Though maximally contiguous, simultaneous condi-
tioning is an extremely poor method for producing a CR. Furthermore, the
order of presentation matters. If the US is presented before the CS, rather
than afterward as is usually the case, then inhibitory conditioning will occur.
202
Conditioning
Inhibitory conditioning is seen in experiments in which behavior can

change in two directions. For example, with a conditioned suppression pro-
cedure, inhibitory conditioning is seen when the animal increases, rather
than decreases, its ongoing behavior when the CS is presented.
These findings have led modern researchers to focus on the predictive re-
lationship between the CS and the UCS in classical conditioning. An espe-
cially successful modern theory of classical conditioning, the Rescorla-
Wagner Model, suggests that CS’s acquire associative strength in direct pro-
portion to how much information they provide about the upcoming US. In
addition to providing a quantitative description of the way in which CRs are
learned, the Rescorla-Wagner model has predicted a number of counter-
intuitive conditioning phenomena, such as blocking and overshadowing.
Taken as a whole, the newer theoretical conceptions of classical condition-
ing tend to view the learning organism less as a passive recipient of environ-
mental events than as an active analyzer of information.
Does classical conditioning account for any human behaviors? At first
glance, these processes might seem a bit simplistic to account for human be-
haviors. However, some common human reactions are quite obviously the
result of conditioning. For instance, nearly everyone who has had a cavity
filled will cringe at the sound of a dentist’s drill, because the sound of the
drill (CS) has been paired in the past with the unpleasant experience of hav-
ing one’s teeth drilled (US). Cringing at the sound of the drill would be a
conditioned response (CR). Psychologists have found evidence implicating
classical conditioning in a variety of important human behaviors, from the
emotional effects of advertising to the functioning of the immune system to
the development of tolerance in drug addiction.
Operant Conditioning
At about the same time that Pavlov was conducting his experiments in Rus-
sia, an American psychologist named Edward L. Thorndike (1874-1949) was
examining a different form of learning that has come to be called instrumen-
tal or operant conditioning. Thorndike’s original experiments involved
placing cats in an apparatus he designed, which he called a puzzle box. A
plate of food was placed outside the puzzle box, but the hungry cat was
trapped inside. Thorndike designed the box so that the cat needed to make
a particular response, such as moving a lever or pulling a cord, in order for a
trap door to be released, allowing escape and access to the food outside. The
amount of time it took the cat to make the appropriate response was mea-
sured. With repeated experience, Thorndike found that it took less and less
time for the cat to make the appropriate response.
Operant conditioning is much different from Pavlov’s classical condi-
tioning. As was stated before, classical conditioning involves learning “what
goes with what” in the environment. Learning the relationship changes be-
havior, though behavior does not change the environmental events them-
selves. Through experience, Pavlov’s dogs began to salivate when the bell
203
Psychology Basics
was rung, because the bell predicted food. However, salivating (the CR) did
not cause the food to be delivered. Thorndike’s cats, on the other hand, re-
ceived no food until the appropriate response was made. Through experi-
ence, the cats learned about the effects of their own behavior upon environ-
mental events. In other words, they learned the consequences of their own
actions.
To describe these changes, Thorndike postulated the Law of Effect. Ac-
cording to the Law of Effect, in any given situation an animal may do a vari-
ety of things. The cat in the puzzle box could walk around, groom itself,
meow, or engage in virtually any type of feline behavior. It could also make
the operant response, the response necessary to escape the puzzle box and
gain access to the food. Initially, the cat may engage in any of these behaviors
and may produce the operant response simply by accident or chance. How-
ever, when the operant response occurs, escape from the box and access to
the food follows. In operant conditioning terminology, food is the rein-
forcer, (Sr, or reinforcing stimulus) and it serves to strengthen the operant
response (R) that immediately preceded it. The next time the animal finds
itself in the puzzle box, its tendency to produce the operant response will be
a bit stronger as a consequence of the reinforcement. Once the response is
made again, the animal gains access to the food again—which strengthens
the response further. Over time, the operant response is strengthened,
while other behaviors that may occur are not strengthened and thus drop
away. So, with repeated experience, the amount of time that it takes for the
animal to make the operant response declines.
Skinnerian Conditioning
In addition to changing the strength of responses, operant conditioning
can be used to mold entirely new behaviors. This process is referred to as
shaping and was described by American psychologist B. F. Skinner (1904-
1990), who further developed the field of operant conditioning. Suppose
that the experiment’s objective was to train an animal, such as a laboratory
rat, to press a lever. The rat could be given a piece of food (Sr) each time it
pressed the lever (R), but it would probably be some considerable time be-
fore it would do so on its own. Lever pressing does not come naturally to
rats. To speed up the process, the animal could be “shaped” by reinforcing
successive approximations of lever-pressing behavior. The rat could be given
a food pellet each time that it was in the vicinity of the lever. The Law of Ef-
fect predicts that the rat would spend more and more of its time near the le-
ver as a consequence of reinforcement. Then the rat may be required to
make some physical contact with the lever, but not necessarily press it, in or-
der to be rewarded. The rat would make more and more contact with the le-
ver as a result. Finally, the rat would be required to make the full response,
pressing the lever, in order to get food. In many ways, shaping resembles the
childhood game of selecting some object in the room without saying what it
is, and guiding guessers by saying “warmer” as they approach the object, and
204
Conditioning
as they move away from it, saying nothing at all. Before long, the guessers
will use the feedback to zero in on the selected object. In a similar manner,
feedback in the form of reinforcement allows the rat to “zero in” on the op-
erant response.
Skinner also examined situations where reinforcement was not given for
every individual response but was delivered according to various schedules
of reinforcement. For example, the rat may be required to press the lever a
total of five times (rather than once) in order to get the food pellet, or the
reinforcing stimulus may be delivered only when a response occurs after a
specified period of time. These scenarios correspond to ratio and interval
schedules. Interval and ratio schedules can be either fixed, meaning that
the exact same rule applies for the delivery of each individual reinforce-
ment, or variable, meaning that the rule changes from reinforcer to rein-
forcer. For example, in a variable ratio-five schedule, a reward may be given
after the first five responses, then after seven responses, then after three. On
average, each five responses would be reinforced, but any particular rein-
forcement may require more or fewer responses.
To understand how large an impact varying the schedule of reinforce-
ment can have on behavior, one might consider responding to a soda ma-
chine versus responding to a slot machine. In both cases the operant re-
sponse is inserting money. However, the soda machine rewards (delivers a
can of soda) according to a fixed-ratio schedule of reinforcement. Without
reward, one will not persist very long in making the operant response to the
soda machine. The slot machine, on the other hand, provides rewards (de-
livers a winning payout) on a variable-ratio schedule. It is not uncommon
for people to empty out their pockets in front of a slot machine without re-
ceiving a single reinforcement.
Superstitious Pigeons
As with classical conditioning, exactly what associations are learned in oper-
ant conditioning has been an important research question. For example, in
a classic 1948 experiment, Skinner provided pigeons with food at regular in-
tervals regardless of what they were doing at the time. Six of his eight pi-
geons developed stereotyped (consistent) patterns of behavior as a result of
the experiment despite the fact that the pigeons’ behavior was not really
necessary. According to the Law of Effect, some behavior would be occur-
ring just prior to food delivery and this behavior would be strengthened sim-
ply by chance pairing with reinforcement. This would increase the strength
of the response, making it more likely to occur when the next reward was de-
livered—strengthening the response still further. Ultimately, one behavior
would dominate the pigeons’ behavior in that experimental context. Skin-
ner referred to this phenomenon as superstition. One need only observe
the behavior of baseball players approaching the plate or basketball players
lining up for a free-throw shot to see examples of superstition in human be-
havior.
205
Psychology Basics
Superstition again raises the issue of contiguity—simply presenting rein-

forcement soon after the response is made appears to strengthen it. How-
ever, later studies, especially a 1971 experiment conducted by J. E. R.
Staddon and V. Simmelhag, suggested that it might not be quite that simple.
Providing food rewards in superstition experiments changes a variety of re-
sponses, including natural behaviors related to the anticipation of food. In
operant conditioning, animals are learning more than the simple contiguity
of food and behavior; they are learning that their behavior (R) causes the
delivery of food (Sr). Contiguity is important but is not the whole story.
In addition, psychologists have explored the question “What makes a re-
inforcer reinforcing?” That is to say, is there some set of stimuli that will
“work” to increase the behaviors followed in every single circumstance? The
answer is that there is not some set of rewards that will always increase behav-
ior in all circumstances. David Premack was important in outlining the fact
that reinforcement is relative, rather than absolute. Specifically, Premack
suggested that behaviors in which an organism is more likely to engage serve
to reinforce behaviors in which they are less likely to engage. In a specific ex-
ample, he examined children given the option of playing pinball or eating
candy. Some children preferred pinball and spent more of their time play-
ing the game than eating the candy. The opposite was true of other chil-
dren. Those who preferred pinball would increase their candy-eating behav-
ior (R) in order to gain access to the pinball machine (Sr). Those who
preferred eating candy would increase their pinball-playing behavior (R) in
order to gain access to candy (Sr). Behaviors that a child initially preferred
were effective in reinforcing behaviors that the child was less likely to
choose—but not the other way around.
Negative Consequences
Positive or rewarding outcomes are not the only consequences that govern
behavior. In many cases, people respond in order to avoid negative out-
comes or stop responding when doing so produces unpleasant events.
These situations correspond to the operant procedures of avoidance and
punishment. Many psychologists have advocated using reinforcement rather
than punishment to alter behavior, not because punishment is necessarily less
effective in theory but because it is usually less effective in practice. In order
for punishers to be effective, they should be (among other things) strong,
immediate, and consistent. This can be difficult to accomplish in practice.
In crime, for example, many offenses may have occurred without detection
prior to the punished offense, so punishment is not certain. It is also likely
that an individual’s court hearing, not to mention his or her actual sen-
tence, will be delayed by weeks or even months, so punishment is not imme-
diate. First offenses are likely to be punished less harshly than repeated of-
fenses, so punishment gradually increases in intensity. In the laboratory,
such a situation would produce an animal that would be quite persistent in
responding, despite punishment.
206
Conditioning
In addition, punishment can produce unwanted side effects, such as the

suppression of other behaviors, aggression, and the learning of responses to
avoid or minimize punishing consequences. Beyond this, punishment re-
quires constant monitoring by an external authority, whereas reinforce-
ment typically does not. For example, parents who want to punish a child for
having a messy room must constantly inspect the room to determine its
state. The child certainly is not going to point out a messy room that will lead
to punishment. On the other hand, if rewarded, the child will bring the neat
room to the parents’ attention. This is not to suggest that punishment
should necessarily be abandoned as one tool for controlling behavior.
Rather, the effectiveness of punishment, like reinforcement, can be pre-
dicted on the basis of laboratory results.
Interactions and Biological Constraints

Though the distinction between classical and operant conditioning is very
clear in principle, it is not always so clear in practice. This makes sense if one
considers real-life learning situations. In many circumstances, events in the
environment are associated (occur together) in a predictable fashion, and
behavior will have consequences. This can be true in the laboratory as well,
but carefully designed experiments can be conducted to separate out the
impact of classical and operant conditioning on behavior.
In addition, the effectiveness of both classical and operant conditioning
is influenced by biological factors. This can be seen both in the speed with
which classically conditioned taste aversions (as compared with other CRs)
are learned and in the stimulation of natural food-related behaviors in oper-
ant superstition experiments. Related findings have demonstrated that the
effects of rewarding behavior can be influenced by biology in other ways
that may disrupt the conditioning process. In an article published in 1961,
Keller and Marian Breland described their difficulties in applying the prin-
ciples of operant conditioning to their work as animal trainers in the enter-
tainment industry. They found that when trained with food reinforcement,
natural behaviors would often interfere with the trained operant response—a
phenomenon they called instinctive drift. From a practical point of view,
their research suggested that to be successful in animal training, one must
select operant responses that do not compete with natural food-related be-
haviors. From a scientific point of view, their research suggested that biologi-
cal tendencies must be taken into account in any complete description of
conditioning processes.
Applications of Conditioning Technology

Conditioning research serves as a valuable tool in the psychological explora-
tion of other issues. In essence, conditioning technology provides a means
for asking animals questions—a way to explore interesting cognitive pro-
cesses such as memory, attention, reasoning, and concept formation under
highly controlled laboratory conditions in less complex organisms.
207
Psychology Basics
Another area of research is the field of behavioral neuroscience, a field

that combines physiological and behavioral approaches in order to uncover
the neurological mechanisms underlying behavior. For example, the impact
of various medications and substances on behavior can be observed by ad-
ministering drugs as reinforcing stimuli. Animals will produce operant re-
sponses in order to receive the same drugs to which humans become ad-
dicted. However, in animals, the neurological mechanisms involved in
developing addictions can be studied directly, using both behavioral and
physiological experimental techniques in a way that would not be possible
with human subjects because of ethical considerations.
In addition, the principles of classical and operant conditioning have
been used to solve very real human problems in a variety of educational and
therapeutic settings, a strategy called applied behavior analysis. The princi-
ples of operant conditioning have been widely applied in settings where
some degree of control over human behavior is desirable. Token economies
are situations in which specified behaviors, such as appropriate classroom
behavior, are rewarded according to some schedule of reinforcement. The
reinforcers are referred to as tokens because they need not have any reward-
ing value in and of themselves but can be exchanged for reinforcers at some
later time. According to the principles of operant conditioning, people
should increase the operant response in order to gain the reinforcers, and if
the token economy is developed properly, that is exactly what occurs. If to-
ken economies sound rather familiar, it is for good reason. Money is an ex-
tremely potent token reinforcer for most people, who perform operant re-
sponses (work) in order to receive token reinforcers (money) that can later
be exchanged for primary reinforcers (such as food, clothing, shelter, or en-
tertainment).
Finally, learning principles have been applied in clinical psychology in an
effort to change maladaptive behaviors. Some examples include a proce-
dure called systematic desensitization, in which the principles of classical
conditioning are applied in an effort to treat phobias (irrational beliefs),
and social skills training, in which operant conditioning is used to enhance
communication and other interpersonal behaviors. These are only two ex-
amples of useful applications of conditioning technology to treat mental ill-
ness. Such applications suggest the need for ongoing research into basic
conditioning mechanisms. One must fully understand conditioning princi-
ples in order to apply them appropriately in the effort to understand and
improve the human condition.

Domjan, Michael. The Principles of Learning and Behavior. 5th ed. Belmont,
Calif.: Thomson/Wadsworth, 2003. An extremely useful and complete
textbook presenting classical as well as up-to-date research in the areas of
operant and classical conditioning.
Schwartz, Barry, ed. Psychology of Learning: Readings in Behavior Theory. New
208
Conditioning
York: W. W. Norton, 1984. A collection of reprinted articles on condition-

ing and learning.
Skinner, B. F. Beyond Freedom and Dignity. 1971. Reprint. Indianapolis, Ind.:
Hackett, 2002. The influential B. F. Skinner outlines his philosophical
views on conditioning and its importance in confronting world prob-
lems.
Linda R. Tennison
See also: Behaviorism; Habituation and Sensitization; Learned Helpless-

ness; Learning; Pavlovian Conditioning; Phobias; Reflexes.
209
Consciousness
Type of psychology: Consciousness
Fields of study: Cognitive processes; sleep; thought
Consciousness refers to a number of phenomena, including the waking state; experi-
ence; and the possession of any mental state. The phenomena of self-consciousness in-
clude proneness to embarrassment in social settings; the ability to detect one’s own sen-
sations and recall one’s recent actions; self-recognition; awareness of awareness; and
self-knowledge in the broadest sense.
Key concepts
• awareness
• alternate state of consciousness
• developmental aspects of consciousness
• evolution of consciousness
• history of consciousness study
Many scientists have ignored the phenomena associated with consciousness

because they deem it inappropriate for empirical investigation. However,
there is clear evidence that this position is changing. Researchers in the
fields of psychology, neurobiology, philosophy, cognitive science, physics,
medicine, anthropology, mathematics, molecular biology, and art are now
addressing major issues relating to consciousness. These researchers are ask-
ing such questions as what constitutes consciousness, whether it is possible
to explain subjective experience in physical terms, how scientific methods
can best be applied to the study of consciousness, and the neural correlates
of consciousness.
Moreover, new methods of brain imaging have helped clarify the nature
and mechanisms of consciousness, leading to better understanding of the
relationship between conscious and unconscious processes in perception,
memory, learning, and other domains. These and other questions have led
to a growing interest in consciousness studies, including investigations of
properties of conscious experience in specific domains (such as vision, emo-
tion, and metacognition) and a better understanding of disorders and un-
usual forms of consciousness, as found in blindsight, synesthesia, and other
syndromes.
History of Consciousness Study

The definition of consciousness proposed by English philosopher John
Locke (1632-1704)—“the perception of what passes in a man’s own mind”—
has been that most generally accepted as a starting point in understanding
the concept. Most of the philosophical discussions of consciousness, how-
ever, arose from the mind-body issues posed by the French philosopher and
mathematician René Descartes (1596-1650). Descartes raised the essential
questions that, until recently, dominated consciousness studies. He asked
210
Consciousness
whether the mind, or consciousness, is independent of matter, and whether

consciousness is extended (physical) or unextended (nonphysical). He also
inquired whether consciousness is determinative or determined. English
philosophers such as Locke tended to reduce consciousness to physical sen-
sations and the information they provide. European philosophers such as
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646-1716) and Immanuel Kant (1724-1804),
however, argued that consciousness had a more active role in perception.
The nineteenth century German educator Johann Friedrich Herbart
(1776-1841) had the greatest influence on thinking about consciousness.
His ideas on states of consciousness and unconsciousness influenced the
German psychologist and physiologist Gustav Theodor Fechner (1801-
1887) as well as the ideas of Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) on the nature of
the unconscious.
The concept of consciousness has undergone significant changes since
the nineteenth century, and the study of consciousness has undergone seri-
ous challenge as being unscientific or irrelevant to the real work of psychol-
ogy. Nineteenth century scholars had conflicting opinions about conscious-
ness. It was either a mental stuff different from everyday material or a
physical attribute like sensation. Sensation, along with movement, separates
humans and other animals from nonsensate and immobile lower forms of
life. Scholars viewed consciousness as different from unconsciousness, such
as occurred in sleep or under anesthesia. Whatever the theory, these schol-
ars generally employed the same method, that of introspection.
Experimental Study
It was the German psychologist Wilhelm Max Wundt (1832-1920) who be-
gan the experimental study of consciousness in 1879 when he established
his research laboratory. Wundt saw the task of psychology as the study of the
structure of consciousness, which extended well beyond sensations and in-
cluded feelings, images, memory, attention, duration, and movement. By
the 1920’s, however, behavioral psychology had become the major force in
psychology. John Broadus Watson (1878-1958) was the leader of this revolu-
tion. He wrote in 1913, “I believe that we can write a psychology and never
use the terms consciousness, mental states, mind . . . imagery and the like.”
Between 1920 and 1950, consciousness was either neglected in psychology
or treated as a historical curiosity. Behaviorist psychology led the way in re-
jecting mental states as appropriate objects for psychological study. The in-
consistency of introspection as method made this rejection inevitable. Neuro-
physiologists also rejected consciousness as a mental state but allowed for
the study of the biological underpinnings of consciousness. Thus, brain
functioning became part of their study. The neural mechanisms of con-
sciousness that allow an understanding between states of consciousness and
the functions of the brain became an integral part of the scientific approach
to consciousness. Brain waves—patterns of electrical activity—correlate
with different levels of consciousness. These waves measure different levels
211
Psychology Basics
of alertness. The electroencephalograph provides an objective means for

measuring these phenomena.
Beginning in the late 1950’s, however, interest in the subject of conscious-
ness returned, specifically in those subjects and techniques relating to al-
tered states of consciousness: sleep and dreams, meditation, biofeedback,
hypnosis, and drug-induced states. When a physiological indicator for the
dream state was found, a surge in sleep and dream research followed. The
discovery of rapid eye movement (REM) helped to generate a renaissance
in consciousness research. Thus, during the 1960’s there was an increased
search for “higher levels” of consciousness through meditation, resulting in
a growing interest in the practices of Zen Buddhism and yoga from Eastern
cultures.
This movement yielded such programs as transcendental meditation,
and these self-directed procedures of physical relaxation and focused atten-
tion led to biofeedback techniques designed to bring body systems involving
factors such as blood pressure or temperature under voluntary control. Re-
searchers discovered that people could control their brain-wave patterns to
some extent, especially the alpha rhythms generally associated with a re-
laxed, meditative state. Those people interested in consciousness and medi-
tation established a number of “alpha training” programs.
Hypnosis and psychoactive drugs also received great attention in the
1960’s. Lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) was the most prominent of these
substances, along with mescaline. These drugs have a long association with
religious ceremonies in non-Western cultures. Fascination with the altered
states of consciousness they induce led to an increased interest in research
on consciousness. As the twentieth century progressed, the concept of con-
sciousness began to come back into psychology. Developmental psychology,
cognitive psychology, and the influence of cognitive philosophy each played
a role in influencing the reintroduction of the concept, more sharply
etched, into the mainstream of psychology.
Jean Piaget
Jean Piaget, the great developmental psychologist, viewed consciousness as
central to psychological study. Therefore, he sought to find ways to make its
study scientific. To do so, Piaget dealt in great detail with the meaning of the
subject-object and mind-body problems. Piaget argued that consciousness is
not simply a subjective phenomenon; if it were, it would be unacceptable for
scientific psychology. Indeed, Piaget maintained that conscious phenomena
play an important and distinctive role in human behavior. Moreover, he di-
rected research to examine the way in which consciousness is formed, its ori-
gins, stages, and processes. Consciousness is not an epiphenomenon, nor
can psychologists reduce it to physiological phenomena. For Piaget, con-
sciousness involves a constructed subjective awareness. It is a developmen-
tally constructed process, not a product. It results from interaction with the
environment, not from the environment’s action on it: “[T]he process of be-
212
Consciousness
coming conscious of an action scheme transforms it into a concept; thus be-

coming conscious consists essentially in conceptualization.”
There are two relationships necessary for the understanding of con-
sciousness. The first is that of subject and object. The second is the relation-
ship between cognitive activity and neural activity. Both are essential to get-
ting at the process of cognition and its dynamic nature.
Memory and Altered States

A variety of studies and experiments have explored the effects of certain
variables on consciousness. For instance, it is important to ascertain the way
in which variables that increase memorability in turn influence metamem-
ory. Results have been inconsistent. However, it was found that when experi-
menters directed subjects to remember some items and forget others, there
was an increase in recalling those items that experimenters were directed to
remember. There was, nevertheless, no effect on the accuracy of what was
remembered.
Sleep and dreams, hypnosis, and other altered states have provided an-
other intriguing area of study for those interested in consciousness. The re-
lationship of naps to alertness later in the day has proved of great interest to
psychologists. In one study, nine healthy senior citizens, seventy-four to
eighty-seven years of age, experienced nap and no-nap conditions in two
studies each. Napping was for one and one-half hours, from 1:30 to 3:00 p.m.
daily. The no-nap condition prohibited naps and encouraged activity in that
period. Various tests were used to measure evening activity as well as record
sleep. Aside from greater sleep in the twenty-four-hour period for those who
had the ninety-minute nap, there was no difference on any other measure.
The threat simulation theory of dreaming holds that dreams have a bio-
logical function to protect the dream self. This dream self behaves in a de-
fensive fashion. An empirical test of this theory confirmed the predictions
and suggests that the theory has wide implications regarding the functions
of consciousness.
The study of consciousness, then, has elucidated understanding of per-
ception, memory, and action, created advances in artificial intelligence, and
illustrated the philosophical basis of dissatisfaction with the dualistic separa-
tion of mind and body. Electrical correlates of states of consciousness have
been discovered as well as structures in the brain stem that regulate the
sleep cycle. Other studies have looked at neural correlates in various states
such as wakefulness, coma, the persistent vegetative state, the “locked-in”
syndrome, akinetic mutism, and brain death. There are many other areas of
consciousness in which neuroscience has made major advances.
An important problem neglected by neuroscientists is the problem of
meaning. Neuroscientists are apt to assume that if they can see that a neu-
ron’s firing is roughly correlated with some aspect of the visual scene, such
as an oriented line, then that firing must be part of the neural correlate of
the seen line. However, it is necessary to explain how meaning can be ex-
213
Psychology Basics
pressed in neural terms as well as how the firing of neurons is connected to

the perception of a face or person.
Imagery
Imagery is associated with memory, perception, and thought. Imagery oc-
curs in all sensory modes. However, most work on imagery has neglected all
but visual imagery. Concerns with imagery go back to the ancient Greek phi-
losophers. Plato (c. 428-348 b.c.e.) and Aristotle (384-322 b.c.e.), for exam-
ple, compared memory to a block of wax into which one’s thoughts and per-
ceptions stamp impressions. Aristotle gave imagery an important place in
cognition and argued that people think in mental images. Early experimen-
tal psychologists, such as Wundt, carried on this notion of cognition.
Around 1901, Oswald Külpe (1862-1915) and his students at the Univer-
sity of Würzburg in Germany challenged these assumptions. However, these
experiments employed introspective techniques, which Wundt and other at-
tacked as being inconclusive. The controversy led to a rejection of mental
imagery, introspection, and the study of consciousness itself. In the twenti-
eth century, a movement toward seeing language as the primary analytical
tool and a rejection of the old dominance of imagery came into fashion.
The phenomenology of French philosopher and writer Jean-Paul Sartre
(1905-1980) also led to a decline of interest in imagery.
A revival of research in imagery followed the cognitive science revolution
of the 1960’s and 1970’s, contributing greatly to the rising scientific interest
in mental representations. This revival stemmed from research on sensory
deprivation and on hallucinogenic drugs. Studies in the role of imagery
mnemonics also contributed to this reemergence of imagery studies.
Conclusion
As the concept of a direct, simple linkage between environment and behav-
ior became unsatisfactory in the late twentieth century, the interest in al-
tered states of consciousness helped spark new interest in consciousness.
People are actively involved in their own behavior, not passive puppets of ex-
ternal forces. Environments, rewards, and punishments are not simply de-
fined by their physical character. There are mental constructs involved in
each of these. People organize their memories. They do not merely store
them. Cognitive psychology, a new division of the field, has emerged to deal
with these interests.
Thanks to the work of developmental psychologists such as Piaget, great
attention is being given to the manner in which people understand or per-
ceive the world at different ages. There are advances in the area of animal
behavior, stressing the importance of inherent characteristics that arise
from the way in which a species has been shaped to respond adaptively to
the environment. There has also been the emergence of humanistic psy-
chologists, concerned with the importance of self-actualization and growth.
Clinical and industrial psychology have demonstrated that a person’s state
214
Consciousness
of consciousness in terms of current feelings and thoughts is of obvious im-

portance. Although the role of consciousness was often neglected in favor of
unconscious needs and motivations, there are clear signs that researchers
are interested in emphasizing once more the nature of states of conscious-
ness.

Brann, Eva T. H. The World of the Imagination: Sum and Substance. Savage, Md.:
Rowman & Littlefield, 1991. Discusses the role of imagination in cogni-
tion.
Chalmers, David. The Conscious Mind: In Search of a Fundamental Theory. New
York: Oxford University Press, 1996. Presents a clear summary of various
theories of consciousness.
Greenfield, Susan A. Journey to the Centers of the Mind. New York: W. H. Free-
man, 1995. This is a study of biological influences in cognition.
Libet, Benjamin. Neurophysiology of Consciousness: Selected Papers and New Es-
says. Boston: Birkhäuser, 1993. Clearly presents the role of neurophysi-
ology in conscious thought.
Weiskrantz, Lawrence. Consciousness Lost and Found. New York: Oxford Uni-
versity Press, 1997. A study of modes of consciousness and the manner in
which psychologists have rediscovered the importance of the concept.
Frank A. Salamone
See also: Consciousness: Altered States; Dementia; Dreams; Thought: Study

and Measurement.
215
Consciousness: Altered States
Field of study: Cognitive processes
The investigation of altered states of consciousness began in psychology with the recog-
nition that consciousness is not a fixed, unvarying state but is in a continual state of
flux. Consciousness can be altered by many chemical and nonchemical means, and
there is some evidence to indicate that certain altered states are necessary for normal
psychological functioning.
Key concepts
• biofeedback
• circadian rhythm
• electroencephalogram (EEG)
• hypnagogic and hypnopompic states
• hypnosis
• meditation
• psychoactive drugs
• restricted environmental stimulation (RES)
The great psychologist William James, in his 1890 textbook The Principles of
Psychology, made the following now-famous observation regarding states of
consciousness: “Our normal waking consciousness, rational consciousness
as we call it, is but one special type of consciousness, whilst all about it,
parted from it by the filmiest of screens, there lie potential forms of con-
sciousness entirely different.” James went on to say that the understanding
of human psychological functioning would never be complete until these al-
ternate states were addressed. Most psychologists would now acknowledge
that a person’s normal waking consciousness is readily subject to changes.
These changes are referred to as altered states of consciousness. What con-
stitutes a genuine altered state and how many such states may exist are both
subjects of some controversy.
States of consciousness have always been central to the attempt to under-
stand human nature. For example, every society of which any record exists
has possessed both chemical and nonchemical means of altering conscious-
ness.
From a historical point of view, Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) may have
done more than any other theorist to stimulate interest in states of con-
sciousness. Freud’s psychoanalytic theory of personality held that there
were three primary levels of consciousness: consciousness, preconscious-
ness, and unconsciousness. The conscious level includes mental activities of
which one is unaware. The preconscious level consists of mental material of
which one is currently unaware but that can be voluntarily recalled—roughly
equivalent to memory. The unconscious level, which held the greatest inter-
est for Freud, contains thoughts, feelings, memories, and drives that are
216
blocked from awareness because they are unpleasant or arouse anxiety. In ad-
dition to his interest in these three levels of consciousness, Freud’s interest in
altered states at various points in his career was manifested in investigations of
cocaine, hypnosis, and the analysis and interpretation of dreams.
In the early twentieth century, with the growth of behaviorism (which in-
sisted that in order to be a science, psychology should confine itself to inves-
tigating only objective, observable behavior), the study of altered states of
consciousness fell out of favor. Events in the larger culture during the 1960’s
and 1970’s, however, helped stimulate interest in altered states within psy-
chology. During this period, efforts to expand consciousness by means of
drugs, meditation, Eastern religious practice, and new ways of relating to
oneself and others led to the active study of altered states of consciousness.
The attempts of psychologists to study altered states of experience will per-
haps be viewed in the future as a landmark in the development of psychol-
ogy as a science. The willingness of psychology to explore the novel realms
that altered states represent may help to expand the understanding of both
consciousness and reality.
Variations in Consciousness
Physiological psychologist Karl Pribram lists the following states of conscious-
ness: states of ordinary perceptual awareness; states of self-consciousness;
dream states; hypnagogic and hypnopompic states (the transition states,
characterized by vivid dreamlike imagery, that occur as one goes into and
comes out of sleep); ecstatic states (such as the orgiastic experience); so-
cially induced trance or trancelike states; drug-induced states; social role
states; linguistic states (for example, a multilingual person thinking in one,
rather than another, language); translational states (as when one linguistic
universe is being recorded or translated in another); ordinary transcenden-
tal states (such as those experienced by an author in the throes of creative
composition); extraordinary transcendental states that are achieved by spe-
cial techniques; other extraordinary states (such as those that allow “extra-
sensory awareness”); meditational states; dissociated states, as in the case
of pathological multiple personality; and psychomotor states manifest in
temporal-lobe epilepsies. To that list could be added the following addi-
tional states: sleep; the hyperalert state, characterized by increased vigilance
while one is awake; the lethargic state, characterized by dulled, sluggish
mental activity; states of hysteria, with intense feeling and overpowering
emotion; regressive states, such as senility; daydreaming with rapidly occur-
ring thoughts that bear little relation to the external environment; coma;
sleep deprivation; sensory overload or deprivation; and prolonged strenu-
ous exercise. This list is by no means exhaustive.
Some of these states clearly represent greater degrees of alteration of the
“normal” consciousness than others. There is, however, no universal agree-
ment on what constitutes the normal state of consciousness. Charles Tart
and other authors have suggested that what is usually called “normal” con-
217
Psychology Basics
sciousness is not a natural, given state but a construction based mainly on

cultural values and inputs. In any case, some altered states of consciousness
are experienced on a daily basis by everyone, while others are much more
rare and may require great effort or special circumstances to achieve.
Influences on Altered Consciousness

Some alterations in conscious functions are induced by daily changes in bio-
logical rhythms. Bodily events that occur in roughly a twenty-four-hour cycle
are referred to as circadian rhythms, from the Latin circa (“about”) and dies
(“day”). It is thought that these cycles are created by natural events, such as
the light-dark cycle, and by other cues in the daily routine, such as meal-
times. The sleeping-waking cycle is the major circadian rhythm, but there
are others, such as fluctuations in body temperature. This daily temperature
cycle appears to be directly related to levels of mental activity. When all ex-
ternal cues are removed, circadian rhythms extend to about twenty-five
hours. As a result of prolonged isolation, the cycle can become completely
distorted, with periods of up to forty hours of waking followed by periods of
up to twenty-two hours of sleep. When the change is gradual in this way, the
individual has a distorted sense of time and believes that he or she is experi-
encing normal periods of sleep and waking. Abrupt changes in circadian
rhythms, as when one crosses several time zones, are what lead to that sleepy,
uncomfortable feeling known as jet lag.
In addition to biological rhythms, there are other regular daily variations
in consciousness. On the way to sleep each night, people enter a kind of “twi-
light” period known as the hypnagogic state. The state of consciousness that
is entered immediately before waking is called the hypnopompic state. In
both these states, one is partially asleep and partially continuing to process
environmental stimuli. Both are characterized by vivid imagery, and many
people have reported creative insight during these periods.
Stages of Sleep
Sleep itself is not a unified state but consists of five distinct stages: one stage
of rapid eye movement (REM) sleep and four stages of nonrapid eye move-
ment (NREM) sleep. During a typical night’s sleep, one moves in and out of
these stages four or five times. REM sleep is primarily associated with pe-
riods of dreaming. Sleeping subjects awakened during a period of REM
sleep report having just experienced a dream about 80 percent of the time,
compared with less than 10 percent when NREM sleep is interrupted. Psy-
chologists are still unclear on exactly why humans need to sleep, but the
need for periods of REM sleep might be part of the reason. When sleeping
subjects are deprived of REM sleep (and their NREM sleep is undisturbed),
they often show many of the symptoms of not having slept at all. Also, when
later given the opportunity for uninterrupted sleep, they spend a greater
percentage of time in the REM stage, as if making up for the lost REM sleep
(this is referred to as the REM-rebound effect). The REM-rebound effect is
218
lessened if the individual is encouraged to engage in an increased amount

of daydreaming, which indicates a possible connection between day and
night dreams.
Psychoactive Drugs
The use of psychoactive drugs is a common method for altering conscious-
ness. These drugs are chemical substances that act on the brain to create
psychological effects and are typically classified as depressants, stimulants,
narcotics (opiates), hallucinogens, or antipsychotics. Several drugs, such as
nicotine, caffeine, and alcohol, are so much a part of the lifestyle in modern
society that users may not even think of them as drugs. The use of many psy-
choactive drugs can lead to physical or psychological dependence or addic-
tion, as the body/mind develops a physiological/psychological need for the
drug. The body can also build up a tolerance for a drug, which means that
higher and higher doses are necessary to produce the same effects. Once
addiction has been established, discontinuing the use of the drug can lead
to withdrawal symptoms, such as nausea, fever, convulsions, and hallucina-
tions, among others, which can sometimes be fatal.
The type of altered state produced by a psychoactive drug depends on
the class to which the drug belongs. Depressants, such as alcohol, bar-
biturates, and tranquilizers, depress central nervous system functioning and
usually produce relaxation, anxiety reduction, and—eventually—sleep. Nar-
cotics (opiates), such as heroin, morphine, and codeine, depress activity in
some areas of the cortex but create excitation in others, producing feelings
of euphoria and providing relief from pain. Stimulants, such as amphet-
amines, cocaine, caffeine, and nicotine, stimulate central nervous system
activity, producing feeling of alertness and euphoria and lack of appetite.
Hallucinogens, such as lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD), mescaline, and psi-
locybin, can produce hallucinations, delusions, exhilaration, and, in some
cases, quasi-mystical experiences.
Hypnosis and Meditation

Two popular nonchemical techniques for altering consciousness are hypno-
sis and meditation. Hypnosis was first discovered in the eighteenth century
by Franz Mesmer, and its use has been marked by controversy ever since. An
altered state is induced in hypnosis by the suggestive instructions of the hyp-
notist, usually involving progressive relaxation. The hypnotized subject of-
ten appears to be asleep but remains alert inside, exhibiting varying degrees
of responsiveness to the suggestions of the hypnotist. Only about 10 percent
of the population can enter the deepest hypnotic state, while another 10
percent cannot be hypnotized at all. The rest of the population can achieve
some degree of hypnotic induction. Psychologists argue about whether hyp-
nosis is a genuine altered state or simply a form of role playing.
There is less controversy regarding meditation as a true altered state.
Since the mid-1960’s, there has been extensive research on the physiological
219
Psychology Basics
changes that occur during meditation. Some of the findings include a de-
crease in oxygen consumption of 16 percent during meditation (compared
with an 8 percent drop during the deepest stage of sleep), a cardiac output
decrease of 25 percent, and an average slowing of the heart rate by five beats
per minute. During meditation, electroencephalogram (EEG) patterns are
dominated by the alpha rhythm, which has been associated with relaxation.
An EEG is a graphic recording of the electrical activity of brain waves. Re-
searchers R. K. Wallace and Herbert Benson believed that there was suffi-
cient physiological evidence to justify calling the meditative state a “fourth
major state of consciousness” (along with waking, dreaming, and sleeping),
which they termed a “wakeful, hypometabolic [reduced metabolic activity]
state.” Beginning meditators usually report feelings of relaxation and “ordi-
nary thoughts,” while advanced practitioners sometimes report transcen-
dental experiences of “consciousness without content.”
Applications of Hypnosis
Research on altered states of consciousness has led to many benefits. The
analgesic properties of hypnosis were verified in research conducted by Er-
nest Hilgard at Stanford University. He found that hypnotic suggestion
could be used to reduce or eliminate experimentally induced pain. Even
though subjects were not consciously aware of the pain, Hilgard found that,
with the right questions, he could uncover a “hidden observer,” a dissoci-
ated aspect of the subject’s conscious awareness that did monitor the feel-
ings of pain. Hilgard reports that hypnotic relief from pain has been re-
ported for the chronic pain of arthritis, nerve damage, migraine headaches,
and cancer. For individuals who are unable to be anesthetized because of al-
lergic reactions or fear of needles, hypnosis is often used as an effective sub-
stitute for the control of pain. It has been effectively applied in cases involv-
ing dental work, childbirth, burns, abdominal surgery, and spinal taps.
Hypnotic suggestion has also been effective in reducing the nausea associ-
ated with cancer chemotherapy.
The use of hypnosis to recover forgotten memories is much more contro-
versial. One dramatic phenomenon displayed with certain hypnotic subjects
is age regression, in which the individual not only is able to recall vividly
childhood memories but also seems to reenact behaviors from childhood,
including body postures, voice, and handwriting characteristics of a given
age. There is no way of knowing, however, whether this represents true re-
call or is simply a type of fantasy and role playing. Hypnosis has also been
used to enhance the memories of crime witnesses in court proceedings.
There is evidence, however, that actual recall does not become more accu-
rate and that the witness may be unintentionally influenced by the sugges-
tions of the hypnotist, which could lead to inaccuracies and distortions in
the “remembered” events. For this reason, courts in many states automati-
cally disqualify testimony obtained by means of hypnosis.
220
Benefits of Meditation
Research on the physiological effects of meditation led to the application of
meditative techniques as a treatment to combat stress-related illnesses.
Meditators have often experienced significant decreases in such problems
as general anxiety, high blood pressure, alcoholism, drug addiction, insom-
nia, and other stress-related problems. Researchers have also found that the
scores of meditators on various psychological tests have indicated general
mental health, self-esteem, and social openness. Many psychologists argue,
however, that these effects are not unique to meditation and can be pro-
duced by means of other relaxation techniques. Meditation researcher Rob-
ert Ornstein has suggested that the long-term practice of meditation may in-
duce a relative shift in hemispheric dominance in the brain from the left
hemisphere, which is associated with such linear processes as language and
logical reasoning, to the right hemisphere, which is associated with non-
linear processes such as music perception and spatial reasoning. Consis-
tent with this idea are findings that meditators are better on certain right-
hemispheric tasks such as remembering musical tones but worse on verbal
problem-solving tasks that involve the left hemisphere.
Biofeedback
Early research on advanced meditators in India indicated that they could ex-
hibit control over what are normally autonomic processes in the body—for
example, speeding up or slowing down the heart rate at will, stopping the
heart for up to seventeen seconds, controlling blood flow to different areas
of the body, and controlling brain-wave patterns at will. At first, these results
were met with skepticism, but it is now known that humans and animals can
learn to control previously involuntary processes by using a technique
known as biofeedback. Through biofeedback training, an individual who is
connected to a special measuring device can monitor autonomic events
such as blood pressure, skin temperature, and muscle tension. Having this
information can allow the individual gradually to gain control over these au-
tonomic processes. Biofeedback techniques have been applied to an enor-
mous variety of clinical problems. EEG biofeedback, for example, has been
used to train epileptics to emit brain-wave patterns that are incompatible
with those that occur during brain seizures. Other disorders that have been
successfully treated by means of biofeedback include cardiac disorders, high
blood pressure, tension headaches, anxiety, and neuromuscular disorders
such as cerebral palsy.
Sensory Deprivation
Other applications have grown out of research on altered states of con-
sciousness produced by restricting sensory stimulation from the environ-
ment. Researchers in the 1950’s completed extensive studies on the effects
of prolonged sensory deprivation. Subjects placed in soundproof isolation
chambers with translucent goggles to eliminate vision and padded arm
221
Psychology Basics
tubes to minimize touch sensation often experienced negative psychologi-

cal effects after about a day. Most subjects suffered from extreme boredom,
slowed reaction time, and impaired problem-solving ability. Some subjects
reacted to sensory deprivation by creating their own internally generated
sights and sounds in the form of hallucinations. These results led to the in-
stitution of special procedures to help reduce the effects of sensory depriva-
tion in certain occupations; for example, airline pilots on long night flights,
astronauts living for prolonged periods in tiny space capsules, and individu-
als working in isolated weather stations. A controlled form of sensory depri-
vation, known as restricted environmental stimulation therapy (REST), has
been used to reduce the effects of overarousal and hyperactivity. REST ses-
sions usually involve floating in heavily salted warm water in a dark, sound-
proof tank. Most subjects find this floating sensation very pleasant, and
there have been many reports of long-term reductions in high blood pres-
sure and other stress-related problems.
Argument for State-Specific Sciences

Although traditional scientific methods are poorly suited to the study of
consciousness, many beneficial tools that can be used to measure the physio-
logical correlation of altered states, such as the electroencephalograph,
have been developed as an outgrowth of the study of states of consciousness.
Psychologist Charles Tart suggested the creation of state-specific sci-
ences. In reaching this conclusion, he argues that any particular state of con-
sciousness (including ordinary waking) is a semiarbitrary construction—a
specialized tool that is useful for some things but not for others and that
contains large numbers of structures shaped by a particular group’s value
judgments. Thus, science is observation and conceptualization carried out
within the highly selective framework provided by a culturally determined
ordinary state of consciousness. Tart suggests that, as altered states of con-
sciousness often represent radically different ways of organizing observa-
tions and reworking conceptualizations of the universe (including oneself),
if the scientific method were applied to developing sciences within various
states of consciousness, there would be sciences based on radically different
perceptions, logics, and communications, and thus science as a whole would
gain new perspectives that would complement the existing one.
Regardless of whether this suggestion is taken seriously, it is clear that the
study of states of consciousness has achieved legitimacy in scientific psychol-
ogy. The investigation so far has revealed that human consciousness is much
more diverse and varied than many psychologists previously believed.

Flannagan, Owen J. Dreaming Souls: Sleep, Dreams, and the Evolution of the
Mind. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999. A professor of philoso-
phy, experimental psychology, and neurobiology proposes that dreams
are an unplanned side effect of the evolution of a human mind designed
222
to “have experiences.” Reviews current research and theory on the na-

ture and functions of dreaming as well as presenting his own thesis.
Hilgard, Ernest Ropiequet. Divided Consciousness: Multiple Controls in Human
Thought and Action. Expanded ed. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1986. A
discussion of consciousness by one of the most respected experimental
psychologists. Included are discussions on the hidden observer phenom-
enon in hypnosis and on other dissociation phenomena such as multiple
personality, amnesia, and fugue states.
Hobson, J. Allen. The Dream Drugstore: Chemically Altered States of Consciousness.
Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2001. Discusses the natural and voluntarily
altered chemistry of the brain and its effects on human consciousness.
Hobson addresses the modern reliance on antidepressants such as Pro-
zac as well as the “recreational” drugs of underground culture and pres-
ents the possible connections between dreaming states, drug-induced
states, and mental illnesses in a nonjudgmental fashion.
Ornstein, Robert Evan, ed. The Nature of Human Consciousness. San Fran-
cisco: W. H. Freeman, 1973. This anthology contains essays by many of
the pioneers in the psychological study of altered states of consciousness,
including Carl Jung, Roberto Assagioli, Arthur Deikman, and many oth-
ers. Topics include meditative states, psychosynthesis, Sufism, and syn-
chronicity.
__________. The Psychology of Consciousness. 2d rev. ed. New York: Penguin
Books, 1986. This is considered a classic text on altered states of con-
sciousness. It provides in-depth discussions of the psychology of medita-
tion and the relationship of altered states to hemispheric differences in
the brain.
Ward, Colleen A., ed. Altered States of Consciousness and Mental Health: A Cross-
cultural Perspective. Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Sage, 1989. A collection of pa-
pers assessing the mental health value and use of altered states of con-
sciousness from a non-Western perspective.
Wolman, Benjamin B., and Montague Ullman, ed. Handbook of States of Con-
sciousness. New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1986. This is an excellent
sourcebook on psychological theory and research on altered states of
consciousness. Discusses, in addition to the topics covered in this article,
trance states, lucid dreams, ultradian rhythms, and many other subjects.
Oliver W. Hill, Jr.
See also: Consciousness; Dementia; Dreams; Thought: Study and Measure-

ment.
223
Creativity and Intelligence
Type of psychology: Intelligence and intelligence testing
Field of study: General issues in intelligence
Creativity and intelligence are two aspects of cognitive performance in humans. Cre-
ativity refers to having inventive, productive, and imaginative qualities; intelligence
refers to having mental acuteness, the ability to understand, and the ability to act effec-
tively to solve problems within one’s environment. The areas of creativity and intelli-
gence have provided insight into what it means to be gifted and talented.
Key concepts
• analogy
• cognitive skills
• creativity
• giftedness
• intelligence
• problem solving
• problem solving by analogy
Creativity and intelligence are two areas of cognitive functioning and per-
formance which have been examined by researchers, educators, and others.
Creativity can be defined as a person’s cognitive abilities in areas such as flu-
ency, flexibility, originality, elaboration, visualization, metaphorical think-
ing, problem definition, and evaluation. Intelligence is defined as the ability
to perform various mental tasks which include reasoning, knowledge, com-
prehension, memory, applying concepts, and manipulating figures. The
study of creativity and intelligence has developed based on studies in cogni-
tive, developmental, and educational psychology.
Given that psychology as a discipline may be defined as the systematic
study of the mind and behavior, when one studies creativity and intelli-
gence, one learns how to improve performance and lead those persons
who are creative, gifted, and talented to new heights. Specifically, when one
studies creativity, one gains information about students’ abilities in imagina-
tion, discovery, and the ability to invent. When one studies intelligence, one
gains information about students’ abilities in logic, memory, and organi-
zation.
Creativity and intelligence have played a significant role in the history of
psychology and an even greater role in the history of humankind. Progress
in education is evident in at least three occurrences. First, interest in mea-
suring individual differences has led to the development of tests to quantify
creative and intellectual abilities. Second, attention to persons who have
been identified as creative, gifted, talented, or highly intelligent has led to
the development of special programs, learning experiences, and scholar-
ships for these students. Third, the needs of these students have led to re-
224
search on the students themselves. The results of numerous empirical stud-

ies have been published to aid parents, educators, and the gifted or creative
individual in understanding the needs of those with special abilities.
Certain issues related to creativity and intelligence have evolved from dis-
crepancies that have been found in obtaining relationships between creativ-
ity and intelligence. It is a mistake to lump creative and intelligent people to-
gether: Creative ability is not synonymous with intellectual ability. Many
students who are very high in intelligence, as measured by a test, are not
high in other intellectual functions, such as creativity. Many students who
are high in creativity are not also high in intelligence.
Defining and Measuring Creativity

Creativity refers to the process of being imaginative and innovative. A cre-
ative person is able to link existing information with new information in pro-
ductive ways. Students who are creative may often be referred to as being
gifted and talented. Charles F. Wetherall has listed many characteristics of
gifted, talented, or creative students. Creative students, for example, have a
keen sense of observation and a desire to improve their abilities, produce a
variety of possible solutions to problems, are curious and original, have the
characteristic of persistence, are comfortable with ambiguity, are able to
work independently, are able to analyze and synthesize information, dem-
onstrate compulsivity and an urgency to complete a task or execute an
idea, and have multiple latent abilities. Thus, when one’s existing knowl-
edge and information combine in a unique way, a creative product or idea is
formed.
Many others have sought to describe creativity. Characteristics of creative
persons and creativity, according to Gary A. Davis and Sylvia Rimm, include
valuing creative thinking, appreciating novel and far-fetched ideas, being
open-minded and receptive to zany ideas, and being mentally set to produce
creative ideas. Robert Sternberg describes creative people as those who have
the ability and willingness to go beyond the ordinary limitations of them-
selves and their environment and to think and act in unconventional and
perhaps dreamlike ways. Further, he states that creative people go beyond
the unwritten canons of society, have aesthetic taste, and are inquisitive and
intuitive. Major contributions have been made to many fields of endeavor as
a result of creative enterprise.
Creativity has been studied through research that sought to examine per-
sonality and family issues related to creativity, the ecology of creativity, musi-
cal creativity, and creative ability in women. Research by Robert Albert that
examined relationships between creativity, identity formation, and career
choice led him to make six suggestions for parents and teachers to help stu-
dents achieve maximally. This information would be beneficial both to stu-
dents who are gifted and to those who are not. His suggestions include help-
ing students experience emotions such as anger, joy, fear, and passion;
teaching involvement rather than techniques to students; seeking to dis-
225
Psychology Basics
cover what people can do; allowing students to experience some novelty and
flexibility; encouraging the students to ask the questions “What do I think?”
“How do I think?” “What can I do?” and “How do I feel about it now that I
have tried?”; and enhancing learning by being actively engaged with and
taking chances with one another.
Theories of Intelligence
Intelligence, according to Paul Kline, refers to a person’s ability to learn, un-
derstand, and deal with novel situations. The intelligent person may be
viewed as quick-witted, acute, keen, sharp, canny, astute, bright, and bril-
liant. Robert Sternberg, in Intelligence Applied: Understanding and Increasing
Your Intellectual Skills (1986), describes intelligence as comprising a very
wide array of cognitive and other skills; he does not see intelligence as a sin-
gle ability.
After examining many theories of intelligence, Sternberg developed the
triarchic (three-part) theory of intelligence. In the componential sub-
theory, the first part of the theory, intelligence is related to the internal
world of the individual. For example, a person who is intelligent in this area
obtains high scores on standardized tests and is excellent in analytical think-
ing. The second part of the theory, the experiential subtheory, specifies in-
telligence in situations. A person who is intelligent in handling novel tasks
with creativity but who may not have the best standardized test scores is dem-
onstrating intelligence in this area. In the third part of the theory, the con-
textual subtheory, intelligence is related to the external world of the individ-
ual. For example, a person who is able to achieve success when interacting
on the job or when influencing other people is demonstrating contextual
intelligence.
Role of Analogies
Characteristics of intelligent persons include greater preference for, more
attention to, and highly developed abilities for dealing with novelty; an abil-
ity to process information rapidly; an ability to ignore irrelevant informa-
tion; and an ability to solve problems accurately. Problem-solving ability in
intelligence may be observed in a person’s ability to complete many tasks
successfully. Among these tasks would be a person’s ability to solve analo-
gies.
Analogies are statements of a relationship between words, concepts, or
situations. Problem solving by analogy occurs when students attempt to use
the conditions and solution to one problem to assist them in understanding
the conditions and solutions of another problem. Put another way, students
use the relationships they see in one context or situation to assist them in un-
derstanding relationships in another context or situation. Many educators
believe that solving analogies helps students to concretize their thinking,
gauge how they understand information, tap and develop a facility for visual
thinking, exercise and nurture creative and critical thinking, clarify and or-
226
ganize unfamiliar subject matter, and synthesize instructional material. Past

research has pointed to an ability to solve analogies as one of the best predic-
tors of intellectual ability.
Intelligence has also been studied by examining the way in which stu-
dents who have been identified as gifted (based on high intelligence test
scores) solve problems. It was found that highly intelligent people are better
able to separate relevant and irrelevant information.
Assessment Tests
Both creativity and intelligence can be assessed by specialized tests designed
for that purpose. One of the first people to examine the concept of intelli-
gence in the United States was James McKeen Cattell (1860-1944). He is
credited with the introduction of the use of the phrase “mental tests.” After
studying in Europe, Cattell developed and sought to refine tests which fo-
cused on the cognitive skills that he believed indicated intellectual ability:
strength, reaction time, and sensory discrimination.
The first test to examine individual differences in intelligence was de-
vised and published in France by Alfred Binet and Théodore Simon in 1905;
it was called the Binet-Simon test. The Binet-Simon test was translated into
English and went through a series of revisions by various people. The ver-
sion of the Binet-Simon test most used in the United States is the Stanford-
Binet, which was first published in 1916.
E. Paul Torrance developed the Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking.
These tests seek to assess creativity as it relates to fluency, flexibility, original-
ity, and elaboration. Each of these areas can be understood in the context of
examples. Fluency in creativity is the ability one has to produce numerous
original ideas that solve problems. For example, persons may demonstrate
fluency when they can state multiple uses for a ballpoint pen. Flexibility in
creativity is the ability to produce ideas that show a variety of approaches
that may be used. Originality is the ability to create uncommon or unusual
responses; for example, a unique or unconventional use of the ballpoint
pen would be classified as original. Elaboration refers to a person’s ability to
add details to a basic idea. For example, if a common item such as a ball-
point pen is discussed in extreme and minute details that do not focus on
obvious aspects of the pen, elaboration is being demonstrated.
Intelligence tests consist of standardized questions and tasks that seek to
determine the mental age of a person or the person’s relative capacity to
solve problems and absorb new information. Intelligence tests try to mea-
sure students’ capacity to learn separate from their actual academic achieve-
ment.
Intelligence tests are either group-administered or individually adminis-
tered; in group testings, large numbers of students can be assessed at the
same time. According to Miles Storfer, individual intelligence tests such as
the Stanford-Binet and the Wechsler series provide a good approximation
of most people’s abilities in the cognitive skills that the tests are designed to
227
Psychology Basics
measure. These cognitive skills include being able to solve problems well,
reasoning clearly, thinking logically, having a good vocabulary, and knowing
an abundance of information in many areas.
Implications for Science and Technology

Creative discovery has led to many technological breakthroughs and inno-
vations in science and industry. Technological breakthroughs and success in
science and industry have been evident in the extensive research into cre-
ative activity conducted by W. J. Gordon. He provides some source material
that points to the relationship between invention, discovery, and learning.
Creativity and analogies have led to breakthroughs in a wide variety of tech-
nological fields.
One example of the many technological breakthroughs and innovations
in science and industry presented by Gordon occurred in 1865. John Boyd
Dunlop was trying to think of a way to help his son be more comfortable
when riding his bicycle over cobblestone streets. While watering his garden,
he noticed how the hose resisted his fingers when he pressed his hand more
firmly around it. He made the connections between the elastic resistance of
the hose and how this type of elasticity would make his son more comfort-
able when biking. His first successful tire was made from a piece of garden
hose.

Albert, Robert S. “Identity, Experiences, and Career Choice Among the Ex-
ceptionally Gifted and Eminent.” In Theories of Creativity, edited by Mark
A. Runco and Robert S. Albert. Newbury Park, Calif.: Sage, 1990. This
twelve-chapter book on creativity is a compilation of the expertise of per-
sons who have studied creativity in areas such as anthropology, behavior,
cognition, development, and ecology.
Davis, Gary A., and Sylvia B. Rimm. Education of the Gifted and Talented. 5th ed.
Boston: Pearson, 2004. Presents various skills, behaviors, and characteris-
tics of students who are gifted, talented, or creative. The abilities and
skills involved in creative problem solving are explained in clear lan-
guage. An excellent source to gain information on the educational needs
of gifted, talented, or creative students.
Gordon, W. J. “Some Source Material in Discovery-by-Analogy.” Journal of
Creative Behavior 8, no. 4 (1974): 239-257. Focusing on an associative view
of invention, discovery, and learning, Gordon cites thirty-eight examples
of associative analogical connections which have triggered famous inno-
vations and breakthroughs. A wide variety of technological fields are in-
cluded. Interesting reading; gives the foundations of many items used in
everyday life.
Kline, Paul. Intelligence: The Psychometric View. New York: Routledge, 1991.
Provides a summary of studies focusing on the nature of intelligence and
other human abilities. Topics include the history of the concept of intelli-
228
gence and ways to measure intelligence. The definitions of statistical and

technical terms are presented in a clear and readable fashion.
Simenton, Dean Keith. Origins of Genius: Darwinian Perspectives on Creativity.
New York: Oxford University Press, 1999. Explores the source of creativity
in Darwinian properties of variation and selection.
Steptoe, Andrew, ed. Genius and the Mind: Studies of Creativity and Tempera-
ment. New York: Oxford University Press, 1998. A collection of case study
essays on the psychology of creative “geniuses” such as Wolfgang Amadeus
Mozart; George Gordon, Lord Byron; and William Shakespeare.
Sternberg, Robert J. Intelligence Applied: Understanding and Increasing Your In-
tellectual Skills. Orlando, Fla.: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1986. A training
program based on the triarchic theory of intelligence that Sternberg has
developed. Details effective strategies for solving various types of prob-
lems, including science insight problems and analogies. Exercises for
practice are included.
Storfer, Miles D. Intelligence and Giftedness: The Contributions of Heredity and
Early Environment. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1990. Storfer presents infor-
mation on the effects of nurture on intelligence, focusing on the nature
and development of intellectual giftedness and the characteristics of in-
tellectually gifted people. The concept of intelligence in different socio-
economic conditions, in enrichment programs, and in its varying types
are highlighted in separate chapters. The factors that influence intelli-
gence and giftedness are examined in detail.
Torrance, Ellis Paul. Education and the Creative Potential. Minneapolis: Uni-
versity of Minnesota Press, 1963. A compilation of seven papers and six
experimental studies conducted by Torrance, who developed a test to
measure creative thinking and conducted longitudinal studies on creativ-
ity. Contains information on topics such as developing creative potential
in schoolchildren and factors that facilitate or inhibit creativity in chil-
dren.
Weisberg, Robert W. Creativity: Genius and Other Myths. New York: W. H. Free-
man, 1986. Weisberg discusses the behaviors, activities, and finished
products of individuals who have been described as creative. Defines cre-
ativity by giving real-life examples and discusses the role that intense
knowledge or expertise plays in creative problem solving.
Debra A. King-Johnson
See also: Giftedness; Intelligence; Intelligence Tests; Learning.
229
Crowd Behavior
Fields of study: Aggression; group processes; social motives
Crowd behavior is the study of how the behavior of people in groups differs from that of
individuals. People in crowds often become much more focused on their social identity
than on their own individual identity. As a result, they are much more influenced by
the norms of the group.
Key concepts
• bystander effect
• deindividuation
• diffusion of responsibility
• group norms
• social identity theory
Crowds are groups of people who are together for short periods of time. The
study of crowd behavior examines the actions that people in a crowd per-
form and how these actions differ from the behavior of individuals acting
alone. Crowd behavior became a focus of scholarly thought in the late nine-
teenth and early twentieth centuries in reaction to the social turmoil in
Western Europe at that time. Italian criminologist Scipio Sighele (1868-
1913) first wrote about crowd behavior. French psychologist Gustave Le Bon
(1841-1931), the founder of crowd psychology, formalized and popularized
the concept with his book The Crowd, published in 1895. Le Bon’s ideas
reached a wide audience and are said to have influenced German dictator
Adolf Hitler and Italian dictator Benito Mussolini as well as psychologists.
Because crowds have performed many senseless and destructive acts, both
historically and recently, understanding crowd behavior remains extremely
important for psychologists.
The term “crowd” refers to a wide spectrum of human gatherings, vary-
ing in their complexity and the intention with which people join them.
Some crowds are casual; people come together by happenstance (as a group
of pedestrians standing on a sidewalk.) These tend to be simple, disorga-
nized groups of people who do not know one another and will probably not
see one another again. Others are conventionalized—the people have all
chosen a common activity (for example, watching a parade or a sporting
event) and express excitement in standard ways (cheering). Some crowds
are purposive, choosing to be together for a common goal, such as a rally or
political protest. These groups are often highly cohesive and highly orga-
nized.
Because crowds differ so much in their composition, organization, and
purpose, there is also considerable variation in typical crowd behavior. Pop-
ular and scholarly attention has tended to focus on the situations in which
230
Crowd Behavior
crowd behavior is considered problematic. In these situations, the crowd of-

ten has an unusual problem to solve rapidly (for example, how to respond to
a hostile police force). The occurrence of riots and violence attest to the fact
that these sorts of problems are not always solved constructively by crowds.
Crowds, of course, are capable of behaving in positive ways as well.
Underlying Psychological Processes

Early theories of crowd behavior hypothesized that unruly crowds were
made up of criminals or the mentally deficient. Proponents of this perspec-
tive assumed that crowd behavior could be explained by the makeup of the
individual personalities of people in the crowd and that certain kinds of peo-
ple were more likely to be found in a crowd. Le Bon provided a more psycho-
logical analysis of crowd behavior, recognizing that even people of high in-
telligence could become members of an unruly crowd. He believed that
crowds transform people, obliterating their normal abilities to be rational
and putting them in a hypnotic, highly suggestible state. Le Bon disap-
proved of crowd behavior in all forms. Consequently, in his book he painted
an extremely negative picture of crowd behavior.
Modern social psychological research suggests that neither of these early
viewpoints is a good description of the psychological forces underlying
crowd behavior. Experimental research has determined that almost any in-
dividual could be influenced to behave in uncharacteristic ways under the
right circumstances. Le Bon’s perspective has also been greatly refined.
Rather than relying on Le Bon’s concepts of mass hypnosis and loss of ratio-
nality, modern researchers draw primarily from social identity theory to
help explain crowd behavior. Social identity theory, originally developed by
European psychologists Henri Tajfel and John Turner in the 1970’s, posits
that the individual derives an important part of his or her sense of identity
from the groups to which he or she belongs. Groups such as one’s family,
school, or religion can all provide positive sources of identity.
Under some circumstances, crowds can become a source of identity as
well. A key psychological mechanism through which crowds become a
source of identity is deindividuation, the loss of a person’s sense of identity
and weakening of inhibitions, which occurs only in the presence of others.
Being in a crowd is likely to lead to deindividuation for a number of reasons.
First, crowds lead individuals to feel less accountable for their actions; the in-
dividual is less likely to be singled out and feels less personally responsible
for any act the crowd commits. Crowds also focus attention away from the
self, so one’s own values and internal standards become less influential.
Thus, in line with social identity theory, deindividuation leads someone to
become focused on social identity rather than individual identity. When so-
cial identity is salient to an individual, that person becomes particularly sus-
ceptible to social influence. Group norms, or a group’s standards and ex-
pectations regarding appropriate behavior, become especially important,
and the individual is likely to conform strictly to those norms. In the short
231
Psychology Basics
time frame of many crowd gatherings, the norm becomes whatever every-
one else is doing.
Being amid a group of people, however, does not always lead one to be-
come deindividuated, nor does it always lead to the ascendancy of social
identity over individual identity. Often crowds do not engage in collective
behavior at all. For example, on most city streets, pedestrians walking and
milling about do not consider themselves to be part of a group and do not
draw a sense of identity from the people around them.
Eugen Tarnow noted that these wide variations in the effect of crowds on
individuals can be best understood by identifying two phases, an individual
phase and a conforming phase. During the individual phase, people move
freely about. At these times, individuals are not particularly aware of their
membership in a crowd and are not particularly influenced by those around
them. In the conforming phase, however, individuals in a crowd are highly
aware of the group of which they are a part, and they show high levels of con-
formity. During this phase, the group norms heavily influence each individ-
ual’s behavior. Crowds typically alternate between these two phases, some-
times acting collectively, sometimes individually. For example, at a sporting
event, fans are sometimes talking to their friends about topics of individual
interest. However, when points are scored by the home team, the crowd re-
sponds collectively, as part of social group. At these moments spectators are
not responding as individuals but as members of the social group, “fans.”
The behaviors that members of a crowd perform will thus depend upon
how strongly the crowd becomes a source of social identity and the norms
Image not available
The way in which individuals behave in a crowd has been a subject of increasing attention.
(CLEO Photography)
232
Crowd Behavior
for behavior that become established among the group. Because these fac-
tors vary considerably from group to group, crowds cannot be characterized
as wholly negative or uniformly simplistic, as Le Bon described them.
The Violent Crowd

Violent and destructive acts are among the most studied forms of crowd be-
havior. Many historical examples, from the French Revolution of 1789 to the
Los Angeles riots of 1992, attest to the destructive power of crowds. A crowd
of deindividuated people will not become violent, however, unless a group
norm of violence becomes established. In riots, for example, there is usually
an identifiable precipitating event (for example, one person smashing a
window) that introduces a norm of violence. If a critical mass of people im-
mediately follows suit, a riot ensues. Other crowds, such as lynch mobs, have
the norm of violence previously established by their culture or by the
group’s previous actions.
Further, there is some evidence to suggest that the way in which a crowd
of people is viewed by authorities can escalate crowd conflicts. For example,
in 1998, European psychologists Clifford Stott and Stephen Reicher inter-
viewed police officers involved with controlling a riot in Great Britain. Their
analysis revealed that while police officers recognize that crowds contain
subgroups of more dangerous or less dangerous members, they tend to treat
all group members as potentially dangerous. The police officers’ negative
expectations often translate into combative behavior toward all crowd mem-
bers. By acting on their negative expectations, authority figures often elicit
the very behaviors they hope to prevent. This often leads to increased vio-
lence and conflict escalation.
Much evidence suggests that there is a direct relationship between the de-
gree of deindividuation and the extremity of a crowd’s actions. For example,
in 1986, Brian Mullen examined newspaper accounts of sixty lynchings oc-
curring in the first half of the twentieth century. His analysis revealed that
the more people in the mob, the more violent and vicious was the event.
Similarly, Leon Mann found in his analysis of twenty-one cases of threatened
suicides that crowds watching were more likely to engage in crowd baiting
(encouraging the person to jump from a ledge or bridge) when crowds were
large and when it was dark. On a more mundane level, sports players are
more aggressive when wearing identical uniforms than when dressed in
their own clothes. Any factor that increases anonymity seems to increase
deindividuation and increase the power of social identity and thus increases
the likelihood of extreme behavior.
In South Africa, psychological research on these phenomena has been
presented in murder trials. People being tried for murder have argued that
these psychological principles help explain their antisocial behavior. The
use of psychological research findings for these purposes has sparked a
great deal of controversy in the field.
233
Psychology Basics
The Apathetic Crowd

While crowds are most infamous for inciting people to rash action, some-
times crowds inhibit behavior. Research on helping behavior suggests that
helping is much less likely to occur when there are many people watching.
This well-established phenomenon, known as the bystander effect, was re-
searched and described by American psychologists John Darley and Bibb
Latane. In a typical experiment, participants overhear an “accident,” such as
someone falling off a ladder. Researchers observe whether participants go
to help. Most people help when they are alone, but people are significantly
less likely to help when they are with a crowd of other people. Darley and
Latane argued that bystanders in a crowd experience a diffusion of responsi-
bility. That is, each individual feels less personally responsible to act because
each assumes that someone else will do so.
This phenomenon is exacerbated by the fact that in many situations, it is
unclear whether an event is an emergency. For example, an adult dragging a
screaming child out of a store could be a kidnapper abducting a child or a
parent responding to a tantrum. Bystanders observe the reactions of others
in the crowd to help them determine the appropriate course of action in an
ambiguous situation. However, because the situation is ambiguous, typically
each individual is equally confused and unsure. By waiting for someone else
to act, bystanders convey the impression to others that they think nothing is
wrong. Psychologists call this phenomenon pluralistic ignorance. People as-
sume that even though others are behaving in exactly the same way as them-
selves (not acting), they are doing so for a different reason (knowing the sit-
uation is not an emergency). Thus, a social norm of inaction can also
become established in a crowd.
The Prosocial Crowd

Despite the potential for great violence and destruction, most crowds that
gather do so quite uneventfully. Further, sometimes crowd behavior is quite
positive and prosocial. Research shows that sometimes deindividuation can
lead to prosocial behavior. For example, nonviolent protests operate under
an explicit norm of peaceful resistance and rarely lead to escalated violence
on both sides.
The power of prosocial norms was also experimentally established in a
1979 study conducted by psychologists Robert Johnson and Leslie Downing.
Johnson and Downing had participants dress in either nurse’s apparel or a
white robe and hood like those worn in the Ku Klux Klan. Some from each
group had their individual identity made salient, while the rest did not. All
participants were then given the opportunity to deliver an electric shock to
someone who had previously insulted them. Among participants wearing
the robes, those who were not identified delivered higher shock levels than
those who were identified. Presumably these people were deindividuated
and thus more strongly influenced by the violent cue of their costume. Of
those in nurses’ uniforms, the opposite was observed. Unidentified, dein-
234
Crowd Behavior
dividuated participants gave much less intense shocks than identified partic-
ipants did. They were also more strongly influenced by the cues around
them, but in this case the cues promoted prosocial action.

Coleman, A. M. “Crowd Psychology in South African Murder Trials.” Ameri-
can Psychologist 46, no. 10 (1992): 1071-1079. This article describes the use
of modern social psychological research on crowd behavior to argue for
extenuating factors in murder trials. The ethical issues raised from psy-
chological testimony are discussed.
Gaskell, G., and R. Benewick, eds. The Crowd in Contemporary Britain. Lon-
don: Sage, 1987. An excellent, comprehensive discussion of crowd behav-
ior and political responses to it, drawing on work from scholars in several
social scientific disciplines.
Le Bon, Gustave. The Crowd. New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction, 1995. First
published in 1895, this classic work explores the nature of crowd behav-
ior and the places in modern life where crowd behavior holds sway.
McPhail, Clark. The Myth of the Madding Crowd. New York: Aldine De Gruyter,
1991. Authored by one of the major modern researchers on crowd behav-
ior, this book summarizes and critiques Gustave Le Bon and earlier crowd
theorists and presents new formulations for understanding crowd behav-
ior.
Mann, L. “The Baiting Crowd in Episodes of Threatened Suicide.” Journal of
Personality and Social Psychology 41, no. 4 (1981): 703-709. In this paper,
Mann provides a fascinating analysis of the factors that make crowds
more likely than individuals to bait potential suicides.
__________. “‘The Crowd’ Century: Reconciling Practical Success with The-
oretical Failure.” British Journal of Social Psychology 35, no. 4 (1996): 535-
553. Discusses the limits of Gustave Le Bon’s crowd psychology theory
and explores why, despite these limits, Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini
were able to use his theory so successfully to manipulate crowds.
Reicher, S. Crowd Behavior. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2002.
Scholarly perspectives on crowd behavior.
Van Ginneken, Jaap. Crowds, Psychology, and Politics, 1871-1899. New York:
Cambridge University Press, 1992. Provides a historical perspective on
the development of the field of crowd psychology, showing how early the-
ories were shaped by current political events.
Cynthia McPherson Frantz
See also: Aggression; Groups; Helping.
235
Death and Dying
Fields of study: Aging; classic analytic themes and issues; stress and
illness
Death is a universal human experience that, for most of history, has been primarily the
province of religion and philosophy. It has, however, increasingly been a concern of so-
cial scientists; perhaps, more than has been previously realized, death has important
things to teach both scientists and laypersons about human existence.
Key concepts
• chronic illnesses
• death anxiety
• defense mechanisms
• denial
• five-stage theory
• syndrome
Although death is a universal phenomenon, it is a topic which has come late

to psychology and the other social sciences. All people, including authors,
scholars, and theologians, have dealt with death since before the beginning
of recorded history. Handling death in a scientific way is, to a large extent, a
product of the twentieth century.
The reasons for the scientific neglect of death are manifold. It is a com-
plex idea and one against which most people build defense mechanisms
(psychological strategies, generally unconscious, which the personality uses
as a defense against anxiety). The scientist might argue that death is not an
empirical fact (that is, one which relies on information that comes through
the senses, as opposed to relying on logical or rational processes), in the
sense that no one can experience death firsthand in order to study it or write
about it. Sigmund Freud, the founder of psychoanalysis, said that no one
can imagine his or her own death, and that does seem to be true; one who
tries to imagine himself or herself dead is still around, in some sense, doing
the imagining.
Some scholars have distinguished between the death state and the death
event. The death state (what it is like to be dead) is essentially a religious or
philosophical issue. It is not amenable to empirical study, although the im-
pact of death on other people and the impact of thoughts about death while
one is still alive can be studied. The death event, on the other hand, is, to
some degree at least, a part of life. It is possible to study how, why, and where
people die. It is possible to study the process of dying and to study grief and
bereavement.
It has also become necessary, particularly in recent years, to ask difficult
questions about death: questions about when physical death actually occurs,
236
Death and Dying
about humane treatment for the dying patient, about the so-called right to
die, about children and the best way to answer their concerns about death,
and about how best to help people deal with their grief. Most of these ques-
tions generally cannot be answered by science alone. Almost all deal with
ethical, religious, and social issues as well as with scientific information.
It has been argued that Americans are “death-denying.” Even though as-
pects of death are around all the time, Americans live most of the time as if
death were not a reality. Ernest Becker argued in his classic book The Denial
of Death (1973) that American lives are organized around the fear and denial
of death. His often-convincing, although primarily philosophical, argument
is augmented by research such as that of psychologists at Princeton Univer-
sity who studied undergraduates, most of whom did not admit having much
conscious death anxiety (an emotional apprehension or vague fear caused
by thinking about or facing the fact of death). Yet by a word-association test,
measures of galvanic skin response (a biological electrical current in the
skin assumed to be related to levels of psychological anxiety), and response
latency (the time between the presentation of a stimulus word and the re-
sponse from the subject), researchers collected data that clearly showed that
these college students responded to words related to death with greater
emotional intensity than to equivalent words drawn from other topic areas.
Emerging Understanding of Death

If the United States is a death-denying society, it is nevertheless apparent
that in the latter part of the twentieth century some people became willing
to look at death more clearly; this is demonstrated in the behavioral and so-
cial sciences. In research, books, articles, and in many other ways, interest in
death, dying, and closely related topics multiplied enormously.
In 1944 Erich Lindemann did a systematic study of the grief reactions of
individuals who had lost a close relative; many of his subjects were relatives
of those who died in the 1942 Cocoanut Grove nightclub fire in Boston that
killed almost five hundred people. Lindemann was particularly interested in
studying the differences between what he called “normal” grief and the “ab-
normal” reactions he saw in some of the survivors. He concluded from his
study that acute grief is a definite syndrome (a combination of behaviors or
symptoms which together may be signs of illness or pathology) with psycho-
logical and somatic symptomatology. In his description of normal grief, he
said: “Common to all is the following syndrome—sensations of somatic dis-
tress occurring in waves lasting from 20 minutes to an hour, a feeling of
tightness in the throat, choking with shortness of breath, need for sighing,
an empty feeling in the abdomen, lack of muscular power, and an intense
subjective distress described as tension or mental pain.” Lindemann then
pointed out the pathologies of grief, many of which are the intensification,
elongation, or absence of the symptoms of normal grief.
Lindemann was a pioneer in the attempt to bring death into the arena of
science, and since his time there have been thousands of studies, the cre-
237
Psychology Basics
ation of several organizations (such as the Association for Death Education

and Counseling) and journals (such as Omega), and the publication of doz-
ens of books (including textbooks) in the area of death and dying.
As an example of how science grows by building on the work of others, it
was later found that Lindemann had not contacted his bereaved subjects
soon enough to observe a stage of grief which seems to be almost universal: a
period of shock, numbness, and denial in which the bereaved person acts as
if nothing had happened for a few hours or even days—sometimes even lon-
ger in abnormal grief.
Stages of Dying
Evidence that many people were interested in the subject of death was the
remarkable popularity of a book published in 1969. On Death and Dying was
written by Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, a physician who had come to the United
States from Switzerland. Perhaps the best-known aspect of Kübler-Ross’s
book, based on her informal research, was her outline of a series of stages
which she had found many dying patients go through. She became con-
vinced that modern medicine, in its efforts to keep the patient alive, treated
dying patients in ways that were often inhumane. She found that very little
was known about the psychology of the dying person; she pointed out that
there were no courses on death and dying in medical schools or, for all prac-
tical purposes, anywhere else at the time.
Kübler-Ross interviewed several hundred persons who were dying of
chronic illnesses—generally long-term illnesses, such as heart disease and
cancer, which are the major causes of death in older Americans. She found
that most dying patients go through five stages in the terminal period of
their lives. The first stage is one of denial: “This is not really happening.
Someone has made a mistake. I am not really going to die.” In most people,
the probable reality of the diagnosis eventually replaces the denial with a
sense of anger: “Why me? Why now?” Generally, the anger is displaced onto
the most available candidate—a physician, a family member, a nurse, God.
The real object of the anger is death, but it is difficult to express anger to-
ward an abstract and ill-defined concept. The third stage is one of bargain-
ing: “If only I do not die, or at least if my life is extended, then I will change
my ways.” It generally becomes clear that the bargaining is not going to
work, and the fourth stage is depression. Kübler-Ross describes it as “a sense
of great loss.” Losses of any kind are one of life’s major difficulties, and
death is the ultimate loss of everything. Finally, the fifth stage that Kübler-
Ross observed is the stage of acceptance. This is not the same as saying that
the patient now wants to die or is looking forward to death. Kübler-Ross de-
scribes this stage as “almost void of feelings.” It is the acceptance of the inevi-
tability of what is about to happen.
Kübler-Ross’s five-stage theory has come under criticism. Edwin Shneid-
man, one of the first professionals to be called thanatologists because they
specialize in working with the dying and the grieving, stated that in his expe-
238
Death and Dying
rience he rarely sees the neat progression through the five stages that
Kübler-Ross enumerates. Many others believe that the five-stage theory is
too simplistic to describe the way things happen in the real world. (Kübler-
Ross agrees that the five-stage theory does not apply to all dying people.)
Undoubtedly, factors such as the length of the terminal illness, the religious
beliefs of the dying person, the amount of support, and even the age of the
patient may make a difference in the way people deal with their dying. Nev-
ertheless, a framework such as the five stages, if not held too literally, seems
to be a great aid for many who have to support or work with someone who is
dying.
The Death System

Turning from the individual to the society, it is easy to see many places where
death plays an important role in social life. Robert Kastenbaum has charac-
terized this as the “death system.” Just as society has many systems to deal
with essential functions, such as the economic system, the educational sys-
tem, and the transportation system, society must also deal with death on a
daily basis. The death system would include, among other matters, all that is
involved with the disposition of the dead body: the church or other religious
organization, the funeral arrangements, the cemetery. A large number of
people are involved, in one way or another, in this aspect of the death sys-
tem. Although the funeral business has taken its share of criticism, some of it
undoubtedly deserved, it fills a need that the majority of people in Western
society have.
The death system also has other functions. Already noted is the care of
the dying, which involves a large part of the health care system in the United
States as well as family and friends and organizations such as hospice. One
might also include in the death system the many aspects of society which are
involved in trying to prevent death, from police officers to the national Cen-
ters for Disease Control to the hurricane warning center to the manufac-
turer of railroad crossing signals. Actually, few people in the United States
do not have at least a peripheral connection to the death system. Many flo-
rists, for example, say that half or more of their business is providing flowers
and wreaths for funerals and for cemetery plots.
Modern Relationships with Death

Richard Kalish, among others, has pointed out a number of reasons for the
interest in the study of death and dying. It is fairly easy to identify a number
of factors that have increased concern about this topic. For example, more
lives were lost in the twentieth century in warfare than in any other period of
history. The presence of thermonuclear weapons continues to be a realistic
concern for the peoples of the world. The increase in the number and influ-
ence of the elderly is also undoubtedly a factor. Most of the elderly die of
heart disease, cancer, or other chronic illnesses in which dying takes place
over a period of time. This has led to a different kind of acquaintance with
239
Psychology Basics
death, in comparison to times not so long ago when death more commonly
came as the result of a short acute illness.
Closely related to the previous point are the advances in medical technol-
ogy which allow some people with chronic illnesses to be kept alive on life-
support systems when their brains are no longer functioning. Because of
such scientific advances, serious questions arise as to when death really oc-
curs and as to what decisions ought to be made about that situation, legally,
morally, and psychologically.
Undoubtedly, the impact of television has profoundly influenced society
in its attitudes toward death and dying. For several decades, television has
depicted death in both real-life and fictional situations. The effect of all this
death on television (as well as in motion pictures) has yet to be studied or
understood fully by psychologists or other social scientists.
A more sanguine reason for the increased interest in death and dying is
that, perhaps, society is becoming more humane in its attempt to deal with
these issues. There is a concern for “dying with dignity” and for a “good
death” (the original meaning of the term “euthanasia”). The hospice move-
ment has grown rapidly in the attempt to give the dying (particularly those
dying from chronic illnesses) more choices about their dying and the oppor-
tunity to live out their final days in a way not so different from the way in
which they lived the rest of their lives. Social scientists may be coming to real-
ize that death has something important to teach humankind about human
existence.

Becker, Ernest. The Denial of Death. 1973. Reprint. New York: Free Press,
1997. A strong book on the power of death both for the individual and
within a culture. Written, to a large extent, from a psychoanalytic stand-
point. Not easy to read without some background in psychology or an-
thropology.
Cohen-Almagor, Raphael. The Right to Die with Dignity: An Argument in Ethics,
Medicine, and the Law. New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 2001.
An even-handed overview of the controversies surrounding physician-
assisted suicide and the right to choose death in the face of terminal illness.
Feifel, Herman, ed. The Meaning of Death. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1965. One
of the original books which stimulated interest in death and dying. Con-
tains essays by writers such as Carl Jung, Paul Tillich, and Robert Kasten-
baum, as well as articles reporting empirical studies. Generally reads well
and contains myriad interesting and thoughtful ideas.
Kastenbaum, Robert. Death, Society, and Human Experience. Boston: Allyn &
Bacon, 2000. A textbook for classes on the sociology of death and dying,
bringing together perspectives from the humanities, social sciences, and
psychology.
Kessler, David. The Needs of the Dying: A Guide for Bringing Hope, Comfort, and
Love to Life’s Final Chapter. New York: HarperCollins, 2000. Written by a
240
Death and Dying
leader in hospice care. Explains the common emotions and psychology

of the dying and offers suggestions for dealing with death.
Kübler-Ross, Elisabeth. On Death and Dying. 1969. Reprint. New York: Scrib-
ner Classics Sons, 1997. A popular book which had a major impact on the
general public. It reads well and is not only interesting but also of practi-
cal help to many who are dealing with the issue of dying.
Mitford, Jessica. The American Way of Death. 1963. Reprint. New York: Fawcett
Crest, 1978. A polemical look at the funeral business. This book made
many Americans aware of excesses and shoddy practices, which eventu-
ally led to a number of changes—some because of government regula-
tion. Quite one-sided.
__________. The American Way of Death Revisited. New York: Alfred A. Knopf,
1998. Mitford’s follow-up to her 1963 classic traces changes in the funeral
industry over the intervening thirty-odd years. Ironically, a posthumous
publication.
Tomer, Adrian, ed. Death Attitude and Older Adults. New York: Brunner/
Mazel, 2001. A collection of essays studying current practice in dealing
with death from the perspectives of gerontology, thanatology, and gen-
eral psychology.
James Taylor Henderson
See also: Emotions; Stress-Related Diseases; Suicide.
241
Dementia
Type of psychology: Cognition; memory; psychopathology
Fields of study: Aging; cognitive processes; depression; interpersonal
relations; social perception and cognition; thought
Dementia is a chronic progressive brain disorder that may occur as a result of various
events. Dementia is the loss of cognitive and social abilities to the degree that they inter-
fere with activities of daily living (ADLs). Dementia may or may not be reversible.
Key concepts
• cognition
• delirium
• depression
• memory loss
• pseudodementia
Dementia is usually characterized as a gradual, progressive decline in cogni-

tive function that affects speech, memory, judgment, and mood. However, it
may also be an unchanging condition that results from an injury to the
brain. Initially individuals may be aware of a cognitive decline, but over time
they cease to notice. The insidious and progressive nature of dementia may
make early diagnosis difficult because cognitive changes may appear as only
slight declines in memory, attention, and concentration or rare episodes of
inconsistencies in behavior that are attributed to aging. Over time, in-
creased confusion and irritability in unfamiliar environments, poor judg-
ment, difficulty in abstract thinking, and personality changes may be seen.
Delirium is a transient alteration in mental status that is a common fea-
ture of dementia. Signs and symptoms of delirium develop over a short pe-
riod of time. Once the underlying causes of delirium, such as medical prob-
lems, stress, or medications, are identified and ministered to, delirium can
be reversed. Visual and auditory hallucinations, paranoia, and delusions of
persecution may be observed. Memory loss is another symptom of demen-
tia. People with dementia often forget how to perform activities of daily liv-
ing (ADLs) that they have been performing for years, such as dressing,
cleaning, and cooking. They may repeatedly ask the same questions, have
the same conversations, forget simple words, or use incorrect words when
speaking. They may become disoriented as to time and place and become
lost in familiar surroundings. Problems with abstract thinking may make
solving math problems and balancing a checkbook impossible. People with
dementia may misplace items and be unable to find them because the items
were put in unaccustomed places. Mood swings and drastic personality
changes, such as sudden, unexpected swings from calm and happy states to
tears and anger, are not uncommon in those with dementia.
242
Dementia
Depression may be mistaken for dementia. Symptoms of depression

include feelings of profound sadness, difficulty in thinking and concentrat-
ing, feelings of despair, and apathy. Severe depression brings with it an in-
ability to concentrate and a poor attention span. As the person with demen-
tia tries to conceal memory loss and cognitive decline, appetite loss, apathy,
and feelings of uselessness may ensue. In combined dementia and depres-
sion, intellectual deterioration can be extreme. An older adult who is de-
pressed may also show signs of confusion and intellectual impairment even
though dementia is not present. These individuals are identified as having
pseudodementia. Depression, alone or in combination with dementia, is
treatable.
Prevalence and Impact

Dementia may occur at all ages, but its incidence increases with advanced
age. Dementia is most frequent in those older than seventy-five. There are
an estimated 600,000 cases of advanced dementia in the United States, and
milder degrees of altered mental status are very common in the elderly. The
prevalence of dementia increases from 1 percent at age sixty to 40 percent at
age eighty-five. The expense of long-term care at home or in a nursing facil-
ity has been estimated at $40 billion per year for people age sixty-five and
older. The prevalence of dementia is expected to continue to increase as a
result of increased life expectancy and an aging population of baby boom-
ers. Many of the problems caused by dementia are due to memory loss.
Causes
Dementia may be reversible or irreversible. Reversible causes include brain
tumors, subdural hematoma, slowly progressive or normal-pressure hydro-
cephalus; head trauma; endocrine conditions (such as hypothyroidism,
hypercalcemia, hypoglycemia); vitamin deficiencies (of thiamin, niacin, or
vitamin B12); thyroid disease; ethanol abuse; infections; metabolic abnor-
malities; effects of medications; renal, hepatic, and neurological conditions;
and depression. Irreversible dementia is more common in the elderly. Irre-
versible causes of dementia include diseases of the brain such as Alzhei-
mer’s, Parkinson’s, Pick’s, Creutzfeldt-Jakob, and Huntington’s diseases;
human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection; vascular dementia; and
head trauma.
Types of Dementia
Alzheimer’s disease is the most common form of dementia and is responsi-
ble for 50 percent of all dementias. No direct cause has been identified, but
it is thought that viruses, environmental toxins, and family history are in-
volved. Definitive diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease can only be made on au-
topsy when neurofibrillary tangles are found in the brain.
Vascular dementia generally affects people between the ages of sixty and
seventy-five. It is estimated that 8 percent of individuals over sixty years old
243
Psychology Basics
who have a stroke develop dementia within one year. Early treatment of
hypertension and vascular disease may prevent further progression of de-
mentia.
Parkinson’s disease is an insidious, slow, progressive neurological condi-
tion that begins in middle to late life. It is characterized by tremor, rigidity,
bradykinesia, and postural instability. Dementia is also present in 20 percent
to 60 percent of those with Parkinson’s disease. It is characterized by dimin-
ishing cognitive function, diminishing motor and executive function, and
memory impairment.
Lewy body disease is similar to Alzheimer’s disease. Visual hallucinations
and Parkinson’s-like features progress quickly. Lewy bodies are found in the
cerebral cortex. Patients exhibit psychotic symptoms and have a sensitivity
to antipsychotic medications.
Pick’s disease and other frontal lobe dementias are rare and are identi-
fied by changes in personality and emotions, executive dysfunction, deterio-
ration of social skills, inappropriate behavior, and language problems. Pick’s
disease is most common between ages fifty and sixty. It progresses rapidly
and may be accompanied by apathy, extreme agitation, severe language dif-
ficulties, attention deficits, and inappropriate behavior. Pick’s disease can
only be confirmed on autopsy when Pick’s inclusion bodies are found.
Another disorder that can lead to progressive dementia is Huntington’s
disease, a genetic disorder that usually occurs in middle age. The basal gan-
glia and subcortical structures in the brain are affected, causing spasticity in
body movements. Personality, memory, intellect, speech, and judgment are
altered.
Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (spongiform encephalopathy) is a rare and fa-
tal brain disorder caused by a virus that converts protein into infectious,
deadly molecules. Early symptoms may be memory loss and changes in be-
havior. Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease progresses into mental deterioration, mus-
cle spasms, weakness in the extremities, blindness, and coma.
Risk Factors and Diagnosis

Risk factors for dementia include a family history of dementia, head trauma,
lower educational level, and gender (women are more prone than men to
dementia). Alcohol and drug abuse, infections, cardiovascular disease, and
head injuries are also causes for the development of dementia.
The criteria in the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Sta-
tistical Manual of Mental Disorders: DSM-IV-TR (rev. 4th ed., 2000) for the diag-
nosis of dementia require the presence of multiple cognitive deficits in ad-
dition to memory impairment. The diagnosis of dementia is based on
cognitive deficits that are severe enough to cause impairment in occupa-
tional or social functioning and must represent a decline from a previous
level of functioning. The nature and degree of impairment are variable and
often depend on the particular social setting of the individual. Standardized
mental status tests are a baseline for evaluation for dementia. Examples of
244
Dementia
A computer tomography (CT) scan can sometimes identify the source of dementia. (Digital
Stock)
some short tests are the Mini-Mental Status Test, the Blessed Information-
Memory-Concentration Test, and the Short Portable Mental Status Ques-
tionnaire. A standardized mental status test score should be used to confirm
the results of a history and physical examination. Standardized mental sta-
tus tests should not be the single deciding factor for the diagnosis of demen-
tia. Some tests such as blood evaluations, urinalysis, chest radiography,
carotid ultrasound, Doppler flow studies, electroencephalogram, lumbar
puncture, and computed tomography (CT) scans of the head are done in
relation to the presenting symptoms.
Treatment
The goals of treating dementia are improving mental function and main-
taining the highest level of function possible. Many families care for family
members with dementia at home. A structured home environment and es-
tablished daily routines are important as the person with dementia begins to
experience difficulty learning and remembering new activities. Establishing
simple chores to enhance a sense of usefulness, such as watering plants,
dusting, and setting the table, are helpful. It is essential to provide a safe
home environment. This includes maintaining uncluttered surroundings
and removing potentially dangerous items such as matches, lighters, knives,
scissors, and medications. In later stages of dementia, stoves, ovens, and
other cooking items may need to be disabled to prevent fires. Clocks, calen-
dars, television, magazines, and newspapers are good ways to help to keep
245
Psychology Basics
those with dementia oriented. As functioning decreases, nursing home

placement may be necessary.
It is important that the families who care for members with dementia at
home are made aware of community services that can assist them in locating
support groups and social service agencies to access day care, counseling,
home, day, respite care, and group therapy services.
Pharmaceutical Therapies
Nerve growth factor, antioxidant therapy, and other drugs are being investi-
gated for the management of dementia. Psychotrophic medications such as
carbamazepine, desipramine, haloperidol, lorazepam, and thioridazine are
used to control symptoms of agitation, anxiety, confusion, delusions, de-
pression, and hallucinations in patients with dementia. Unfortunately, some
of the medications used to improve patients’ quality of life may not work,
may worsen memory deficits, or cause neurological effects such as irrevers-
ible tremors (tardive diskinesia).
It is important to reduce cerebrovascular risk factors such as hyperten-
sion, diabetes, smoking, hyperlipidemia, and coronary artery disease in pa-
tients with vascular dementia. Dementia resulting from neurologic condi-
tions (Parkinson’s disease, normal-pressure hydrocephalus, brain lesions,
carotid artery disease) requires a neurological workup. Dementia related to
a hereditary condition requires referral for genetic counseling.

Epstein, David, and James Gonnor. “Dementia in Elderly: An Overview.”
Generations 23, no. 3 (1999): 9-17. Presents an overview of various types of
dementia and their treatments.
Rabins, Peter V., Constantine G. Lyketsos, and Cynthia Steele. Practical De-
mentia Care. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999. Written primarily
for medical professionals. Covers definitions, evaluation, diseases caus-
ing dementia, care for the patient and the family, treatment options, ter-
minal care, and ethical and legal issues.
Schindler, Rachel. “Late-Life Dementia.” Geriatrics 55, no. 10 (2000): 55-57.
Discusses American Psychiatric Association guidelines for detecting and
treating dementia.
Teitel, Rosette, and Marc Gordon. The Handholder’s Handbook: A Guide to
Caregivers of People with Alzheimer’s or Other Dementias. New Brunswick, N.J.:
Rutgers University Press, 2001. A guide to practical and emotional issues
for caregivers of dementia patients. Chapters provide checklists of topics
that caregivers should deal with or cover as they adjust to their role.
Sharon Wallace Stark
See also: Aging: Cognitive Changes; Alzheimer’s Disease; Brain Structure;

Parkinson’s Disease; Support Groups.
246
Depression
The study of depression has focused on biological underpinnings, cognitive concomi-
tants, stress and coping style precursors, and interpersonal context.
Key concepts
• bipolar disorder
• major depressive episode
• manic episode
• unipolar depression
Almost everyone gets “down in the dumps” or has “the blues” sometimes.
Feeling sad or dejected is clearly a normal part of the spectrum of human
emotion. This situation is so common that a very important issue is how to
separate a normal blue or down mood or emotion from an abnormal clini-
cal state. Most clinicians use measures of intensity, severity, and duration of
these emotions to separate the almost unavoidable human experience of
sadness and dejection from clinical depression.
Depression is seen in all social classes, races, and ethnic groups. It is so
pervasive that it has been called the common cold of mental illness in the
popular press. It is approximately twice as common among women as it is
among men. Depression is seen among all occupations, but it is most com-
mon among people in the arts and humanities. Famous individuals such as
American president Abraham Lincoln and British prime minister Winston
Churchill had to cope with depression; Churchill called the affliction “the
black dog.” More recently, United States senator Thomas Eagleton and as-
tronaut Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin were known to have bouts of serious depres-
sion.
Of all problems that are mentioned by patients at psychological and psy-
chiatric clinics, some form of depression is most common. It is estimated
that approximately 25 percent of women in the United States will experi-
ence at least one significant depression during their lives. Contrary to a pop-
ular misconception that depression is most common among the elderly, it is
actually most common in twenty-five- to forty-four-year-olds. About 10 per-
cent of the college population report moderate depression, and 5 percent
report severe depression. Suicidal thoughts are common in depressive cli-
ents. In long-term follow-up, it has been found that approximately 15 per-
cent of depressed individuals eventually kill themselves. Alternatively
viewed, approximately 60 percent of suicides are believed to be caused by
depression or by depression in association with alcohol abuse. As has been
vividly portrayed in the media, teenage suicide in the United States is in-
creasing at an alarming rate.
The role of family or genetic factors in depression was addressed long ago
247
Psychology Basics
by Robert Burton in The Anatomy of Melancholy (1621), in which he noted

that the “inbred cause of melancholy is our temperature, in whole or part,
which we receive from our parents” and “such as the temperature of the fa-
ther is, such is the son’s, and look what disease the father had when he begot
him, his son will have after him.” More than 350 years later, the role of family
factors in depression was addressed in a major collaborative study in the
United States. In what was called the National Institute of Mental Health
Collaborative Study of the Psychobiology of Depression, a large number of
standardized instruments were developed to assess prevalence and inci-
dence of depression, life histories, psychosocial stressors, and outcome of
depression. The family members of depressed persons were assessed along
with the depressed individual. It was found that bipolar depression was
largely confined to relatives of individuals with bipolar disorder. Unipolar
depression, however, was common among relatives of both unipolar- and
bipolar-depressed individuals. The different patterns of familial transmis-
sion for bipolar and unipolar disorders strengthen the general conviction
that these two disorders should be kept distinct from each other.
One explanation for increased vulnerability to depression in close rela-
tives of depressed individuals is an inherited deficiency in two key compo-
The loss of a life partner is a

source of intense grief and
may trigger depression in the
survivor. (PhotoDisc)
248
Depression
nents of brain chemistry: norepinephrine and serotonin, both of which are

neurotransmitters. If depressions could be reliably subtyped according to
the primary neurotransmitter deficiency, the choice of antidepressant med-
ication would logically follow. Research is conflicting, however, on whether
there is one group of depressed individuals who are low in norepinephrine
and normal in serotonin and another group of depressives who are low in se-
rotonin and normal in norepinephrine. Future developments in the study
of neurotransmitters may have practical implications for the matching of
particular pharmacotherapy interventions with particular types of depres-
sion. Evidence does indicate that for many depressed patients, substantial
alteration in neurotransmitter activity occurs during their depression. This
altered activity may directly mediate many of the disturbing symptoms of de-
pression.
Cognitive and Stress Theories

A different approach to understanding depression has been put forward by
cognitive theorists. According to Aaron Beck, in Cognitive Therapy and the
Emotional Disorders (1976), cognitive distortions cause many, if not most, of a
person’s depressed states. Three of the most important cognitive distortions
are arbitrary inference, overgeneralization, and magnification and minimi-
zation. Arbitrary inference refers to the process of drawing a conclusion
from a situation, event, or experience when there is no evidence to support
the conclusion or when the conclusion is contrary to the evidence. For ex-
ample, an individual concludes that his boss hates him because she seldom
says positive things to him. Overgeneralization refers to an individual’s pat-
tern of drawing conclusions about his or her ability, performance, or worth
based on a single incident. An example of overgeneralization is an individ-
ual concluding that he is worthless because he is unable to find his way to a
particular address (even though he has numerous other exemplary skills).
Magnification and minimization refer to errors in evaluation that are so
gross as to constitute distortions. Magnification refers to the exaggeration of
negative events; minimization refers to the underemphasis of positive events.
According to Beck, there are three important aspects of these distortions
or depressive cognitions. First, they are automatic—that is, they occur with-
out reflection or forethought. Second, they appear to be involuntary. Some
patients indicate that these thoughts occur even though they have resolved
not to have them. Third, the depressed person accepts these thoughts as
plausible, even though others would not view them in the same manner.
While there is ample empirical support for the association of depression
and negative cognitive factors such as cognitive distortions, irrational be-
liefs, and negative statements about oneself, research that demonstrates the
ability of cognitive variables to predict subsequent depression is just begin-
ning. It appears that a cognitive vulnerability plays a role in symptom forma-
tion for at least some individuals and in the maintenance of ongoing epi-
sodes of depression for many, if not all, depressed persons.
249
Psychology Basics
Yet another approach to understanding depression focuses on stress and

coping. James Coyne, in a 1991 article, suggests that depression may be un-
derstood as a failure to cope with ongoing life problems or stressors. It has
been hypothesized that coping effectively with problems and stressors can
lessen the impact of these problems and help prevent them from becoming
chronic. Depressed patients show slower recovery if they display poor cop-
ing skills. Avoidance coping strategies appear to be particularly likely in de-
pression and are one example of poor coping. Depressed persons also show
elevated levels of emotion-focused coping strategies, such as wishful think-
ing, distancing, self-blame, and isolation. These strategies also tend to be in-
effective. While most forms of coping are impaired during an episode of de-
pression, only self-isolation, an interpersonal avoidance strategy, appears to
be an enduring coping style of persons vulnerable to depression. Thus, cop-
ing processes appear to change for the worse during an episode of depres-
sion, and poor coping helps to maintain the episode. In particular, de-
pressed persons appear likely to avoid problem situations and to engage in
strategies with a low likelihood of resulting in problem resolution or an en-
hanced sense of personal control.
Interpersonal approaches to understanding depression are related to
stress and coping models but highlight the interpersonal environment as
particularly important in depression. There is considerable evidence that
low levels of social support are related to depression. Perhaps the relation-
ship between social support and depression results from the fact that de-
pressed persons do not seek social support; however, there is also evidence
that poor social support leads to or maintains depressive symptomatology.
In particular, evidence links the absence of close relationships with the de-
velopment of depressive symptomatology. Accordingly, the work on general
social support and depression can be seen as pointing in the direction of
direct consideration of intimate relationships and their role in depression.
Because the strongest family ties are usually in the marital relationship, it is
natural to look to the marital relationship for particularly powerful opportu-
nities to provide social support. Indeed, there is considerable evidence of an
association between marital discord and depression. It had been expected
by some that the association between marital discord and depression would
be greater for women than men; however, it is generally equivalent between
sexes. Indeed, the risk of having a major depressive episode is approxi-
mately twenty-five times higher for both men and women if they are in a dis-
cordant marital relationship than if they are in a harmonious marital rela-
tionship.
Treatment Methods
There are a number of ways to understand depression, and each approach
appears to have something to offer. Given the distressing nature of depres-
sion, it is not surprising that these differing approaches have led to several
effective ways of treating depression.
250
Depression
Pharmacological interventions for unipolar depression have sometimes

been held to normalize a genetically determined biochemical defect; the ev-
idence, however, does not support this extreme biological characterization
of unipolar depression. Yet neurotransmitters may directly mediate many of
the behaviors affected in depression (for example, sleep, appetite, and plea-
sure), and neurotransmitter level and activity are disturbed as a concomi-
tant of many episodes of depression. Hence, the use of antidepressant
agents that influence neurotransmitter level or activity should be helpful in
reducing or eliminating symptoms of depression even if the disturbance in
neurotransmitter level or activity is itself the result of environmental or
cognitive changes. In addition, there is considerable direct evidence that
antidepressants can be useful in treating depression in many cases. In con-
trolled trials, both more recently developed and older forms of antidepres-
sants provided improvement rates of 66 to 75 percent, in contrast to place-
bos, which showed improvement rates of 30 to 60 percent. Exactly for whom
they will work, however, and exactly how or why they work are still not en-
tirely clear.
A second effective approach to the treatment of depression can be found
in cognitive therapy. It has become clear that altering cognitions and behav-
ior in a cognitive behavioral format can relieve an ongoing episode of de-
pression and may reduce the likelihood of relapse further than the use of
psychopharmacology alone. Thus, cognitive processes are, at a minimum,
reasonable targets of intervention in the treatment of many depressed pa-
tients. In addition, cognitive therapy appears to work well at decreasing de-
pressive symptomatology even in the context of ongoing marital discord.
Thus, for many depressed patients, interventions targeted at altering dys-
functional, negative automatic thoughts are likely to be useful.
Finally, interpersonal psychotherapy (IPT) has been developed by Ger-
ald Klerman. This successful approach emphasizes abnormal grief, inter-
personal disputes, role transitions, loss, and interpersonal deficits as well as
social and familial factors. Results of a large, multicenter collaborative study
conducted by the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) indicated
that IPT can work as well as antidepressant medication for many depressed
patients. In addition, earlier research indicated that IPT can improve the so-
cial functioning of depressed patients in a manner not typically produced by
antidepressant medications alone. Given the interpersonal problems which
are often part of a depressive episode, these improvements in social func-
tioning and interpersonal environment appear to be particularly important
for depressed persons. In a related development, marital therapy has been
tested as a treatment for depressed persons who are maritally discordant,
and it appears to be successful.
From Melancholy to Prozac

The identification of depression as a recognizable state has a very long his-
tory. Clinical depression was described as early as the eighth century b.c.e.
251
Psychology Basics
in the biblical descriptions of Saul. During the fourth century b.c.e., Hip-
pocrates coined the term “melancholy” to describe one of the three forms of
mental illness he recognized. Later, Galen attempted to provide a biochemi-
cal explanation of melancholy based on the theory of “humors.” Indeed, re-
peated descriptions and discussions of depression are present from classical
times through the Middle Ages and into modern times.
The first comprehensive treatment of depression in English was provided
by Timothy Bright’s Treatise of Melancholia (1586). In 1621 Robert Burton
provided his own major work on depression, The Anatomy of Melancholy. Most
of the credit for developing the modern understanding of affective disor-
ders, however, is given to Emil Kraepelin, a German psychiatrist. It was in
Kraepelin’s system that the term “depression” first assumed importance.
Since classical times, there has been debate about whether depression is
best considered an illness or a response to an unhappy situation. Indeed, it
is obvious to the most casual observer that sadness is a normal response to
unhappy events. Even now, there is less than complete agreement on when
fluctuations in mood should be considered pathological and when they are
within normal limits. To help resolve this problem, diagnostic criteria have
been developed, and structured interview procedures are often used to de-
termine whether a particular individual should be considered depressed.
In the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual
of Mental Disorders: DSM-IV-TR (rev. 4th ed., 2000), a common diagnostic
tool, unipolar depression is divided into the categories Dysthymic Disorder,
Major Depressive Disorder-Single Episode, and Major Depressive Disorder-
Recurrent, while bipolar depression is divided into Bipolar I Disorder, Bi-
polar II Disorder, Cyclothymic Disorder, and Bipolar Disorder Not Other-
wise Specified (NOS). In most articles, the term “depression” refers to uni-
polar depression only. Because unipolar depression is much more common
than bipolar depression, it is likely that it will continue to attract a larger
share of research attention in the future.
Throughout history, models of depression have become increasingly so-
phisticated, progressing from Hippocrates’ theory that depression was pro-
duced by an excess of black bile to modern biochemical, cognitive, coping,
stress, and interpersonal models. In the future, even more sophisticated
models of depression may provide guidance for the next great challenge fac-
ing clinical psychology: reversing the trend in Western societies toward ever-
increasing rates of depression.

Beach, Stephen R. H., E. E. Sandeen, and K. D. O’Leary. Depression in Mar-
riage. New York: Guilford Press,, 1990. Summarizes the literature on basic
models of depression. Provides the basis for understanding the impor-
tant role of marriage in the etiology, maintenance, and treatment of de-
pression.
Beck, Aaron T. Cognitive Therapy and the Emotional Disorders. 1976. Reprint.
252
Depression
New York: New American Library, 1979. Clearly lays out the basics of the
cognitive model of depression. An important start for those who wish to
understand the cognitive approach more thoroughly.
Burns, David D. Feeling Good: The New Mood Therapy. Rev. ed. New York: Avon
Books, 1999. Provides a very entertaining and accessible presentation of
the cognitive approach to depression. Presents basic results and the ba-
sics of cognitive theory as well as a practical set of suggestions for getting
out of a depression.
Coyne, James C., ed. Essential Papers on Depression. New York: New York Uni-
versity Press, 1986. Includes representatives of every major theoretical po-
sition advanced between 1900 and 1985. Each selection is a classic presen-
tation of an important perspective. This source will acquaint the reader
with the opinions of major theorists in their own words.
Coyne, James C., and G. Downey. “Social Factors and Psychopathology:
Stress, Social Support, and Coping Processes.” Annual Review of Psychology
42 (1991): 401-426. This influential essay ties together stress and coping
with interpersonal processes to provide a deeper understanding of the
nature of depression. Also provides an account of advances in the way
both depression and interpersonal processes related to depression may
be studied.
Kleinman, Arthur, and Byron Good. Culture and Depression. Berkeley: Uni-
versity of California Press, 1985. This exceptional volume examines the
cross-cultural research on depression. Anthropologists, psychiatrists, and
psychologists attempt to address the diversity that exists across cultures in
the experience and expression of depression.
Paykel, Eugene S. Handbook of Affective Disorders. 2d ed. New York: Guilford
Press, 1992. Provides comprehensive coverage of depression, mania, and
anxiety in relation to depression. Includes detailed descriptions of symp-
toms, assessment procedures, epidemiology, and treatment procedures.
Solomon, Andrew. The Noonday Demon: An Atlas of Depression. New York:
Charles Scribner’s Sons, 2000. Solomon, who suffered serious depres-
sion, provides an insightful investigation of the subject from perspectives
of history, psychology, literature, psychopharmacology, law, and philoso-
phy.
Stahl, Stephen M. Essential Psychopharmacology of Depression and Bipolar Disor-
der. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2000. Coverage of the rapidly
expanding options in drug treatments for depression.
Stephen R. H. Beach
See also: Abnormality: Psychological Models; Bipolar Disorder; Clinical

Depression; Cognitive Behavior Therapy; Cognitive Therapy; Death and Dy-
ing; Drug Therapies; Emotions; Mood Disorders; Suicide.
253
Development
Fields of study: Adolescence; behavioral and cognitive models; infancy
and childhood
Developmental theories allow psychologists to manage and understand the enormous

body of data on behavioral development from infancy through old age. Theories of de-
velopment focus on many different issues and derive from many perspectives and pe-
riods in history. All, however, are concerned with explaining stability and change in
human behavior as individuals progress through their lives.
Key concepts
• behaviorism
• emergent process
• heuristic
• “organic lamp” theory
• psychodynamic theory
Developmental theory has changed greatly over time. The theories of societ-
ies at various times in history have emphasized different aspects of develop-
ment. The Puritans of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, for exam-
ple, focused on the moral development of the child; they believed that
Original Sin was inherent in children and that children had to be sternly dis-
ciplined in order to make them morally acceptable. In contrast to this view
was the developmental theory of the eighteenth century French philoso-
pher Jean-Jacques Rousseau, who held that children were born good and
were then morally corrupted by society. Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) was in-
terested in psychosexual development and in mental illness; his work there-
fore focused on these areas. John B. Watson (1878-1958), B. F. Skinner
(1904-1990), and Albert Bandura (born 1925) worked during a period
when the major impetus in psychology was the study of learning; not surpris-
ingly, this was the focus of their work.
As developmental theorists worked intently within given areas, they often
arrived at extreme positions, philosophically and scientifically. For example,
some theorists focused upon the biology of behavior; impressed by the im-
portance of “nature” (genetic or other inherited sources) in development,
they may have neglected “nurture” (learning and other resources received
from parents, the world, and society). Others focused upon societal and so-
cial learning effects and decided that nurture was the root of behavior; na-
ture has often been relegated to subsidiary theoretical roles in physiological
and anatomical development. Similar conflicts have arisen concerning de-
velopmental continuity or discontinuity, the relative activity or passivity of
children in contributing to their own development, and a host of other is-
sues in the field.
254
Development
These extreme positions would at first appear to be damaging to the un-

derstanding of development; however, psychologists are now in a position to
evaluate the extensive bodies of research conducted by adherents of the var-
ious theoretical positions. It has become evident that the truth, in general,
lies somewhere in between. Some developmental functions proceed in a rel-
atively stepwise fashion, as Jean Piaget (1896-1980) or Freud would hold;
others are much smoother and more continuous. Some development re-
sults largely from the child’s rearing and learning; other behaviors appear
to be largely biological. Some developmental phenomena are emergent
processes (any process of behavior or development that was not necessarily
inherent in or predictable from its original constituents) of the way in which
the developing individual is organized, resulting from both nature and nur-
ture in intricate, interactive patterns that are only beginning to be under-
stood. These findings, and the therapeutic and educational applications
that derive from them, are only comprehensible when viewed against the ex-
isting corpus of developmental theory. This corpus, in turn, owes its exis-
tence to the gradual construction and modification of developmental theo-
ries of the past.
Theoretical Questions and Properties

Theoretical perspectives on development derive from a wide variety of view-
points. Although there are numerous important theoretical issues in devel-
opment, three questions are central for most theories. The first of these is
the so-called nature-nurture question, concerning whether most behavioral
development derives from genetics or from the environment. The second of
these issues is the role of children in their own development: Are children
active contributors to their own development, or do they simply and pas-
sively react to the stimuli they encounter? Finally, there is the question of
whether development is continuous or discontinuous: Does development
proceed by a smooth accretion of knowledge and skills, or by stepwise, dis-
crete developmental stages? Current perspectives within developmental psy-
chology represent very different views on these issues.
Useful developmental theories must possess three properties. They must
be parsimonious, or as simple as possible to fit the available facts. They must
be heuristically useful, generating new research and new knowledge. Finally,
they must be falsifiable, or testable: A theory that cannot be tested can never
be shown to be right or wrong. Developmental theories can be evaluated in
terms of these three criteria.
Psychodynamic Theories
Arguably, the oldest developmental theoretical formulation in use is the
psychodynamic model, which gave rise to the work of Erik Erikson (1902-
1994), Carl Jung (1875-1961), and, as its seminal example, the theory of
Sigmund Freud. Freud’s theory holds that all human behavior is energized
by dynamic forces, many of which are consciously inaccessible to the individ-
255
Psychology Basics
ual. There are three parts to the personality in Freud’s formulation: the id,
which emerges first and consists of basic, primal drives; the ego, which finds
realistic ways to gratify the desires of the id; and the superego, the individ-
ual’s moral conscience, which develops from the ego. A primary energizing
force for development is the libido, a psychosexual energy that invests itself
in different aspects of life during the course of development. In the first year
of life (Freud’s oral stage), the libido is invested in gratification through oral
behavior, including chewing and sucking. Between one and three years of
age (the anal stage), the libido is invested in the anus, and the primary
source of gratification has to do with toilet training. From three to six years,
the libido becomes invested in the genitals; it is during this phallic stage that
the child begins to achieve sexual identity. At about six years of age, the child
enters latency, a period of relative psychosexual quiet, until the age of twelve
years, when the genital stage emerges and normal sexual love becomes pos-
sible.
Freud’s theory is a discontinuous theory, emphasizing stage-by-stage de-
velopment. The theory also relies mainly on nature, as opposed to nurture;
the various stages are held to occur across societies and with little reference
to individual experience. The theory holds that children are active in their
own development, meeting and resolving the conflicts that occur at each
stage.
The success of psychodynamic theory has been questionable. Its parsi-
mony is open to question: There are clearly simpler explanations of chil-
dren’s behavior. The falsifiability of these ideas is also highly questionable
because the theories are quite self-contained and difficult to test. Psycho-
dynamic theory, however, has proven enormously heuristic—that is, having
the property of generating further research and theory. Hundreds of stud-
ies have set out to test these ideas, and these studies have significantly con-
tributed to developmental knowledge.
Behaviorist Theories
In contrast to psychodynamic theories, the behaviorist theories pioneered
by John B. Watson and B. F. Skinner hold that development is a continuous
process, without discrete stages, and that the developing child passively ac-
quires and reflects knowledge. For behaviorists, development results from
nurture, from experience and learning, rather than from nature. The most
important extant behaviorist theory is the social learning theory of Albert
Bandura, which holds that children learn by watching others around them
and imitating others’ actions. For example, Bandura demonstrated that
children were far more inclined to commit violent acts (toward a toy) if
someone else, particularly an adult, committed the acts first. The children
were especially disposed to imitate if they perceived the acting individual as
powerful or as rewarded for his or her violent actions.
256
Development
Organic Lamp Theories

The behaviorist theories are relatively parsimonious and heuristic. They are
also testable, and it has been shown that, although many of the findings of
the behaviorists have stood the test of time, there are developmental find-
ings that do not fit this framework. To understand these findings, one must
turn to the so-called organic lamp theories. This term comes from the fact
that within these theories, children are seen as active contributors to their
own development, and certain developmental processes are held to be
emergent: As fuel combusts to produce heat and light in a lamp, hereditary
and environmental factors combine in development to produce new kinds
of behavior. This framework was pioneered by Kurt Goldstein and Heinz
Werner, but the most significant extant organic lamp theory is the cognitive
development theory of Jean Piaget.
Piaget’s Contributions
Piaget’s theory involves a discontinuous process of development in four ma-
jor stages. The sensorimotor stage (birth to two years) is followed by the
preoperational stage (two to seven years), the concrete operational stage
(seven years to adolescence), and the formal operational stage (adoles-
cence to adulthood). During the sensorimotor stage, the child’s behavior is
largely reflexive, lacking coherent conscious thought; the child learns that
self and world are actually different, and that objects exist even when they
are not visible. During the preoperational stage, the child learns to infer the
perspectives of other people, learns language, and discovers various con-
cepts for dealing with the physical world. In the concrete operational stage,
the ability to reason increases, but children still cannot deal with abstract is-
sues. Finally, in formal operations, abstract reasoning abilities develop. The
differences between the stages are qualitative differences, reflecting signifi-
cant, discrete kinds of behavioral change.
Piaget’s theory is not entirely accurate; it does not apply cross-culturally
in many instances, and children may, under some experimental circum-
stances, function at a higher cognitive level than would be predicted by the
theory. In addition, some aspects of development have been shown to be
more continuous in their nature than Piaget’s ideas would indicate. Yet
Piaget’s formulation is relatively parsimonious. The various aspects of the
theory are readily testable and falsifiable, and the heuristic utility of these
ideas has been enormous. This theory has probably been the most success-
ful of the several extant perspectives, and it has contributed significantly to
more recent advances in developmental theory. This progress includes the
work of James J. Gibson, which emphasizes the active role of the organism,
embedded in its environment, in the development of perceptual processes;
the information processing theories, which emphasize cognitive change;
and the ethological or evolutionary model, which emphasizes the interplay
of developmental processes, changing ecologies, and the course of organic
evolution.
257
Psychology Basics
Modern-Day Applications
Developmental theory has been important in virtually every branch of med-
icine and education. The psychoanalytic theories of Sigmund Freud were
the foundation of psychiatry and still form a central core for much of mod-
ern psychiatric practice. These theories are less emphasized in modern clin-
ical psychology, but the work of Freud, Erikson, Jung, and later psychody-
namicists is still employed in many areas of psychotherapy.
The behavioristic theories have proved useful in the study of children’s
learning for educational purposes, and they have considerable relevance for
social development. An example is seen in the area of media violence.
Bandura’s work and other research stemming from social learning theory
has repeatedly demonstrated that children tend to imitate violent acts that
they see in real life or depicted on television and in other media, particularly
if the individuals who commit these acts are perceived as powerful or as re-
warded for their actions. Although this is disputed, especially by the media,
most authorities are in agreement that excessive exposure to televised vio-
lence leads to real-world violence, largely through the mechanisms de-
scribed by social learning theorists. Social learning theory has contributed
significantly to an understanding of such topics as school violence, gang vio-
lence, and violent crime.
Interplay of Nature Versus Nurture

The organic lamp views have provided developmentalists with useful frame-
works against which to understand the vast body of developmental data.
Work within the Piagetian framework has shown that both nature and nur-
ture contribute to successful development. One cannot, for example, create
“superchildren” by providing preschoolers with college-level material. In
general, they are simply not ready as organisms to cope with the abstract
thinking required. On the other hand, the work of researchers on various
Piagetian problems has shown that even very young children are capable of
complex learning.
Organic lamp theory has demonstrated the powerful interplay between
biological factors and the way in which children are raised. An example is
seen in the treatment of Down syndrome, a chromosomal condition that
results in mental retardation. The disorder occurs when there are three
chromosomes, rather than two, at the twenty-first locus. Clearly, this is a bio-
logical condition, and it was believed to be relatively impervious to interven-
tions that come from the environment. It has now been shown, however,
that children afflicted with Down syndrome develop much higher intelli-
gence when raised in an intellectually stimulating environment, as opposed
to the more sterile, clinical, determined environments typically employed in
the past. The child’s intellect is not entirely determined by biology; it is pos-
sible to ameliorate the biological effects of the syndrome by means of envi-
ronmental intervention. This type of complex interplay of hereditary and
environmental factors is the hallmark of applied organic lamp theory.
258
Development
The most important application of developmental theory generally, how-

ever, lies in its contribution to the improved understanding of human na-
ture. Such an understanding has considerable real-world importance. For
example, among other factors, an extreme faith in the nature side of the na-
ture-nurture controversy led German dictator Adolf Hitler to the assump-
tion that entire races were, by their nature, inferior and therefore should be
exterminated. His actions, based on this belief, led to millions of human
deaths during World War II. Thus, one can see that developmental theories,
especially if inadequately understood, may have sweeping applications in
the real world.

Gollin, Eugene S., ed. Developmental Plasticity: Behavioral and Biological Aspects
of Variations in Development. New York: Academic Press, 1981. Excellent
coverage of important theoretical issues in modern developmental psy-
chology. Accessible to college or graduate students with some back-
ground in psychology or biology.
Lerner, Richard M. On the Nature of Human Plasticity. New York: Cambridge
University Press, 1984. Insightful discussion of modern theory in devel-
opmental psychology and some historic antecedents. Emphasis on bio-
logical issues. Accessible to advanced students, graduate students, or pro-
fessionals.
Miller, Patricia H. Theories of Developmental Psychology. 4th ed. New York:
Worth, 2002. Excellent, comprehensive treatment of developmental the-
ory. Describes extant theories in detail and discusses commonalities and
dissimilarities. Accessible to the layperson with some background in psy-
chology.
Piaget, Jean. Biology and Knowledge. Chicago: University of Chicago Press,
1971. This is a seminal summary of Piagetian theory that contains more
general information and information concerning theory construction
than do Piaget’s other, more specific works. Readily accessible to the col-
lege student or the advanced high school student.
Shaffer, David Reed. Developmental Psychology: Childhood and Adolescence. 6th
ed. Belmont, Calif.: Wadsworth, 2001. Good general textbook on devel-
opmental psychology with an excellent basic treatment of theoretical is-
sues in development. Accessible to the college or high school student.
Siegler, Robert S. Emerging Minds: The Process of Change in Children’s Thinking.
New York: Oxford University Press, 1996. Proposes a methodology of de-
scribing change as children’s cognitive processes evolve.
Matthew J. Sharps
See also: Adolescence: Cognitive Skills; Aging: Cognitive Changes; Attach-

ment and Bonding in Infancy and Childhood; Behaviorism; Cognitive De-
velopment: Jean Piaget; Ego Psychology: Erik Erikson; Gender-Identity For-
mation; Psychosexual Development.
259
Developmental Disabilities
Fields of study: Childhood and adolescent disorders; cognitive
development; infancy and childhood; organic disorders
Developmental disabilities are conditions that result in substantial functional limita-

tions. They manifest themselves in childhood and persist throughout the life span, re-
quiring a continuum of medical, educational, and social services.
Key concepts
• individual education plan (IEP)
• individual family service plan (IFSP)
• medically fragile
• mental retardation
• pervasive developmental disorder (PDD)
The concept of developmental disabilities was first introduced in the Devel-

opmental Disabilities Services and Facilities Construction Act of 1970. Sub-
sequently, the Developmental Disabilities Assistance and Bill of Rights Act of
1990 defined developmental disabilities. The term “developmental disabil-
ity” means a severe, chronic disability of a person five years of age or older
that is attributable to a mental or physical impairment or a combination of
both. The disability must manifest itself before the person reaches the age of
twenty-two and be expected to continue indefinitely. It results in substan-
tial functional limitations in three or more areas of major life activity, includ-
ing self-care, receptive and expressive language, learning, mobility, self-
direction, capacity for independent living, and economic self-sufficiency.
The inclusion of the requirement of substantial functional limitations in
three or more major life areas forms the basis for provision of services to in-
dividuals with severe impairments.
The American Psychiatric Association does not use the term “develop-
mental disabilities.” However, it does identify pervasive developmental dis-
orders (PDD) in its diagnostic manual. The description of these disorders
and their manifestations in many ways overlaps the definition of develop-
mental disabilities.
The terms “developmental disabilities” and “mental retardation” are of-
ten used as if they were synonymous. However, there are important distinc-
tions as well as areas of overlap. The President’s Committee on Mental
Retardation uses the definition developed and used by the American Associ-
ation on Mental Retardation and generally understood by the Arc-USA
(a national organization for people with mental retardation and related de-
velopmental disabilities and their families). Developmental disabilities in-
clude more disabilities than those encompassed under mental retardation.
260
Developmental disabilities comprise severe and chronic disabilities, while

mental retardation includes a large number of individuals functioning at
the mild level of cognitive impairment who require little or no support in
adulthood. However, mental retardation does account for 70 percent of the
people who are developmentally disabled. The term “medically fragile” is
sometimes used to describe those vulnerable individuals whose complex
medical needs can seriously compromise their health status.
Possible Causes
There are a multitude of etiologies for developmental disabilities. The cause
can be prenatal, perinatal, or postnatal. Risk factors for developmental dis-
abilities can be biological, environmental, or a combination of both. Genet-
ics plays a role in conditions such as Tay-Sachs disease and other inborn er-
rors of metabolism, Klinefelter’s syndrome, Fragile X syndrome, and Down
syndrome, that typically lead to developmental disability. Genetic causes
may be chromosomal abnormalities, single gene defects, or multifactorial
disorders. For example, autism appears to have a genetic component that
interacts with developmental factors.
A number of conditions in the prenatal environment may increase the
likelihood that a child will be born with the potential for a developmental
disability. Fetal alcohol syndrome, for example, is completely preventable if
pregnant women do not drink alcohol. Women who have sufficient amounts
of folic acid in their diets reduce the risk of having a child with a neural tube
defect that can result in a developmental disability.
Smoking during pregnancy, use of certain drugs such as cocaine or her-
oin, poor maternal nutrition, and extremes of maternal age greatly increase
the chances of fetal brain damage or premature delivery and low birth
weight. Babies with low birth weights are three times more likely than normal-
weight babies to have developmental disabilities. Approximately 61 percent
of premature infants have a developmental disability of some kind.
Children may later be at risk through environmental causes such as lead
poisoning, inadequate nutrition, infections, nonstimulating environments,
abuse, neglect, and traumatic brain injury.
Diagnosing Developmental Disabilities

Developmental disabilities are defined in terms of what an individual can or
cannot do rather than in terms of a clinical diagnosis. They affect the typical
processes in a child’s growth, particularly the maturation of the central ner-
vous system. For this reason, early identification is important. The potential
exists for an improved outcome if children are provided with education and
habilitation. Prenatal diagnostic techniques may be appropriate for at-risk
pregnancies. If a fetus is known to be affected, the physician is better able to
plan the delivery and for special care during the newborn period.
Newborn screening is another way in which to identify conditions that
can result in developmental disabilities if untreated. The Apgar test is ad-
261
Psychology Basics
DSM-IV-TR Criteria for Pervasive

Developmental Disorders
Asperger’s Disorder (DSM code 299.80)
Qualitative impairment in social interaction, manifested by at least two of
the following:
• marked impairment in use of multiple nonverbal behaviors (eye-to-eye
gaze, facial expression, body postures, gestures)
ments with others
Restricted, repetitive, and stereotyped patterns of behavior, interests, and
activities, manifested by at least one of the following:
rituals
• stereotyped and repetitive motor mannerisms (hand or finger flapping,
complex whole-body movements)
Symptoms cause clinically significant impairment in social, occupational,

or other important areas of functioning
No clinically significant general delay in language
No clinically significant delay in cognitive development or development of
age-appropriate self-help skills, adaptive behavior (other than in social inter-
action), and curiosity about environment
Criteria for another specific pervasive developmental disorder or schizo-
phrenia not met
Autistic Disorder (DSM code 299.00)
Six or more criteria from three lists
1) Qualitative impairment in social interaction, manifested by at least two
of the following:
• marked impairment in use of multiple nonverbal behaviors
ments with others
2) Qualitative impairments in communication, manifested by at least one
of the following:
• delay in, or total lack of, development of spoken language, not accompa-
nied by attempts to compensate through alternative modes of commu-
nication such as gesture or mime
262
• in individuals with adequate speech, marked impairment in ability to

initiate or sustain conversation
• stereotyped and repetitive use of language or idiosyncratic language
• lack of varied, spontaneous make-believe play or social imitative play ap-
propriate to developmental level
3) Restricted, repetitive, and stereotyped patterns of behavior, interests,
and activities, manifested by at least one of the following:
rituals
• stereotyped and repetitive motor mannerisms
Delays or abnormal functioning in at least one of the following areas, with
onset prior to age three:
• language as used in social communication
• symbolic or imaginative play
Symptoms not better explained by Rett’s Disorder or Childhood Disinte-
grative Disorder
Childhood Disintegrative Disorder (DSM code 299.10)
Apparently normal development until at least age two, with age-appropriate
verbal and nonverbal communication, social relationships, play, and adaptive
behavior
Clinically significant loss of previously acquired skills before age ten in at
least two of the following areas:
• expressive or receptive language
• social skills or adaptive behavior
• bowel or bladder control
• play
• motor skills
At least two of the following abnormalities of functioning:
• qualitative impairment in social interaction (impairment in nonverbal
behaviors, failure to develop peer relationships, lack of social or emo-
tional reciprocity)
• qualitative impairments in communication (delay or lack of spoken lan-
guage, inability to initiate or sustain conversation, stereotyped and re-
petitive use of language, lack of varied make-believe play)
• restricted, repetitive, and stereotyped patterns of behavior, interests,
and activities, including motor stereotypies and mannerisms
Symptoms not better explained by another specific pervasive developmen-
tal disorder or schizophrenia
(continued)
263
Psychology Basics
DSM-IV-TR Criteria for Pervasive

Developmental Disorders—continued
Rett’s Disorder (DSM code 299.80)
Apparently normal prenatal and perinatal development, apparently nor-
mal psychomotor development through first five months after birth, and nor-
mal head circumference at birth
Onset of all the following after the period of normal development:
• deceleration of head growth between five and forty-eight months of age
• loss of previously acquired purposeful hand skills between five and thirty
months of age, with the subsequent development of stereotyped hand
movements
• loss of social engagement early in course (although often social interac-
tion develops later)
• poorly coordinated gait or trunk movements
• severely impaired expressive and receptive language development, with
severe psychomotor retardation
Pervasive Developmental Disorder Not Otherwise Specified
(DSM code 299.80)
ministered by the medical staff in the delivery room at one minute, five min-
utes, and, if there are complications, at ten and fifteen minutes after birth. It
measures the effects of various complications of labor and birth and deter-
mines the need for resuscitation. The test assesses physical responsiveness,
development, and overall state of health using a scale of five items rated
from 0 to 2. A low Apgar score at birth can signal the potential for a develop-
mental disability.
Measurement of head circumference is a useful tool for predicting
whether an infant is likely to have a neurodevelopmental impairment such
as microcephaly. A blood test screening can be done for phenylketonuria
(PKU), congenital hypothyroidism, galactosemia, maple syrup urine dis-
ease, homocystinuria, and biotinidase deficiency. Early detection of these
conditions and appropriate intervention may reduce the severity of the re-
sulting disability.
An older child can be referred to a developmental pediatrician for assess-
ment of a developmental disability if the child has not attained expected
age-appropriate developmental milestones, exhibits atypical development
or behavior, or regresses to a previous level of development. Correcting for
prematurity in developmental testing is necessary. An instrument com-
monly used is the Denver Developmental Screening Test. The more severely
affected a child is, the clearer is the diagnosis, as an individual’s failure to
meet developmental milestones may represent a short-term problem that
264
resolves over time as the child “catches up.” Even readily identifiable indica-
tors of potential disability do not always result in expected delays.
Related issues such as feeding, elimination, and cardiorespiratory prob-
lems; pressure sores; and infection control are also considered as part of the
diagnosis. Screening for lead poisoning or psychological testing may be rec-
ommended.
At whatever age the person is referred, a multidisciplinary evaluation at-
tempts to establish a baseline of the present level of performance, including
both skills and deficits. Activities of daily living (ADLs) such as bathing, eat-
ing, and dressing are widely used in assessing this population. Needing assis-
tance with ADLs becomes an important criterion for determining eligibility
for public and private disability benefits. An appraisal is made of those defi-
cits that can be remedied and those that require accommodation. The pre-
dictive accuracy of the diagnosis improves with the individual’s age.
Language development is another predictor variable. Individuals with
developmental disabilities may have little or no apparent intent to commu-
nicate and may not understand that they can affect their environment
through communication. Though developmental disabilities, by definition,
are severe, it is possible that a child not previously identified could be de-
tected by routine public school prekindergarten screening.
The Developmentally Disabled Population

The Administration on Developmental Disabilities of the United States De-
partment of Health and Human Services estimates that there are four mil-
lion Americans with developmental disabilities. Data specific to the inci-
dence and prevalence of developmental disabilities are difficult to obtain
because of the various etiologies present in this population. Conditions
which often fall under the umbrella of developmental disabilities include
mental retardation, autism, epilepsy, spinal cord injury, sensory impair-
ment, traumatic brain injury, and cerebral palsy.
Though developmental disabilities can be associated with neurological
damage, many of the conditions resulting in a developmental disability do
not result in lowered intellectual functioning. Persons with developmental
disabilities are estimated to comprise 1.7 to 1.8 percent of the population.
This percentage has risen markedly since the mid-1970’s for two reasons: in-
creased life span for older individuals with disabilities and a greater number
of children and adolescents surviving conditions that previously would have
been fatal. The number of students diagnosed with autism has grown dra-
matically, from approximately 5,500 in the 1991-1992 school year to nearly
55,000 in 1998-1999.
Between 200,000 and 500,000 people in the United States over the age of
sixty may have some form of developmental disability. Some of these individ-
uals present special problems as they age. Those with epilepsy appear to be
at greater risk for osteoporosis, while those with Down syndrome seem to be-
gin the aging process earlier than others.
265
Psychology Basics
Treatment Options
The person with a developmental disability needs a combination of interdis-
ciplinary services that are individually planned and coordinated and are of
lifelong duration or extended duration throughout the life cycle. Because
the causes and manifestations of developmental disabilities are so varied,
each affected person is unique and requires an individualized approach to
treatment and training. Each disability has specific needs that must be ad-
dressed and accommodations that must be provided.
When a defect has been identified prenatally, fetal treatment may be pos-
sible in order to prevent developmental disability. Some inborn errors of
metabolism respond to vitamin therapy given to the mother. Bone marrow
transplants and fetal surgery have also been performed.
Services for children from birth to two years of age provide special educa-
tion as well as access to specialists in the areas of speech and physical ther-
apy, psychology, medicine, and nursing. Assistive technology, physical adap-
tations, and case management are also offered. Medical management,
monitoring, and consultation may be the responsibility of a developmental
pediatrician.
Early intervention may be home-based, or the child can be enrolled in a
center with a low child-to-teacher ratio. In either case, an Individual Family
Service Plan (IFSP) is developed which includes a statement of the child’s
present level of development, the family’s concerns, priorities, and re-
sources, major outcomes to be achieved, and the specific early intervention
services to be provided; identification of the coordinator responsible for im-
plementing the plan; and procedures for transition to preschool.
Among the equipment used in treating the child may be positioning de-
vices, wheelchairs, special car restraints, amplification devices, and ambula-
tion aids. Some children may require gastronomy tubes, tracheostomy
tubes, cardiorespiratory monitors, nasogastric tubes, ventilators, bladder
catheters, splints, or casting. They may be placed on antiepileptic medica-
tion, antispasticity drugs, antireflux medications, antibiotics, respiratory
medications, or medications to influence mood and behavior.
The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act mandates comprehensive
educational services for children from three through twenty-one years of
age. Services are offered in a continuum of settings that are individually de-
termined. These settings may include hospitals, residential facilities, sepa-
rate day schools, homes, and public schools. Children are ideally placed in
what the law refers to as the least restrictive environment. An Individual Ed-
ucation Plan (IEP) replaces the IFSP.
ADLs are a prime focus of the educational program. The goal is to pro-
mote independence in such areas as eating, drinking, dressing, using the
toilet, grooming, and tool use, which, in turn, fosters self-esteem.
Facilitating language acquisition and communicative intent are critical to
any intervention program. Many developmentally disabled individuals will
need numerous stimulus presentations before acquiring a rudimentary
266
vocabulary. For those children who continue to be nonverbal, alternative

communication systems such as sign language, use of pictures, and commu-
nication boards are introduced to enable communicative interaction. Com-
puters with interface devices such as switches or touch-sensitive screens may
be introduced to children with cerebral palsy.
Children with developmental disabilities exhibit challenging behaviors
more often than typically developing children. After previously unrecog-
nized medical conditions are ruled out as causes, positive behavioral sup-
ports at home and in school or traditional behavior management programs
aim to produce comprehensive change in those challenging behaviors.
Drugs that affect central nervous system function can also be helpful in
treating disruptive behaviors.
Newer treatment approaches include neurodevelopmental therapy and
sensory integration therapy. Neurodevelopmental therapy is widely used by
physical and occupational therapists. It emphasizes sensorimotor experi-
ence to facilitate normal movement and posture in young developmentally
disabled children with cerebral palsy or other, related disorders. Sensory in-
tegration is a normal process in which the child’s central nervous system
organizes sensory feedback from the body and the environment and makes
appropriate adaptive responses. Sensory integration therapy uses controlled
sensory input to promote those adaptive responses.
Adults with developmental disabilities are living longer than ever before.
Most have the ability to live happy, productive lives in their communities.
One component of treatment is transition planning. The Developmental
Disabilities Act of 1984 emphasizes the importance of employment of per-
sons with developmental disabilities and offers guidelines for providing sup-
ported employment services. Other transition issues include sexuality, so-
cial integration, recreation, and community residential options. Medical
and physical care plans are necessary because long-term consequences of
therapeutic interventions may occur. Movement disorders can result from
the prolonged use of neuroleptic medications, while bone demineralization
may be caused by the chronic use of certain anticonvulsants.
History of Treatment
Services for people now referred to as having a developmental disability be-
gan in the United States in 1848 in Boston. The philosophy of early schools
was to cure the “deviant.” However, by 1877 a unidisciplinary medical model
replaced the educational model and emphasized providing shelter and pro-
tection to this population. Later, the interest in Mendelian genetics led to a
change in focus to protecting society from those whose disabilities were con-
sidered hereditary. By 1926, twenty-three states had laws requiring mandatory
sterilization of the developmentally disabled on the books, and between 1925
and 1955 more than fifty thousand involuntary sterilizations were performed
in the United States. In the 1950’s, parents began to organize opportunities
for individuals with developmental disabilities within public school systems.
267
Psychology Basics
Treatment evolved from the medical model to a multidisciplinary ap-

proach in which a physician consulted with other experts. Later, an interdis-
ciplinary model emerged in which professionals from each discipline gath-
ered to discuss their individual assessments and decide jointly on a plan of
care. More recently, a transdisciplinary approach has been developed in
which professionals, along with the individual concerned and his or her
family, work together equally to identify needs, plan care, implement inter-
ventions, and evaluate progress.
Though the term “developmental disabilities” was not used in it, PL 94-
142, the Education for All Handicapped Children Act of 1975, mandated a
free, appropriate, public education for children who could be considered
developmentally disabled. The Education of the Handicapped Act Amend-
ments of 1986 extended early intervention services under the auspices of
the public schools to identified children three to five years of age and those
at risk for developmental disabilities. This legislation was reauthorized as
the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) of 1990. Guarantees
of equal protection under the law were extended to adults with develop-
mental disabilities by the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) of 1990.
The years since 1970 have been a period of remarkable growth and
achievement in services for individuals with developmental disabilities. Cul-
tural, legal, medical, and technological advances have occurred. Services
now include protection and advocacy systems under the auspices of state
councils on developmental disabilities; university centers involved in educa-
tion, research, and direct service; training in self-determination; and family
supports. At the heart of this growth has been a transformation from a sys-
tem of services provided primarily in institutions to one provided primarily
in local communities. There has been a movement away from segregation
and toward integration following what has been called the principle of nor-
malization.

Batshaw, Mark L., ed. Children with Disabilities. 5th ed. Baltimore: Paul H.
Brooks, 2002. A primer on developmental disabilities for educators, ther-
apists, psychologists, social workers, health care professionals, and child
advocates. Families can find useful information on medical and rehabili-
tation aspects of developmental disabilities.
Copeland, Mildred E., and Judy R. Kimmel. Evaluation and Management of In-
fants and Young Children with Developmental Disabilities. Baltimore: Paul H.
Brookes, 1989. The authors present clear and concise descriptions of
selected developmental disabilities, illustrated with photographs and
sketches. Discussion of assessment and management is geared to teachers
and parents.
Dowrick, Peter W. “University-Affiliated Programs and Other National Re-
sources.” In Handbook of Developmental Disabilities, edited by Lisa A. Kurtz,
Peter W. Dowrick, Susan E. Levy, and Mark L. Batshaw. Gaithersburg,
268
Md.: Aspen, 1996. Provides a listing of referral sources by region and by

state.
Roth, Shirley P., and Joyce S. Morse, eds. A Life-Span Approach to Nursing Care
for Individuals with Developmental Disabilities. Baltimore: Paul H. Brookes,
1994. Though written for nurses, this book gives the general reader a
foundation of information regarding developmental disabilities from a
quality-of-life perspective.
Gabrielle Kowalski
See also: Autism; Mental Retardation.
269
Diagnosis
Type of psychology: All
Fields of study: All
Diagnosis is a process whereby an assessor evaluates symptoms and signs of illness or
abnormality in order to be able to determine the type of problem present. This can be
done using interviews, observation, and formal testing instruments or procedures.
Key concepts
• assessment
• associated features
• course
• criteria
• differential diagnosis
• interviewing
• screening
• signs
• symptoms
The word “diagnosis” is derived from two Greek roots: dia, which means “to
distinguish,” and gnosis, which means “knowledge.” It is most often under-
stood to be a noun, but from the perspective of a psychologist or a person
assessing an afflicted individual, it is seen as a process whereby one under-
stands the condition of the person affected. It is also important to remem-
ber that diagnosis is not a one-time event but is ongoing. For example, diag-
noses may shift. Changes can be noted in terms of signs (the observable
indications of mental health problems) and symptoms (the problems re-
ported by clients indicating their discomfort, notice of changes, or abnor-
mality in their way of being). In some ways, diagnosis has no discrete end but
consists of different observation points in time when the progress of a disor-
der is evaluated.
Screening
The goal of diagnosis is to arrive at information that can be communicated
and used to aid in the treatment of the person with the mental or physical
health problem. In the United States, mental health diagnoses are typically
based on the framework presented in the American Psychiatric Associa-
tion’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), which is up-
dated periodically. In order to be diagnosed with a particular mental disor-
der, individuals go through a systematic evaluation to determine whether
they satisfy the diagnostic criteria, the conditions necessary to qualify for a
disorder, as described in the DSM.
Often, this process begins when individuals or their relatives notice symp-
toms and seek the consultation of a professional. At that time, the profes-
sional will begin a series of systematic inquiries, ruling possible conditions in
270
Diagnosis
and out of consideration, in order to determine how best to proceed with

further diagnostic work. In some cases, a preliminary step called screening
may be undertaken. Screening is a relatively brief procedure in which the
signs and symptoms that have the highest association with specific mental
health conditions are asked about in order to determine whether a more
thorough evaluation is necessary.
Typically, screening results in a person being placed into one of two cate-
gories: possibly having the condition of concern or mostly likely not having
the condition. Those individuals in the former category receive more thor-
ough evaluations. Those who are judged as unlikely to have the condition
do not receive more thorough evaluations immediately but instead may be
invited to continue their own observations of symptoms or to begin another
path of diagnostic inquiry.
For those performing the screening, the primary goal is to identify those
individuals who may have the problem. It is also important, however, not to
rule out individuals for further evaluation who might actually have the con-
dition but do not appear to do so during the screening. In technical terms,
the first group is known as true positives: individuals who are screened as
likely to have the condition and who actually have it. The second group is
known as false negatives: individuals who are screened as not having the
condition but actually do have it.
Screening tests increase in their usefulness if they are not overly sensitive
and do not produce too many false positives: people who screen positive but
who actually do not have the condition. It is important to minimize false
positives because some diagnostic procedures, such as magnetic resonance
imaging (MRI), are expensive. Additionally, some diagnostic procedures
can be invasive, such as injection dye procedures used to observe different
organ systems in action. Minimizing false positives in screening saves money
for health care providers and, more important, saves potential pain, suffer-
ing, and anxiety for individuals.
Finally, screening also increases in usefulness when it can effectively iden-
tify true negatives: individuals who are screened as not having the problem
and who, in fact, do not. The sooner these individuals are identified, the
more quickly they can be considered for other diagnostic possibilities.
Assessment
In general, screening is important because it is often brief and can be ap-
plied to a large number of people with little effort, saving expensive time on
evaluation and yet efficiently identifying individuals most likely to have a
formal mental health condition. It is much less costly than the next step in a
diagnostic workup after being screened as positive: the process of assess-
ment, a lengthier process in which detailed information is gathered in a sys-
tematic way about the patient’s probable condition. Assessment procedures
may include formal diagnostic interviewing, in which the psychologist or cli-
nician asks a step-by-step series of questions to get a clear picture of what the
271
Psychology Basics
symptoms are and how they developed. Interviewing can be used to assess
not only the individual affected but also family members or significant oth-
ers, as sometimes these individuals have valuable information related to the
history or development of the symptoms. These informants can also be
helpful if the individual is not able or willing to speak about or to describe
the condition.
Assessment procedures may also include the use of questionnaires, sur-
veys, or checklists about symptoms. They may include observation by the
psychologist in interpersonal interactions or under certain other condi-
tions. They may also include formal medical tests, such as blood tests, urine
toxicology, and tests of psychomotor performance.
Overall, assessment procedures seek to reveal the course of the symptoms
present or how they have changed over time. Assessment also seeks to show
how the most prominent symptoms relate to one another and to less promi-
nent symptoms. This is particularly important to a process called differential
diagnosis, in which disorders that may appear alike in some features are di-
agnostically separated from one another in order to determine if one or
more conditions are present.
If, in the process of assessment, it is found that the number, severity, and
duration of the individual’s symptoms and signs meet the diagnostic crite-
ria, or standards of required evidence to warrant a diagnosis, then a diagno-
sis is rendered. If the signs and symptoms are all manifest but fall short of be-
ing present in the right number, severity, or duration, then the condition
might be thought of as subclinical. This would mean that although the
symptoms do not meet the formal criteria necessary to warrant a diagnosis,
they are problematic and may still require some clinical observation and at-
tention.
Finally, sometimes a client may have one disorder that is clearly present
but also has what might be called leftover symptoms that do not seem to fit.
In some cases, these symptoms may be what are known as associated fea-
tures, or symptoms associated with disorders but not part of the disorder in a
formal diagnostic way. For example, many people who suffer from agora-
phobia also experience symptoms of depression. In some cases, these indi-
viduals also qualify for a diagnosis of depression. In other cases, they are ex-
periencing depressed mood as a consequence of having agoraphobia, and
the depression is an associated feature. Once these aspects of a diagnosis are
understood, the information can be put to use.
Importance
Diagnoses are important because of the information that they convey. They
are important in facilitating effective communication among professionals
as well as for effective treatment planning. The diagnostic terminology of
the DSM allows professionals to communicate clearly with one another
about their clients’ conditions. This communication helps to direct clients
to the proper treatment and also ensures continuity of care when clients
272
Diagnosis
switch treatment providers. For example, a client who is traveling or is out-

side his or her regular locale may need assistance and seek out another
health care provider. The new provider would be greatly aided in helping
the client by communication with the regular provider about the individual
and his or her condition. A proper assignment could then be reached to cre-
ate a useful treatment strategy.
On another level, standard diagnoses are useful because they also allow
for important communication between clinicians and researchers in psy-
chology. This is most true when new symptoms are emerging and the need
arises for developing new treatment strategies. When the mental health
community uses the same language about signs and symptoms in the study
of specific conditions, medical and psychological knowledge can advance
much more efficiently.
More practically, diagnostic information is important to treatment be-
cause diagnostic information is needed to justify treatment financially.
When a client meets formal diagnostic criteria for a disorder, the health care
provider can administer services and justify the treatment to insurance
agencies and others interested in the financial management of mental
health problems. Diagnoses may also help such agencies to discover trends
in which treatments work and where disorders tend to be developing (the
focus of the field of epidemiology) or to recognize gaps in services, such as
when people with certain disorders suddenly disappear from the mental
health care system.
Even more important, however, standard diagnoses and thorough diag-
nostic procedures allow for good communication among professionals,
their clients, and the families of those affected by mental illness. Communi-
cating diagnostic information effectively to the client and family members
or significant others is likely to help with the management of the problem.
The better that all involved understand the symptoms and prognosis (ex-
pectations for the effects of the condition on future functioning), the more
likely everyone is to assist with treatment compliance. Further, it can be very
helpful to families to learn that their loved ones have formal diagnoses.
Mental health conditions can create chaos and misunderstanding, and im-
provements in relationships may occur if families and significant others are
able to place problematic symptoms in perspective. Rather than attributing
symptomatic behavior to personal irresponsibility or problems of character,
family members and friends can see the symptoms as reflecting the illness.
Although this understanding does not make everything perfect, it may help
facilitate a more effective problem-solving strategy for the affected person
and his or her significant others.
Context
Diagnosis is a process most often associated with a visit to a primary care phy-
sician. However, professionals of many types gather diagnostic information
and render diagnoses. Psychiatrists and psychologists predominate in the
273
Psychology Basics
area of mental health diagnoses, but social workers, educational counselors,

substance abuse counselors, criminal justice workers, social service profes-
sionals, and those who work with the developmentally disabled also gather
mental health diagnostic information and use it in their work.
Over time, the process of assessment has been separated from the actual
diagnostic decision, so that assistants and helpers may be the ones gathering
and organizing the symptom-related information in order to present it to
the expert diagnostician who has the authority to render the diagnosis. This
shift has occurred as a matter of financial necessity in many cases, as it is
more expensive to use experts for time-intensive information gathering
than it is to use such assistants. Increasing effort has also been focused on
developing more accurate diagnostic screening and assessment instruments
to the same end. If time can be saved on assessment by using screening, so
that only very likely cases receive full symptom assessment, then valuable
medical resources will be saved. Further, if paper-and-pencil or other diag-
nostic procedures can be used to better describe symptoms in a standard-
ized manner, then even the time of diagnostic assistants can be saved.
On one hand, such advances may allow more people to be treated in an
efficient manner. On the other hand, some complain that people can fall
through the cracks and be missed on a screening, and consequently con-
tinue to suffer. This situation may be particularly likely for individuals who
are not often included in the research upon which the screening instru-
ments are designed, such as women and minorities. Similarly, others suggest
that these processes put too much paper between the client and the health
care provider, creating barriers and weakening therapeutic relationships.
In considering cultural practices and understandings of the doctor-
patient relationship, this effect is even more important, as many cultural
groups see the social nature of this relationship as a critical piece of the
treatment interaction. While efficiency and saving money are important, it
must be recognized that those goals are culturally bound and are choices
that are being made. They are not the only way for the art and science of di-
agnosis to proceed.
It is also important for diagnosticians to recognize cultural differences in
terms of the way in which symptoms are experienced, expressed, and under-
stood. For some, mental health disorders may be seen as expressions of un-
derlying spiritual problems; for others, they may be seen as disharmonies
among elements in the universe or environment; and for others, they may
be seen as extensions of physical problems. Each of these perspectives is a
valid way of understanding such conditions, and it is only good training that
includes attention to cultural variation in diagnostic procedures and prac-
tice that will allow diagnosticians to function effectively.
It should also be noted that culture is not limited to a client’s racial back-
ground or ethnicity; it also varies by characteristics such as gender, age, sex-
ual orientation, socioeconomic status, and locale. Increasingly, diagnosti-
cians are being forced to grapple with such diversity so as to improve
274
Diagnosis
diagnostic procedures and client care. Such characteristics are important to

diagnosis not only because of differences in perspectives on illness but also
because of differences in the prevalence of illnesses in various groups. This
distinction is particularly important when considering medical conditions
that might be associated with psychological disorders. In some cases, medi-
cal problems may mimic psychiatric disorders; in other cases, they may
mask, or cover up, such disorders. Because some disorders are more com-
mon in certain populations—such as among women, people of color, and
elders—knowledge of such prevalence is important to the process of differ-
ential diagnosis.
Culture is also an important consideration in diagnosis because the infor-
mation gathered is transmitted socially. Knowledge of diagnoses is ex-
changed among professionals, researchers, clients, and their families. Diag-
noses have social meaning and can result in those carrying the diagnosis
being stigmatized. As crucial differences exist in the degree of stigmatiza-
tion in different cultures, the delivery of such important mental health in-
formation deserves thoughtful consideration, good planning, and follow-
up to ensure that all parties involved are properly informed.

Disorders: DSM-IV-TR. Rev. 4th ed. Washington, D.C.: Author, 2000. The
standard text outlining the major mental health disorders diagnosed in
the United States.
Beutler, Larry E., and Mary L. Malik. Rethinking the DSM: A Psychological Per-
spective. Washington, D.C.: American Psychological Association, 2002. Of-
fers some critiques of the DSM, the dominant diagnostic framework used
in the United States.
Castillo, Richard J. Culture and Mental Illness: A Client-Centered Approach. Pa-
cific Grove, Calif.: Brooks/Cole, 1997. Discusses how cultural issues fit
into the diagnostic process and the understanding of mental health and
illness.
Seligman, Linda. Diagnosis and Treatment Planning in Counseling. 2d ed. New
York: Plenum Press, 1996. Connections between diagnosis and treatment
planning are highlighted in this text, with case examples for illustration.
Shea, Shawn Christopher. Psychiatric Interviewing: The Art of Understanding—
A Practical Guide for Psychiatrists, Psychologists, Counselors, Social Workers, and
Other Mental Health Professionals. 2d ed. Philadelphia: W. B. Saunders,
1998. The skills of interviewing as a means of establishing a therapeutic
relationship and the basis for forming diagnostic impressions are re-
viewed from a perspective that is useful for a variety of mental health
practitioners. Also allows nonprofessionals to see how interviewing is
structured and leads to diagnoses.
Simeonsson, Rune J., and Susan L. Rosenthal, eds. Psychological and Develop-
mental Assessment: Children with Disabilities and Chronic Conditions. New
275
Psychology Basics
York: Guilford Press, 2001. This text focuses on issues important to the di-
agnosis of mental health and other behavioral disorders in children.
Trzepacz, Paula T., and Robert W. Baker. Psychiatric Mental Status Examina-
tion. New York: Oxford University Press, 1993. The mental status exami-
nation is one of the foundations of any psychiatric diagnosis. This book
describes these procedures for assessing the appearance, activity level,
mood, speech, and other behavioral characteristics of individuals under
evaluation.
Nancy A. Piotrowski
See also: Madness: Historical Concepts; Psychopathology; Survey Research:

Questionnaires and Interviews.
276
Domestic Violence
Fields of study: Adulthood; aggression
Domestic violence refers to all forms of abuse which occur within families, including
child abuse, elder abuse, and spouse abuse. The term came into common usage in the
1970’s to emphasize wife abuse. Domestic violence is explained by several psychologi-
cally based theories which in turn propose different solutions.
Key concepts
• battered woman syndrome
• cycle of violence
• domestic violence
• family systems theory
• feminist psychological theory
• learning theory
• post-traumatic stress disorder
• psychoanalytic theory
• systems theory
• wife abuse
Domestic violence is difficult to measure because there are no agreed-upon

standards as to what it is. In addition, most domestic violence occurs in pri-
vate, and victims are reluctant to report it because of shame and fear of re-
prisal. Its scope is also difficult to determine, and society’s reluctance to ac-
knowledge it results in only estimated numbers of rapes, robberies, and
assaults committed by family members and other relatives, such as spouses,
former spouses, children, parents, boyfriends, and girlfriends.
In the 1970’s, publicity about domestic violence, and more specifically
wife abuse, made the public aware that many women did not live in peace
and security in their own homes. Through the usage of the terms “abuse,”
“woman abuse,” “battering,” “partner abuse,” “spouse abuse,” “intimate vio-
lence,” “family violence” and “relationship violence,” feminists made the
public aware of the problem. As a result of the publicity, women were identi-
fied as the most likely victims of domestic violence.
The selection of a name for the behavior will have implications for treat-
ment choices. In addition, the term “domestic violence” removes the issue
from a societal perspective, which condones, reinforces, and perpetuates
the problem. Domestic violence minimizes the role of gender and places
the relationship in the dominant spot. As a result, the choice of a name of-
fers varying perspectives, which differentially view the persons involved, the
nature of the problem, and possible solutions.
Abused women in a domestic violence situation are confronted with sev-
eral types of abuse, namely economic abuse, physical abuse, psychological/
277
Psychology Basics
emotional abuse, and sexual abuse. Economic abuse results when the finan-
cial resources to which a woman is legally entitled are not accessible to her.
Examples of economic abuse include being prevented from seeking em-
ployment even if qualified to do so, as well as being denied access to needed
education, which would aid the woman in securing better employment.
Physical abuse is the major way that abusive men control the behavior of
women. Abused women have likened psychological or emotional abuse to
brainwashing. Little research has been done on this type of abuse because it
is difficult to record. The abused woman is terrorized, isolated, and under-
mined by her abuser. Psychological or emotional abuse allows men to avoid
the legal effects of physical abuse, because they can frighten women without
touching them. Five common emotional abuse methods include isolation,
humiliation and degradation, “crazy-making” behavior, threats to harm the
woman or those she loves, and suicidal and homicidal threats.
Sexual violence was reported by 33 percent to 59 percent of the battered
women in a study by Angela Browne published in 1987. Since 1992, it has
been legal throughout the United States for a woman to charge her hus-
band with rape. Historically, rape was thought of as intercourse forced on
someone other than the wife of the accused. As a result, a woman could not
legally accuse her husband of rape.
Possible Causes
Four theories, each of which has a psychological basis, attempt to explain
wife abuse. Each of the theories has a unique perspective regarding the
causes of wife abuse. The four theories are family systems theory, feminist
psychological theory, learning theory, and psychoanalytic theory.
The first theory, family systems theory, includes the application of sys-
tems theory to all current family therapy approaches. Systems theory
stresses mutual influences and reciprocal relationships between the individ-
ual members and the whole, as well as vice versa. In family systems theory,
abuse is seen as a feature of the relationship between the abused wife and
her husband. Underlying the abusive behavior, both the abused wife and
her husband have a frail sense of self. When they marry or establish a rela-
tionship, a battering routine or system unfolds. Several factors lead the man
to have a drive for power and control over the woman. These factors include
social conditions, the need for control, intimacy fears, and lack of awareness
of his own conflicts regarding dependency. The abused woman, in turn, has
a limited range of coping behaviors, dependency conflicts, a history of
childhood family violence, and other psychosocial traits which are similar to
those of the man. Change is prevented from occurring, and the dysfunc-
tional interpersonal behavior patterns continue as a result of the unwritten
expectations that control these behaviors. Change is blocked by the use of vi-
olent behavior.
The second theory, feminist psychological theory, is based on the work of
American feminist psychologist Lenore Walker. She believes that the behav-
278
Domestic Violence
iors of abused women are coping behaviors developed as a result of living in

a brutal environment.
Walker first theorized the concept of learned helplessness as used in rela-
tion to abused women. The abused woman can do nothing to stop the vio-
lence. The woman’s chief concern is survival. However, survival comes with
consequences. Several of the consequences include passively giving in to
her abuser, becoming an observer of her own abuse through the process of
disassociation, and waiting for days to seek medical care because she may
distort the reality of the abuse. In addition, women’s helplessness is rein-
forced by society in two ways. First, women learn to respond passively to
abuse through gender-role socialization. Second, women’s ability to control
their lives is thwarted through the interrelated effects of sexism, discrimina-
tion, and poverty.
Walker has described a cycle of violence that unfolds in the individual re-
lationship. The woman yields to the batterer’s demands in the first stage in
order to keep small episodes from increasing. However, over time these
small episodes increase and accumulate. The woman also begins to with-
draw from family and friends because she does not want them to know what
is going on as the family tension increases. As time passes, the woman with-
draws from the batterer as well, because she realizes that her efforts to pre-
vent further development of the violence are futile. The batterer, in turn,
becomes more and more angry because he fears that he is losing control of
his wife. He then explodes, in the second stage. The third stage quickly fol-
lows; The batterer is characterized as being placid, and there is a pause in
the abusive behaviors. The man promises the woman that he will change,
brings her gifts, and is extremely regretful. He changes back into the man
she originally loved and is at his most defenseless state.
In order to explain the behaviors of women who have been frequently
abused, Walker developed the theory of the battered woman syndrome,
which she sees as a variant of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). The key
behaviors of anxiety, cognitive distortion, and depression can on one hand
help a woman to survive her abuse. On the other hand, they can interfere
with her ability to change her life situation by using appropriate methods.
The third theory is learning theory, incorporating both social learning
theory and cognitive behavioral therapy. Social learning theorists stress the
occurrence of modeling and the reinforcements received for abusive behav-
ior. Cognitive behavioral theorists stress the internalization of beliefs that
support abusive behavior. Boys may internalize the belief that they should
be in charge by learning abusive behaviors from male role models, ranging
from their fathers to media stars. Girls internalize the belief that they are
helpless and weak by learning passively from their role models. Later adult
behaviors are hindered by the earlier learned behaviors and internalized
messages.
The fourth theory, psychoanalytic theory, focuses on intrapersonal pa-
thology. This theory argues that the early life experiences of abused women
279
Psychology Basics
and abusive men shape the particular pathological personality. The bat-
tered woman develops beliefs and behaviors that are dysfunctional in adult-
hood, although they are based in childhood experiences with cruel persons.
The women do not resist the abuse. They submit to the abuse because they
fear offending the stronger male and also because they think of themselves
as deserving abuse. The women choose abusive men and may even touch off
the abusive behavior because of their strong feelings of worthlessness. Pas-
sive-aggressive, psychopathic, obsessive-compulsive, paranoid, and sadistic
are some of the labels given to violent men who have experienced severe
and traumatic childhood abuse episodes themselves. Men learn that vio-
lence gets them what they want and also allows them to feel good about
themselves, in spite of their childhood experiences of abuse both as victims
and as observers.
Diagnosing Domestic Violence

Six factors have been identified as increasing a woman’s chances of being in
an abusive relationship: age, alcohol use, childhood experience with vio-
lence, race, relationship status, and socioeconomic factors.
A person’s risk of being abused or being an abuser increases among ado-
lescents. Research has discovered high levels of abuse among dating cou-
ples. However, the rate of violence among dating couples falls below that of
couples who are married or cohabitating if controlled for age.
Clinical samples in which women are asked to describe their husbands’
drinking patterns have provided the basis for the opinion that men beat
their wives when they are drunk. Researchers have found that from 35 per-
cent to 93 percent of abusers are problem drinkers. Better controlled stud-
ies have found that in only 25 percent of the cases was either partner drink-
ing at the time of the abuse.
Individuals are more likely to be an abused woman or an abusive man if
they were abused as a child. It is less clear that a relationship exists be-
tween witnessing wife abuse as a child and experiencing it as an adult. Re-
searchers have found that men are more likely to become adult abusers if
they observed domestic violence as boys. The data are inconclusive regard-
ing a woman’s chance of being abused if she observes domestic violence as
a child. Men who observed domestic violence between their parents are
three times more likely to abuse their wives. Sons of the most violent parents
have a rate of wife abuse 1,000 percent greater than sons of nonviolent par-
ents.
African American and Latino families have above-average rates of wife
abuse. Abuse rates for African Americans are four times the rate of white
Americans and twice the rate of other minorities. There are twice as many
Latina women abused as non-Latina white women. Socioeconomic factors
can explain these differences. According to data from a 1980 survey, African
Americans earning $6,000 to $11,999 annually (approximately 40 percent
of all African American respondents) had higher rates of wife abuse than
280
Domestic Violence
comparably earning white Americans, while they had lower rates than white
Americans in all other socioeconomic levels. When age, economic depriva-
tion, and urban residence are controlled, then the differences between
Latina and non-Latina white Americans vanish.
Legally married couples have half the amount of violence as cohabitating
couples. It is felt that cohabitating couples may allow conflict to escalate be-
cause they are less invested in the relationship, more likely to struggle over
autonomy and control issues, and more isolated from their social networks.
Domestic violence is more common in families with fewer economic re-
sources, though it is found in all socioeconomic levels. Higher rates of wife
abuse have been found in families in which the man works in a blue-collar
job or is unemployed or underemployed and the family lives at the poverty
level.
The Abused Population

Male partners severely assault more than 1.5 million married and cohabi-
tating women each year. Of women treated in hospital emergency rooms,
22 percent to 35 percent are there because of symptoms related to abuse.
Approximately 20 percent to 25 percent of all women are abused at least
once by a male partner. Victims of boyfriends tend to be young (sixteen to
twenty-four years old), while victims of current or former spouses are likely
to be older (twenty to thirty-four years old). Women in families with incomes
over $50,000 are four times less likely to be abused than are women in fami-
lies with annual incomes of less than $20,000.
Marital counseling is sometimes prescribed to identify dysfunctional patterns. (PhotoDisc)
281
Psychology Basics
Treatment Options
The four theories of domestic abuse also provide several treatment options
for the psychologist. Family systems theory prescribes marital counseling to
bring about change in the marital system and to identify dysfunctional pat-
terns. Partners are each responsible for changing the way they relate to each
other and for the specific behaviors that contribute to the violence.
Walker describes three levels of intervention in terms of feminist psycho-
logical theory. Primary prevention changes the social conditions that di-
rectly and indirectly contribute to the abuse of women. Examples would in-
clude eliminating rigid gender-role socialization and reducing levels of
violence in society. Secondary intervention encourages women to take con-
trol of their lives and to break the cycle of violence. Examples include crisis
hot lines as well as financial and legal assistance. A shelter where the women
will slowly regain their ability to make decisions for themselves and where
they will be safe is an example of tertiary intervention. At this level, women
have been totally victimized and are unable to act on their own.
Learning theory stresses that the partners be given opportunities to learn
and be rewarded for a new range of actions and underlying beliefs. It is felt
that intervention should teach the partners how they have learned and been
rewarded for their present behaviors. As a result, the intervention moves be-
yond a pathological framework. Other approaches, mainly from a cognitive-
behavioral perspective, strive to change dysfunctional thoughts, teach new
behaviors, and eliminate the abuse. This approach works with couples and
with abusive men in a group.
Psychoanalytic theory stresses long-term, corrective, individual psycho-
therapy. The end result of the therapy would be to help the abused woman
to break the cycle of violence. She would learn to avoid choosing men who
re-create her familiar and unhappy childhood by their violent behavior.
History of Treatment
Domination of women by men has a long history. Early Roman law gave men
absolute power over their wives. However, it is not clear if they had the power
to put their wives to death. Physical force was their chief means of control. As
the Roman Empire declined, men’s right to control women continued to be
supported by church doctrine.
The “rule of thumb” was born in English common law, which stated that
men had the right to beat their wives as long as the weapon they used was “a
rod no bigger than their thumb.” Early U.S. judicial decisions supported the
right of men to beat their wives. The government’s hands-off policy and the
legal sanction to a husband’s right to control the behavior of his wife were
the two major impacts of the court rulings. The first wave of feminists in the
nineteenth century briefly exposed the existence of wife abuse and made
some efforts to criminalize it. This state of affairs continued until the 1970’s,
when the second wave of feminism exposed the public to the abuse that
many women experienced in their own homes. The battered women’s
282
Domestic Violence
movement identified two key concerns: first, to create a society that no lon-
ger accepted domestic violence and second, to provide safe, supportive shel-
ter for all women who were abused.

Ammerman, Robert T., and Michel Hersen, eds. Assessment of Family Violence:
A Clinical and Legal Sourcebook. 2d ed. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1999.
Leading figures in the field of family violence review a decade of research
and examine strategies and measures relevant to assessment of the prob-
lem. They also comment on treatment planning and legal requirements.
Other areas of concern include epidemological models, intervention
planning, and standards of practice.
Browne, Angela. When Battered Women Kill. New York: Free Press, 1987. A
study based on interviews with 250 physically abused women, 42 of whom
had killed their batterers, shows how “romantic idealism” drives the early
stages of the abusive relationship. Obsessive “love” continues along with
the abuser’s need to control the woman physically. Coping and survival
strategies of the battered women are presented.
Buttell, Frederick P. “Moral Development Among Court-Ordered Batterers:
Evaluating the Impact of Treatment.” Research on Social Work Practice 11, no.
1 (2001): 93-107. Court-ordered participants in a cognitive-behavioral
group treatment program for batterers were studied regarding changing
their levels of moral reasoning. The control group consisted of thirty-two
adult men with an average age of thirty-two years, 84 percent of whom Afri-
can American, who were ordered into a standard group treatment pro-
gram. The major finding was that the current treatment program was inef-
fectual in changing batterers’ moral reasoning.
Goetting, Ann. Getting Out: Life Stories of Women Who Left Abusive Men. New
York: Columbia University Press, 1999. Sixteen women shared their sto-
ries with the author, who organized them into seven categories, including
women of privileged backgrounds, children, two-timing batterers, family
and friends to the rescue, shelter life, positive workings of the system, and
the impacts of loss and death. A very readable book.
Gondolf, Edward W., and Robert J. White. “Batterer Program Participants
Who Repeatedly Reassault: Psychopathic Tendencies and Other Disor-
ders.” Journal of Interpersonal Violence 16, no. 4 (2001): 361-380. Psycho-
pathic tendencies were studied in 580 men from four batterers’ pro-
grams. The men had assaulted their partners many times in spite of
arrests for domestic violence and being referred to batterer counseling
programs. The major conclusion was that men who had abused their
partners many times were no more likely to have a psychopathic disorder
than other men.
Jones, Loring, Margaret Hughes, and Ulrike Unterstaller. “Post-traumatic
Stress Disorder (PTSD) in Victims of Domestic Violence: A Review of the
Research.” Trauma Violence and Abuse 2, no. 2 (2001): 99-119. An analysis
283
Psychology Basics
of data from the literature focusing on the interplay between post-

traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and being a battered woman. The au-
thors identified three major objectives of the study as well as seven major
findings, chief of which is that PTSD symptoms are consistent with the
symptoms of battered women.
Krishman, Satya P., Judith C. Hilbert, and Dawn Van Leeuwen. “Domestic
Violence and Help-Seeking Behaviors Among Rural Women: Results
from a Shelter-Based Study.” Family and Community Health 24, no. 1
(2001): 28-38. A study conducted on a sample of predominantly Latino
women living in rural communities that focused on their help-seeking be-
haviors, including those at a rural domestic violence shelter. One major
finding was that a high percentage of the Latino subjects had thought
about or attempted suicide.
Pellauer, Mary. “Lutheran Theology Facing Sexual and Domestic Violence.”
Journal of Religion and Abuse 2, no. 2 (2000): 3-48. The author argues that
Martin Luther was theologically ambivalent on the issues of wife batter-
ing and child abuse and seemed to be confused between the ideas of sex-
uality and sexual violence. She ends her essay with a review of the themes
for a Lutheran response to domestic violence, as well as making several
recommendations for action based on further analysis of Luther’s writ-
ings and teachings.
Smith, Darcy M., and Joseph Donnelly. “Adolescent Dating Violence: A Multi-
systemic Approach of Enhancing Awareness in Educators, Parents, and
Society.” Journal of Prevention and Intervention in the Community 21, no. 1
(2001): 53-64. Mental health professionals have hesitated to report that
adolescents are the fastest growing at-risk segment of the population.
One in eight high school students and one in five college students will be
involved in abusive relationships. In 1993, six hundred teenage girls were
murdered by their boyfriends. Prevention and treatment strategies are
also presented.
Walker, Lenore E. The Battered Woman Syndrome. 2d ed. New York: Springer,
1999. A readable volume in which the author reports the results of a re-
search project to identify key psychological and sociological factors that
make up the battered woman syndrome. In addition, she tested eight spe-
cific theories about battered women and also gathered relevant data
about battered women.
Carol A. Heintzelman
See also: Aggression.
284
Dreams
Type of psychology: Cognition; consciousness
Fields of study: Classic analytic themes and issues; cognitive processes;
sleep; thought
Dreams are the series of images, thoughts, and feelings that occur in the mind of the
sleeping person. Dreams are usually confused with waking reality while they are occur-
ring. Distinctive neurological phenomena are associated with the production of
dreams, and diverse psychological experiences are conveyed in dreaming.
Key concepts
• D-sleep
• latent content
• manifest content
• NREM sleep
• REM sleep
• S-sleep
• sleep mentation
Humans spend roughly one-third of their lives sleeping, and laboratory re-
search indicates that at least a third of the sleep period is filled with dream-
ing. Thus, if a person lives seventy-five years, he or she will spend more than
eight of those years dreaming. People throughout the millennia have pon-
dered the meaning of those years of dreaming, and their answers have
ranged from useless fictions to psychological insights.
Some of the earliest known writings were about dreams. The Epic of
Gilgamesh, written around 3500 b.c.e., contains the first recorded dream
interpretation. An Egyptian document dating to the Twelfth Dynasty (1991-
1786 b.c.e.) called the Chester Beatty Papyrus (after its discoverer) pre-
sented a system for interpreting dreams. The biblical book of Genesis, attrib-
uted to Moses, who is claimed to have lived between 1446 and 1406 b.c.e.,
records a dream of Abimelech (a contemporary of Abraham and Sarah)
from a period that appears to antedate the Twelfth Dynasty. Other classics of
antiquity, such as the Iliad and Odyssey of Homer (c. 725 b.c.e.), the Republic
of Plato (427-347 b.c.e.), and On the Senses and Their Objects, written by Aris-
totle (384-322 b.c.e.), grappled with discerning the meaning of dreams.
Artemidorus Daldianus (c. second century c.e.) provided a comprehensive
summary of ancient thinking on dreams in his famous book, Oneirocritica
(the interpretation of dreams).
To understand dreaming, it must be distinguished from related phenom-
ena. If the person is fully awake and perceives episodes departing from natu-
ral reality, the person is said to have experienced a vision. Experiencing an
unintended perceptual distortion is more properly called a hallucination. A
daydream is a purposeful distortion of reality. In the twilight realm of
dreamlike imagery occurring just before falling asleep or just before becom-
285
Psychology Basics
ing fully awake, hypnagogic or hypnopompic reverie, respectively, are said

to occur. Dreams occur only in the third state of consciousness—being fully
asleep. Another distinction is needed to differentiate between the two types
of psychological phenomena that occur when a person is in this third realm
of consciousness. Dreams have the attributes of imagery, temporality (time
sequence), confusion with reality, and plot (an episode played out). Those
subjective experiences that occur during sleep and are lacking in these at-
tributes can be labeled as sleep mentation.
Types of Dreams
Just as there are different types of dreamlike experiences, there are different
kinds of dreams. While there will be shortcomings in any effort toward classi-
fying dreams, some approximate distinctions can be made in regard to sleep
stage, affect (feelings and emotions), reality orientation, and dream origin.
When people fall asleep, brain activity changes throughout the night in
cycles of approximately ninety minutes. Research with the electroencepha-
lograph (which records electrical activity) has demonstrated a sequence of
four stages of sleep occurring in these cycles. The first two stages are called
D-sleep (desynchronized EEG), which constitutes essential psychological
rest—consolidation of memories and processing of thoughts and emotions.
The other two stages, which constitute S-sleep (synchronized EEG), are nec-
essary for recuperation from the day’s physical activity—physical rest. S-
sleep usually disappears during the second half of a night’s sleep. Dreaming
occurs in both S-sleep and D-sleep but is much more likely to occur in D-
sleep.
A further distinction in the physiology of sleep is pertinent to the type of
dreaming activity likely to occur. During stage one sleep there are often ac-
companying rapid eye movements (REM) that are not found in other stages
of sleep. Researchers often distinguish between REM sleep, where these oc-
ular movements occur, and non-REM (NREM) sleep, in which there is an
absence of these eye movements. When people are aroused from REM
sleep, they report dreams a majority of the time—roughly 80 percent—as
opposed to a minority of the time—perhaps 20 percent—with NREM sleep.
Furthermore, REM dreams tend to have more emotion, greater vividness,
more of a plot, a greater fantastical quality, and episodes that are more likely
to be recalled and with greater clarity.
The prevalence of affect in dreams is linked with people’s styles of day-
dreaming. Those whose daydreams are of a positive, uplifting quality tend to
experience the greatest amount of pleasant emotionality in their dreams.
People whose daydreams reflect a lot of anxiety, guilt, and negative themes
experience more unpleasant dreams. While most dreams are generally un-
emotional in content, when there are affective overtones, negative emotions
predominate about two-thirds of the time. Unpleasant dreams can be cate-
gorized into three types. Common nightmares occur in REM sleep and are
caused by many factors, such as unpleasant circumstances in life, daily
286
Dreams
stresses, or traumatic experiences. Common themes are being chased, fall-

ing, or reliving an aversive event. Night terrors are most likely to occur in
stage four sleep and are characterized by sudden wakening, terror-stricken
reactions, and disorientation that can last several minutes. Night terrors
are rarely recollected. An extreme life-threatening event can lead to post-
traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Recurring PTSD nightmares, unlike other
nightmares and night terrors, are repetitive nightmares in which the suf-
ferer continues to relive the traumatic event. Furthermore, PTSD night-
mares can occur in any stage of sleep.
Dreams and Reality

The reality level of dreams varies in terms of time orientation and level of
consciousness. Regarding time orientation, dreams earlier in the night con-
tain more themes dealing with the distant past—such as childhood for an
adult—while dreams closer toward waking up tend to be richer in content
and have more present themes—such as a current concern. The future is
emphasized in oneironmancy, the belief that dreams are prophetic and can
warn the dreamer of events to come.
The unconscious mind contains material that is rarely accessible or com-
pletely inaccessible to awareness. The personal unconscious may resurrect
dream images of experiences that a person normally cannot voluntarily re-
call. For example, a woman may dream about kindergarten classmates
about whom she could not remember anything while awake. The psycholo-
gist Carl Jung proposed that dreams could sometimes include material from
the collective unconscious—a repository of shared human memories. Thus,
a dream in which evil is represented by a snake may reflect a universal hu-
man inclination to regard snakes as dangerous.
When waking reality, rather than unconscious thoughts, intrude upon
dreaming, lucid dreams occur. Lucid dreams are characterized by the
dreamer’s awareness in the dream that he or she is dreaming. Stephen
LaBerge’s research has revealed that lucid dreams occur only in REM sleep
and that people can be trained to experience lucidity, whereby they can ex-
ercise some degree of control over the content of their dreams.
Origins and Significance

Theories about the origins of dreams can be divided into two main catego-
ries: naturalistic and supernaturalistic. Proponents of naturalistic theories
of dreaming believe that dreams result from either physiological activities or
psychological processes. Aristotle was one of the first people to offer a physi-
ological explanation for dreams. His basic thesis was that dreams are the af-
terimages of sensory experiences. A modern physiological approach to
dreaming was put forth in the 1970’s by J. Allan Hobson and Robert
McCarley. According to their activation-synthesis theory, emotional and vi-
sual areas of the brain are activated during REM sleep, and the newly alerted
frontal lobe tries to make sense of this information plus any other sensory or
287
Psychology Basics
physiological activity that may be occurring at that time. The result is that
ongoing activity is synthesized (combined) into a dream plot. For example,
a man enters REM sleep and pleasant memories of playing in band during
school are evoked. Meanwhile, the steam pipes in his bedroom are banging.
The result is a dream in which he is watching a band parade by with the
booming of bass drums ringing in his ears. Hobson does not believe that,
apart from fostering memories, dreams have any psychological significance.
Plato believed that dreams do have psychological significance and can re-
veal something about the character of people. More recent ideas about the
psychological origins of dreams can be divided into symbolic approaches
that emphasize the hidden meanings of dreams and cognitive perspectives
that stress that dreaming is simply another type of thinking and that no
deep, hidden motives are contained in that thinking. The most famous sym-
bolic approach to dreaming was presented by Sigmund Freud in his book
The Interpretation of Dreams (1900). For Freud, the actual dream content is
meaningless. It hides the true meaning of the dream, which must be inter-
preted. David Foulkes, in Dreaming: A Cognitive-Psychological Analysis (1985),
proposed a contrary perspective. His cognitive approach to dreaming states
that dreams are as they are remembered and that it is meaningless to search
for deep meanings. Foulkes proposes that randomly activated memories
during sleep are organized into a comprehensible dream by a “dream-
production system.”
The final category of dreams represents the most ancient explanation—
dreams may have a supernatural origin. Often connected with the supernat-
ural approach is the belief that God or supernatural beings can visit a person
in a dream and heal that person of physical illnesses. This belief is called
dream incubation and was widely practiced by the ancient Greeks beginning
around the sixth century b.c.e. Several hundred temples were dedicated to
helping believers practice this art. Spiritual healing, not physical healing, is
the theme presented in the numerous references to dreaming in the Bible:
more than one hundred verses in nearly twenty chapters. The Bible presents
a balanced picture of the origins of dreams. God speaks through dreams to
Abimelech in the first book of the Old Testament (Genesis 20:6) and to Jo-
seph in the first book of the New Testament (Matthew 1:20). However, Solo-
mon (Ecclesiastes 5:7) and Jeremiah (23:25-32) warn that many dreams do
not have a divine origin.
Dream Content
Dream content varies depending on stage of sleep and time of night. Re-
search has also revealed that characteristics of the dreamer and environ-
mental factors can influence the nature of dreams.
Three human characteristics that influence dreams are age, gender, and
personality. It has been found that children are more likely to report dreams
(probably because they experience more REM sleep), and their dreams are
reported to have more emotional content, particularly nightmarish themes.
288
Dreams
Elderly people report more death themes in their dreams. Male dreams
have more sexual and aggressive content than female dreams, which have
more themes dealing with home and family. Women report that they dream
of their mothers and babies more when they are pregnant. Introverts report
more dreams and with greater detail than extroverts. Psychotic individuals
(those with severe mental disorders), depressed people, and those whose
occupations are in the creative arts (musicians, painters, and novelists) re-
port more nightmares. Schizophrenics and severely depressed people pro-
vide shorter dream reports than those of better mental health. It is also re-
ported that depressed people dream of the past more than those who are
not depressed.
Environmental factors occurring before and during sleep can shape the
content of dreams. What people experience prior to falling asleep can show
up in dreams in blatant, subtle, or symbolic forms. People watching movies
that evoke strong emotions tend to have highly emotional dreams. In fact,
the greater the emotionality of a daily event, the greater the probability that
the event will occur in a dream during the subsequent sleep period. Those
who are wrestling mentally with a problem often dream about that problem.
Some have even reported that the solutions to their problems occurred dur-
ing the course of dreaming. The German physiologist Otto Loewi’s Nobel
Prize-winning research with a frog’s nerve was inspired by a dream he had.
Sometimes events during the day show up in a compensatory form in
dreams. Those deprived of food, shelter, friends, or other desirables report
an increased likelihood of dreaming about those deprivations at night.
Events occurring during sleep can be integrated into the dream plot as
well. External stimuli such as temperature changes, light flashes, and vari-
ous sounds can be detected by the sleeping person’s senses and then be-
come part of the dream. However, research indicates that sensory informa-
tion is only infrequently assimilated into dreams. Internal stimulation from
physiological activities occurring during sleep may have a greater chance of
influencing the nature of dreams. Dreams about needing to find a bath-
room may be caused in part by a full bladder. Similarly, nighttime activation
of the vestibular system (which controls the sense of balance), the premotor
cortex (which initiates movements), and the locus coeruleus (which plays a
role in inhibiting muscles during sleep so that dreams are not acted out)
perhaps can stimulate the production of dreams about falling, chasing, or
being unable to move, respectively.
Dream Interpretation
There is a plethora of books about dream interpretation offering many dif-
ferent, and often contradictory, approaches to the subject. With so many dif-
ferent ideas about what dreams mean, it is difficult to know which approach
is more likely to be successful.
A few principles increase the probability that a dream interpretation ap-
proach will be valid. First, the more dream content recalled, the better the op-
289
Psychology Basics
portunity to understand its meaning. Most people remember only bits and
pieces of their dreams, and serious efforts to interpret dreams require serious
efforts by people to remember their dreams. Second, the more a theme re-
curs in a series of dreams, the greater the likelihood that the theme is signifi-
cant. Dream repetition also helps in interpretation: Content from one dream
may be a clue to the meaning of other dreams. Finally, the focus of dream in-
terpretation should be the dreamer, not the dream. In order to understand
the dream, one must spend time and effort in knowing the dreamer.
There are many scholarly approaches to dream interpretation. Three
theories are particularly noteworthy due to their influence on the thinking
of other scholars and their utility for clinical application. Each perspective
emphasizes a different side of the meaning of dreams.
Sigmund Freud proposed that dreams are complementary to waking life.
His basic thesis was that many wishes, thoughts, and feelings are censored in
waking consciousness due to their unsuitability for public expression and are
subsequently pushed down into the unconscious. This unconscious material
bypasses censorship in dreaming by a process in which the hidden, “true”
meaning of the dream—the latent content—is presented in a disguised
form—the manifest content. The manifest content is the actual content of
the dream that is recalled. To interpret a dream requires working through
the symbolism and various disguises of the manifest content in order to get
to the true meaning of the dream residing in the latent content. For exam-
ple, Jane’s manifest content is a dream in which she blows out candles that
surround a gray-headed man. The candles might symbolize knowledge, and
the gray-headed man may represent her father. The latent content is that
Jane resents her father’s frequent and interfering advice. Thus, blowing out
the candles represents Jane’s desire to put an end to her father’s meddling.
Carl Jung proposed that dreams could be understood at different levels
of analysis and that the essential purpose of dreams was compensatory. By
compensatory, Jung meant that dreams balance the mind by compensating
for what is lacking in the way a person is living life. For example, the timid
Christian who is afraid to speak up for his or her beliefs with atheistic col-
leagues dreams of being a bold and eloquent evangelist. Jung believed that
four levels of analysis could be used to help dreamers gain insight into their
dreams. His general rule guiding the use of these levels is that recourse to
analysis at deeper levels of consciousness is only warranted if the dream can-
not be adequately understood from a more surface level of examination. To
illustrate, a man has a dream in which he steps into a pile of manure. At the
conscious level of analysis, it may be that he is dreaming about a recent expe-
rience—no need to posit symbolic interpretations. Looking into his personal
unconscious, an image from his childhood may be evoked. Recourse to the
cultural level of consciousness would examine what manure symbolizes in
his culture. It could be a good sign for a farmer in an agrarian world but a
bad sign for a politician in an industrialized society. In some cases, it may be
necessary to look at the dream from the perspective of the collective uncon-
290
Dreams
scious. Manure might be an ancient, universal image that symbolizes fertil-

ity. Could the man be questioning whether or not he wants to be a father?
Zygmunt Piotrowski developed a theory of dream interpretation based
on projective techniques. For Piotrowski, in a dream about another person,
that person may actually represent a facet of the dreamer’s own mind. The
more the dream figure is like the dreamer and the closer the proximity be-
tween the figure and the dreamer in the dream, the greater the likelihood
the dreamer is projecting him- or herself (seeing in others what is really in the
self) into that dream figure. For instance, a woman may dream she is walking
with her closest friend but that friend is ignoring everything she is saying to
her. An interpretation according to Piotrowski’s system could be that the
dreamer is actually dealing with the fact that she is not a good listener.
Dreams may be complementary, compensatory, or projective, useless fic-
tions, avenues of insight, or products of the brain. Many credible answers
have been proposed, but it is hard to believe that there is a single explana-
tion for every instance of dreaming. Perhaps the best answer is that dreams
reveal many different things about many different dreamers—biologically,
psychologically, socially, and spiritually.

Dement, William C. The Promise of Sleep. New York: Random House, 1999.
One of the pioneers in sleep research presents a comprehensive overview
of sleep for the general public. Chapters 13 and 14 specifically deal with
dreaming, while research pertinent to dreaming is also found in other
chapters.
Farthing, G. W. The Psychology of Consciousness. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Pren-
tice Hall, 1992. In a scholarly book emphasizing research on various as-
pects of consciousness, Farthing examines dreaming in three chapters
and related phenomena in two other chapters.
Freud, Sigmund. The Interpretation of Dreams. Translated by Joyce Crick, ed-
ited by Ritchie Robertson. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999. This
is the classic book that outlined Freud’s theory of the mind and revolu-
tionized thinking about dreams.
Hall, James A. Patterns of Dreaming. Boston: Shambhala, 1991. Hall looks at
dream interpretation from a Jungian perspective with an emphasis on clin-
ical application. This intellectually sound book contains excellent histori-
cal background and well-rounded coverage of different approaches to-
ward dream interpretation, including a brief look at Piotrowski’s system.
Kallmyer, J. D. Hearing the Voice of God Through Dreams, Visions, and the Pro-
phetic Word. Harre de Grace, Md.: Moriah Press, 1998. This book is an ex-
cellent source for a spiritual examination of dreaming.
Paul J. Chara, Jr.
See also: Analytical Psychology: Carl Jung; Consciousness: Altered States;

Psychoanalytic Psychology and Personality: Sigmund Freud; Sleep.
291
Drives
Type of psychology: Motivation
Field of study: Motivation theory
A drive is a state influenced by an animal’s need; the animal is motivated to reduce

tension or to seek a goal. Drive theory is concerned with the nature of the internal forces
that compel an animal to behave.
Key concepts
• drive
• drive reduction
• law of effect
• need
• reinforcement
One goal of science is to understand, predict, or manipulate natural events.

A scientist may start by observing an event of interest and measuring it as
precisely as possible to detect any changes. In experimental research, scien-
tists systematically manipulate various other events to see whether the event
of interest also varies. In survey research, various events are measured to see
whether they vary with the event of interest. Understanding is achieved
when the relationship between the event of interest (the dependent vari-
able) and other events (independent variables) is established. One can then
predict or manipulate the event of interest. A theory provides a guideline to
organize the variables into a system based upon common properties. To a
psychologist, the dependent variable is the behavior of all animals and hu-
mans. The independent variable (also called a determinant) may be any
other variable related to behaviors. Psychological research aims to discover
the determinants of certain behavior; some of them are motivational vari-
ables. The field of motivation examines why particular behavior occurs, why
it is so strong, and why it is so persistent.
A drive is a process related to the source of behavioral energy originating
from within the body that is created by disturbances in homeostasis (a state
of systemic equilibrium). A homeostatic imbalance creates a state of need
for certain stimuli from the environment which can restore the balance. For
example, abnormal body temperature and hyperosmolality of the body
fluid (electrolyte concentration outside cells that is higher than that of the
intracellular fluid, resulting in cell dehydration) are disturbances in homeo-
stasis. The homeostatic balance can be restored through two means. Physio-
logical means such as vasodilation, sweating, and panting serve to reduce
body temperature; concentration of electrolytes in the urine by the kidneys
reduces hyperosmolality. Second, behavioral means such as taking off
clothes, turning on an air conditioner, and drinking cold liquid lower body
temperature; drinking water would also result in reducing the hyperosmo-
292
Drives
lality. One may examine a case of homeostatic imbalance in detail to illus-

trate how the two means function to restore the balance.
When the body fluid volume is reduced (hypovolemia) because of loss of
blood or of body fluid from intense sweating, the body responds immedi-
ately by vasoconstriction, reducing urine volume (through vasopressin re-
lease), and conserving sodium (through aldosterone release). Those are
physiological means that will restore the blood pressure and prevent circula-
tory failure. Eventually, however, the body must get back the lost fluid from
the environment via behavior (seeking water and drinking) to achieve long-
lasting homeostasis. The physiological means are immediate and effective,
but they are only stopgap measures. Behavior is the means with which the
animal interacts with its environment to get back the lost resource.
Drive, Reinforcement, and Learning

The concept of drives is very important to the theories of Clark L. Hull, a
neobehaviorist. According to Hull, a drive has at least two distinct functions
as far as behavioral activation is concerned. Without drives there could be
no reinforcement and thus no learning, because drive reduction is the rein-
forcement. Without drives there could be no responses, for drives activate
behavioral potentials into performance. Drive theory maintains that a state
named “drive” (or D) is a necessary condition for behavior to occur; how-
ever, D is not the same as the bodily need. D determines how strongly and
persistently a behavior will occur; it connects the need and behavior. This
distinction between need and drive is necessary because, while the state of
need serves as the source of behavior, the intensity of behavior is not always
related to the intensity of need. Need can be defined as a state of an organ-
ism attributable to deprivation of a biological or psychological requirement,
related to a disturbance in the homeostatic state.
There are cases in which the need increases but behavior does not, or in
which the need remains but behavior is no longer manifested. Prolonged
deprivation, for example, may not result in a linear or proportional increase
in behavior. A water-deprived animal may stop drinking even before cellular
dehydration is restored to the normal state; the behavior is changing inde-
pendently of homeostatic imbalance. Cessation of behavior is seen as being
attributable to drive reduction.
Hull uses D to symbolize drive and sHr (H is commonly used to denote
this, for convenience) to symbolize a habit which consists of an acquired re-
lationship between stimulus (S) and response (R). It represents a memory
of experience in which certain environmental stimuli and responses were
followed by a reward. An effective reward establishes an S-R relationship; the
effect is termed reinforcement. One example of an H would be an experi-
ence of maze stimuli and running that led to food. H is a behavioral poten-
tial, not a behavior. Food deprivation induces a need state that can be physi-
ologically defined; then D will energize H into behavior. The need increases
monotonically with hours of deprivation, but D increases only up to three
293
Psychology Basics
days without food. A simplified version of the Hullian formula for a behavior
would be “behavior = HD,” or “performance = behavioral potential ener-
gizer.” The formula indicates that learning, via establishing behavioral po-
tential, and D, via energizing the potential, are both necessary for perfor-
mance to occur. This is a multiplicative relationship; that is, when either H
or D is zero, a specific performance cannot occur.
Role of Freud’s Id
Sigmund Freud proposed, in his psychoanalytical approach to behavioral
energy, that psychic energy is the source of human behaviors. The id is the
reservoir of instinctual energy presumed to derive directly from the somatic
processes. This energy is unorganized, illogical, and timeless, knowing “no
values, no good or evil, no morality,” according to Freud in 1933. The id op-
erates according to the pleasure principle, using the primary process to dis-
charge its energy as soon as possible, with no regard for reality. When the
discharge is hindered by reality, however, the ego handles the situation ac-
cording to the reality principle, using a secondary process to pursue realistic
gratification. The ego mediates between the id on one hand and reality on
the other.
Freud thus conceptualized the id to be the energy source and the ego to
manage behavior in terms of reality. Learning is manifested in the way the
ego manages behavior for gratification under the restriction of the environ-
ment and the superego. In this model, the drive is seen as the energizer of
behavior. The similarity between the Freudian and Hullian concepts of drive
is obvious. Food deprivation would generate homeostatic imbalance, which
is the somatic process, and the need, which is similar to the energy of the id.
The organism cannot obtain immediate gratification because of environ-
mental constraints to obtain food, so behavior is generated to negotiate with
the environment. Drive is much like the ego because it energizes the behav-
ioral potentials into behaviors to seek reality gratification, which is equiva-
lent to drive reduction. The concept of pleasure and behavioral changes
commonly appears in various theories that incorporate a subtle influence of
Freudian thought.
Deprivation and Incentive Motives

In one classic experiment, Carl J. Warden studied the persistence of behav-
ior as a function of various sources, including the strength of a drive, using
an apparatus called a Columbia obstruction box. He demonstrated that a rat
without food would cross an electrified grid to reach a goal box that held
food. When the rat was immediately brought back from the goal box to the
start box, it would cross the grid again and again. The number of grid cross-
ings was positively related to the number of days without food for up to three
days. From the fourth day without food, however, the number of crossings
slowly decreased. When baby rats were placed in the goal box, a mother rat
would cross the grid repeatedly. When a male or female rat was placed in the
294
Drives
goal box, a rat of the opposite sex would cross repeatedly. The number of
crossings by the male rat was positively related to the duration it spent with-
out a female companion.
These animals were all manifesting the effect of different drives: hunger,
maternal instinct, or sex. It was shown that the maternal drive was associated
with the greatest number of crossings (twenty-two times in twenty minutes),
followed by thirst (twenty times), hunger (seventeen), female sex drive
(fourteen), male sex drive (thirteen), and exploration (six). Warden dem-
onstrated that various internal forces, created by deprivation and hormonal
state, and external forces, created by different goal objects, together deter-
mine the grid-crossing behavior. The level of deprivation induces drive mo-
tivation; the reward in the goal box induces incentive motivation. In this ex-
ample, the focus is on drive motivation.
If one were to place a well-trained rat into a maze, it might or might not
run to the goal box. Whether it would run, how fast it would run, and how
well (in terms of errors) it would run would depend upon whether the sub-
ject were food-deprived. With food deprivation, the well-trained rat would
run to the goal box with few errors. If it had just been fed, it would not run; it
would simply wander, sniff at the corner, and go to sleep. The environmen-
tal stimulus (the maze) is the same; the rat’s behavior is different because
the internal force—the drive created by food deprivation—is different. A
need state produces D, and D then triggers behavior. The behavior that will
occur is determined jointly by the past experience of learning, which is
termed H, as well as stimuli, S, from the environment. An inexperienced rat,
without the H of maze running, will behave differently from a well-trained
rat in a maze. D is an intervening variable: It connects need and behavior, so
one must consider both the source (need) and the consequence (behavior)
to define D. When D is zero, there will be no maze running, no matter how
well-trained the rat is. On the other hand, if there is no H (training), the
proper maze-running behavior will not occur, no matter how hungry the rat
is. An animal must be exposed to a maze when hungry to learn to negotiate
the various turns on the way to the goal box containing food. Without food
deprivation (and the resultant D), the animal would not perform, even if it
could; one cannot tell whether an animal has the knowledge to run the
maze until one introduces a D variable. H is a potential of behavior, and D
makes the potential into the observable reality of performance. Motivation
turns a behavior on.
These ideas can be applied to countless real-life examples. If a person is
not very good at playing tennis (has a low H), for example, no matter how
motivated (high D) he is, he will not be able to beat a friend who is an expert
at the game. If a person is very good at tennis (high H) but does not feel like
playing (low D), perhaps because of a lack of sleep, she will not perform
well. The same situation would apply for taking a test, delivering a speech, or
running a marathon.
295
Psychology Basics
Puzzle-Box Learning
In another experiment involving drive, Edward L. Thorndike put a cat into
a puzzle box. The cat attempted to get out via various behaviors (mewing,
scratching, and so on). By chance, it stepped on a plate that resulted in the
door opening, allowing the cat to escape. The cat was repeatedly returned to
the box, and soon it would escape right away by stepping on the plate; other,
useless behaviors were no longer manifested. The source of D in this case
was the anxiety induced by confinement in the box, which could be mea-
sured by various physiological changes, such as heart rate and hormonal lev-
els. Escaping would make the anxiety disappear; D is reduced. D reduction
results in an increase in the probability that the behavior immediately pre-
ceding it (stepping on the plate) will recur. Thorndike describes this puzzle-
box learning as trial and error, implying a blind attempt at various means of
escape until one happens to work. He states that a “satisfying effect” will cre-
ate repetition, calling this the law of effect; the essence of the satisfying ef-
fect appears to be drive reduction. A five-stage learning cycle is then com-
Edward L. Thorndike.
296
Drives
plete: It consists of need, drive, behavior, drive reduction, and behavior

repetition.
Central Motive State

The question of how a habit (H) is formed and how it is stored in the brain is
a lively research topic in the psychobiology of learning, memory, and cogni-
tion, as well as in neuropsychology, which deals with learning deficit and loss
of memory. Drive and reinforcement are important variables that deter-
mine whether learning will succeed and whether past learning will be mani-
fested as behaviors. Research on hunger and thirst forms one subfield of
psychobiology.
If D is the common energizer of various behaviors, then all sources of D—
hunger, thirst, sex, mothering, exploration—should have something in
common physiologically. The so-called central motive state is hypothesized
to be such a state. It is known that arousal is common to the sources of D. Re-
search involves biological delineation of the sources of D; researchers are
studying the mechanisms of hunger, for example. There has been insuffi-
cient attention paid to the physiological processes by which hunger may mo-
tivate various behaviors and by which drive reduction would serve as a rein-
forcement in learning. Extreme lack of motivation can be seen in some
depressed and psychotic patients, which results both in a lack of new learn-
ing and in a lack of manifesting what is already known. The neuronal sub-
strates of this “lack of energy” represent one problem under investigation in
the area of drive and motivation.

Amsel, Abram. Mechanisms of Adaptive Behavior: Clark Hull’s Theoretical Papers,
with Commentary. New York: Columbia University Press, 1984. An anno-
tated collection of Hull’s theoretical work on drives and behavior.
Bolles, Robert C. Theory of Motivation. 2d ed. New York: Harper & Row, 1975.
This standard text in motivation reviews the concepts of motivation and
drive and present pros and cons of the drive concept.
Freud, Sigmund. New Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis. Translated and
edited by James Strachey. New York: W. W. Norton, 1989. Freud’s 1933
work explains his theory of the workings of the id, ego, and superego. His
concept of behavioral energy is described in this book.
Hull, Clark Leonard. Principles of Behavior. 1943. Reprint. New York: Appleton-
Century-Crofts, 1966. This bible of the Hullian neobehavioristic theory
delineates the concepts of D and H and the philosophical bases of be-
havioral study. The theory has excited many students into studying psy-
chology.
Pfaff, Donald W., ed. The Physiological Mechanisms of Motivation. New York:
Springer-Verlag, 1982. Various authors describe the physiological sub-
strates of different sources of drive and motivation in terms of the ner-
vous system, hormones, and body fluid parameters.
297
Psychology Basics
Stellar, James R., and Eliot Stellar. The Neurobiology of Motivation and Reward.
New York: Springer-Verlag, 1985. Eliot Stellar, one of the best-known the-
orists in biopsychology of motivation, along with his son, describes how
biological antecedents of motivation can be found to explain various be-
havior.
Warden, Carl John. Animal Motivation: Experimental Studies on the Albino Rat.
New York: Columbia University Press, 1931. This was the first research at-
tempting to compare different sources of drive using various reward sub-
stances.
Sigmund Hsiao
See also: Hunger; Instinct Theory; Motivation; Thirst.
298
Drug Therapies
Date: The 1950’s forward
Type of psychology: Biological bases of behavior; psychopathology;
psychotherapy
Fields of study: Anxiety disorders; depression; models of abnormality;
nervous system; organic disorders; personality disorders;
schizophrenias; sexual disorders; stress and illness; substance abuse
Psychotropic drugs have revolutionized the treatment of mental illness. Many disor-
ders, including anxiety, depression, and schizophrenia, may be treated effectively with
these modern drugs. However, the use of psychotropic drugs has created new problems,
both for individuals and for society.
Key concepts
• antianxiety drugs
• antidepressant drugs
• antipsychotics
• mood stabilizers
• neurotransmitters
• psychopharmacology
• psychostimulants
• psychotropic
Based on the rapidly increasing body of chemical knowledge developed dur-

ing the late nineteenth century, interest in drug therapy in the early twenti-
eth century was high. Researchers experimented with insulin, marijuana,
antihistamines, and lithium with varying success. The term “psychopharma-
cology,” the study of drugs for the treatment of mental illness, dates to 1920.
Before 1950, no truly effective drug therapies existed for mental illness. Phy-
sicians treated mentally ill patients with a combination of physical restraints,
blood-letting, sedation, starvation, electric shock, and other minimally ef-
fective therapies. They used some drugs for treatment, including alcohol
and opium, primarily to calm agitated patients.
In 1951 French scientist Paul Charpentier synthesized chlorpromazine
(brand name Thorazine) for use in reducing surgical patients’ anxiety and
the prevention of shock during surgery. Physicians noted its calming effect
and began to use it in psychiatry. Previously agitated patients with schizo-
phrenia not only became calmer, but their thoughts also became less cha-
otic and they became less irritable. Chlorpromazine was truly the first effec-
tive psychotropic drug (that is, a drug exerting an effect on the mind) and is
still used today.
The discovery of chlorpromazine ushered in a new era in the treatment
of psychiatric illness. Pharmaceutical companies have developed and intro-
duced dozens of new psychotropic drugs. Many long-term psychiatric treat-
ment facilities have closed, and psychiatrists have released the vast majority
299
Psychology Basics
of their patients into community-based mental health care. Many patients

with mental health problems are treated on an outpatient basis, with brief
hospitalizations for stabilization in some cases. Treatment goals are no lon-
ger simply to sedate patients or to protect themselves and others from harm
but to provide them with significant relief from their symptoms and to help
them function productively in society. As scientific knowledge about the brain
and its function increases, researchers are able to create drugs targeting in-
creasingly specific areas of the brain, leading to fewer adverse side effects.
This psychotherapeutic drug revolution has had some negative conse-
quences, however. Drug side effects range from the annoying to the life
threatening. Community mental health treatment centers have not grown
in number or received funding sufficient to meet the needs of all the pa-
tients released from long-term care facilities. Many mentally ill patients have
fallen through the cracks of community-based care and live on the streets or
in shelters for the homeless. In addition, some physicians and patients have
come to expect a “pill for every ill” and fail to use other, equally or more ef-
fective treatment methodologies. Researchers estimate that 15 percent of
the population of the United States receives a prescription for a psycho-
tropic drug each year, greatly adding to the nation’s health care costs. The
majority of these prescriptions are written by generalist physicians rather
than by psychiatrists, raising concerns about excessive or inappropriate pre-
scribing. Some people abuse these drugs, either by taking their medications
in excess of the amount prescribed for them or by obtaining them illicitly.
Studies have shown that prescription drug abuse causes more injuries and
deaths than abuse of all illicit drugs combined. Feminist scholars have
pointed out that physicians tend to prescribe psychotropic drugs more
readily for women than for men.
Despite the negative effects, psychotropic drugs are extremely important
in the provision of health care, not only for those people traditionally
thought of as mentally ill but also for people with chronic pain, serious med-
ical illness, loss and grief, and those who have experienced traumatic events.
How Psychotropic Drugs Work

To understand how these mind-affecting drugs work, it is necessary to un-
derstand a little of how the brain works. The brain is made up primarily of
neurons (nerve cells) that form circuits controlling thoughts, emotions,
physical activities, and basic life functions. These nerve cells do not actually
touch one another but are separated by gaps called synapses. An electrical
impulse moves along the neuron. When it reaches the end, it stimulates the
release of chemicals called neurotransmitters into the synapse. These chem-
icals then fit into receptors on the next neuron and affect its electrical im-
pulse. The neurotransmitters act by either causing the release of the electric
impulse or inhibiting it so the neuron does not fire. Any neurotransmitter
left in the synapse is then reabsorbed into the original neuron. This process
is called reuptake.
300
Drug Therapies
Problems can arise from either too much or too little neurotransmission.
Too much transmission may occur when the neuron fires in the absence of a
stimulus or when too many neurotransmitters attach to the receptors on the
far side of the synapse (the postsynaptic receptors). Too little transmission
can occur when too few neurotransmitters attach to these postsynaptic re-
ceptors. The primary neurotransmitters involved in mental illnesses and
their treatment are dopamine, serotonin (5-HT), norepinephrine, and
gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA).
Antidepressant Drugs
Some scientists believe that depression is caused by insufficient norepineph-
rine, serotonin, or dopamine in the synapse. Others theorize that depres-
sion has to do with the number and sensitivity of postsynaptic receptors in-
volved in the neuron’s response. Drugs for the treatment of depression
come in four major classes: the monoamine oxidase inhibitors (MAOIs),
the tricyclic antidepressants, the selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors
(SSRIs), and “other.” None of these drugs is addictive, although patients
need to be weaned from them slowly to avoid rebound depression or other
adverse effects.
MAOIs were the first modern antidepressants. Monoamine oxidase is an
enzyme that breaks down serotonin, norepinephrine, and dopamine. In-
hibiting the enzyme increases the supply of these neurotransmitters. MAOI
drugs available in the United States include phenelzine and tranylcypro-
mine. These drugs are not used as commonly as are the other antidepres-
sants, mostly because of their side effects. However, they are used when
other treatments for depression fail. In addition, they may be used to treat
narcolepsy, phobias, anxiety, and Parkinson’s disease. Common side effects
include drowsiness, fatigue, dry mouth, and dizziness. They may also cause
orthostatic hypotension (a drop in blood pressure when arising) and sexual
dysfunction. Most important, the MAOIs interact with tyramine-containing
foods, such as hard cheese, red wine, and smoked or pickled fish. Con-
suming these foods along with an MAOI can cause a hypertensive crisis in
which the patient’s blood pressure rises to potentially deadly levels. Patients
taking MAOIs must also avoid other drugs which stimulate the nervous sys-
tem to avoid blood pressure emergencies.
The tricyclic antidepressants were introduced in 1958. They all inhibit
the reuptake of neurotransmitters but differ in which neurotransmitter is
involved. Some affect primarily serotonin, some norepinephrine, and some
work equally on both. Tricyclics commonly available in the United States
include amitriptyline, imipramine, doxepin, desipramine, nortriptyline,
amoxapine, protriptyline, and clomipramine. Primarily used for depression,
these drugs may also be helpful in the treatment of bed-wetting, agoraphobia
(fear of being out in the open) with panic attacks, obsessive-compulsive
personality disorder, chronic pain, nerve pain, and migraine headaches.
An important treatment issue is that it takes two to three weeks of tricyclic
301
Psychology Basics
therapy before the depressed patient feels much improvement in mood and
energy. During this time, the side effects, which include dry mouth, blurred
vision, constipation, urinary retention, orthostatic hypotension, weight gain,
sexual dysfunction, cardiac problems, and jaundice, tend to be the most
bothersome, leading patients to abandon the treatment before it becomes
effective. Another important treatment issue is that tricyclic antidepressants
are highly lethal in overdose. Some of the tricyclics are highly sedating and
so may be useful in patients who are having difficulty sleeping. On the other
hand, a patient who is already feeling sluggish and sleepy may benefit from a
tricyclic that is less sedating. Any antidepressant may precipitate mania or
hypomania in a patient with a predisposition to bipolar (manic-depressive)
disorder. Elderly patients may be at increased risk for falls or confusion and
memory impairment when taking tricyclics and should be started on very
low doses if a tricyclic is indicated.
The newer selective SSRIs have several advantages over the tricyclics:
They are much less lethal in overdose, are far safer for use among the el-
derly, and do not cause weight gain. They work, as the name implies, by de-
creasing serotonin reuptake, thereby increasing the amount of neurotrans-
mitter available at the synapse. Like the tricyclics, SSRIs may need to be
taken for several weeks before a patient notices significant improvement in
mood and energy level. SSRIs available in the United States include fluoxe-
tine (Prozac), sertraline (Zoloft), fluvoxamine (Luvox), paroxetine (Paxil),
trazodone (Desyral), nafazodone (Serzone), and venlafaxine (Effexor). In
addition to depression, the SSRIs are used for treatment of bulimia nervosa
and obsessive-compulsive disorder. Possible side effects include nausea, di-
arrhea, nervousness, insomnia, anxiety, and sexual dysfunction.
Other drugs used in the treatment of depression include mianserin,
maprotiline, and bupropion. The mechanisms by which these drugs work
are not clear, but they may be useful in patients for whom the other antide-
pressants do not work or are contraindicated.
Mood Stabilizers
Some patients who have depression also have episodes of elevated mood
and erratic, uncontrolled behavior. These patients are diagnosed with bi-
polar disorder, formerly known as manic-depression. The underlying cause
for this disorder is unknown, but there is a strong genetic predisposition. Ev-
idence suggests the condition is due to overactivity of the neurotransmitters.
Treatment for bipolar disorder consists of mood-stabilizing drugs. These
drugs control not only the “highs” but also the episodes of depression.
Lithium is a naturally occurring mineral that was observed to calm agi-
tated behavior in ancient Egypt. Its usefulness as a mood stabilizer was first
scientifically established in the 1940’s and it was approved in 1970 for use in
the United States. It is effective not only in stabilizing the mood during a
manic episode but also in the prevention of future episodes. A significant
problem with the use of lithium is that the dose at which it becomes effective
302
Drug Therapies
is quite close to the dose which produces toxicity, characterized by drowsi-

ness, blurred vision, staggering, confusion, irregular heart beat, seizures,
and coma. Patients taking lithium must therefore have blood drawn on a
regular basis in order to determine drug levels. Patients who have poor kid-
ney function should not take lithium because it is excreted primarily through
the urine. Lithium’s side effects include nausea, diarrhea, tremor of the
hands, dry mouth, and frequent urination.
Drugs usually used for the treatment of seizures may also help stabilize
mood in bipolar patients, usually at lower doses than would be used for sei-
zure control. These include carbamazepine, divalproex, gabapentin, lamo-
trigine, and topiramate. It is believed that these drugs increase the amount
of GABA at the synapse. GABA has a calming or inhibitory effect on the neu-
rons. Side effects of these medications include dizziness, nausea, headaches,
and visual changes.
Psychostimulants
Attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is found in both children
and adults. Children with ADHD have difficulties at school because of
impulsivity and inattention. The underlying cause of ADHD is extremely
complex, and the ways in which drugs used to treat it work are equally com-
plex. The most successful treatments are with drugs that actually stimulate
the central nervous system. Drug therapy is most effective when combined
with behavioral treatments. The most commonly used psychostimulants are
methylphenidate and pemoline, but amphetamines are sometimes used as
well. Formerly, depressed patients were treated with amphetamines and sim-
ilar compounds; occasionally this use is still found. These stimulant drugs
do improve school performance; however, they may cause growth retarda-
tion in both height and weight. They may also cause insomnia and nervous-
ness. Importantly, these drugs may be abused, leading ultimately to addic-
tion, paranoia, and severe depression during withdrawal.
Antianxiety Drugs
These drugs are central nervous system depressants. Many of these anti-
anxiety drugs or anxiolytics are, in higher doses, also used as sedative-
hypnotics, or calming and sleep-inducing drugs. They seem to act by en-
hancing the effect of GABA in the brain. The earliest of these depressant
drugs included chloroform, chloral hydrate, and paraldehyde, and they
were used for anesthesia and for sedation.
Barbiturates were introduced in Germany in 1862 and were widely used
for treatment of anxiety and sleep problems until the 1960’s. Barbiturates
are still available today, including pentobarbital, secobarbital, amobarbital,
and phenobarbital. Their major adverse effect is respiratory depression,
particularly when used in combination with alcohol, another central ner-
vous system depressant. With the advent of the safer benzodiazepines, use of
the barbiturates has declined steadily.
303
Psychology Basics
Benzodiazepines are used for two major problems: anxiety and insomnia.
Anxiety disorders appropriate for this kind of treatment include general-
ized anxiety disorder, panic disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder, phobic
disorder, and dissociative disorder. The benzodiazepines commonly used
for anxiety include alprazolam, chlordiazepoxide, clonazepam, cloraze-
pate, diazepam, lorazepam, and oxazepam. For most of these disorders,
however, behavioral, cognitive, group, and social therapy, or one of these
therapies plus medication, are more effective than medication alone. Ben-
zodiazepines used for insomnia include estazolam, flurazepam, midazolam,
quazepam, temazepam, and triazolam. Benzodiazepines may also be used to
prevent the development of delirium tremens during alcohol withdrawal.
Patients become tolerant to the effects of these drugs, meaning they have
the potential for physical dependency and addiction. In addition, benzo-
diazepines interact with many other drugs, including alcohol. Their use
should be limited to brief periods of time, particularly in the treatment of in-
somnia. Long-term treatment for anxiety should be monitored carefully by
the health care provider. Elderly people are more likely than younger peo-
ple to suffer adverse effects (such as confusion or falls) from benzodiaz-
epine use.
Another drug developed for treatment of anxiety is buspirone. Propra-
nolol and atenolol, usually used to treat high blood pressure, are useful in
treating stage fright or performance anxiety, and clonidine, another blood
pressure medication, is successfully used in treatment of anxiety. Nonbenzo-
diazepine sleep agents include zolpidem and zaleplon.
Antipsychotic Drugs
Formerly known as “major tranquilizers” or “neuroleptics,” the antipsy-
chotic drugs have revolutionized the treatment of schizophrenia and other
psychoses. The underlying cause of psychosis is not known, but it is thought
to be related to the neurotransmitter dopamine. Most of the antipsychotics
block the dopamine receptors in the brain. The older antipsychotic drugs
include thorazine, thioridazine, perphenazine, trifluoperazine, fluphena-
zine, thiothixene, and haloperidol. These older drugs treat the so-called
positive symptoms of schizophrenia—hallucinations and delusions—but
they have little effect on the “negative” symptoms—withdrawal, poor inter-
personal relationships, and slowing of the body’s movement. They also have
multiple serious side effects including severe muscle spasm, tremor, rigidity,
shuffling gait, stupor, fever, difficulty speaking, blood pressure changes,
restlessness, and involuntary movements of the face, trunk, arms, and legs.
Some of these are treatable using other drugs, but some are neither treat-
able nor reversible.
In an effort to overcome these problems, newer antipsychotics have been
developed. The first of these was clozapine, which was successful in treating
about one-third of the patients who did not respond to other antipsychotic
drugs. While it had fewer of the serious side effects listed above, a small per-
304
Drug Therapies
centage of patients experience a severe drop in the white blood cells, which
puts them at risk for serious infection. For this reason, patients on clozapine
must be followed with frequent blood counts. Other newer antipsychotics
include risperidone, olanzapine, and quetiapine. In addition to fewer of the
serious side effects, the newer antipsychotics seem to have some effect on
the negative symptoms.

Breggin, David, and Peter Cohen. Your Drug May Be Your Problem: How and
Why to Stop Taking Psychiatric Drugs. Cambridge, Mass.: Perseus, 2000. A
controversial book making an important argument that too many people
are taking psychiatric medications and suffering serious side effects from
those drugs. The authors give specifics about how to withdraw from drugs
safely.
Drummond, Edward H. The Complete Guide to Psychiatric Drugs: Straight Talk
for Best Results. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 2000. Covers the state of
knowledge about psychiatric illness, what medications may be helpful,
how to decide whether medication might be useful, managing side ef-
fects, and nondrug therapies.
Gorman, Jack M. The Essential Guide to Mental Health: The Most Comprehensive
Guide to the New Psychiatry for Popular Family Use. New York: St. Martin’s
Press, 1998. Covers psychiatric illness, how to search for a psychiatrist,
drugs, and over-the-counter remedies.
__________. Essential Guide to Psychiatric Drugs. 3d ed. New York: St. Martin’s
Press, 1997. Contains detailed descriptions of the psychiatric medications
available in the United States, including uses, adverse effects, cost, dos-
ages, and research findings. Written in a straightforward style for the
layperson but also useful to clinicians.
Healy, David. The Creation of Psychopharmacology. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard
University Press, 2002. Details the discovery and development of psychi-
atric medications, the extremely profitable partnership between psychia-
trists and the large pharmaceutical companies, and the frightening con-
sequences for today’s culture and society.
Kramer, Peter D. Listening to Prozac: A Psychiatrist Explores Antidepressant Drugs
and the Remaking of the Self. New York: Penguin, 1997. An examination of
the growing use of drugs in the treatment of mental illness, with discus-
sion of the implications of this practice, both positive and negative.
Olson, James. Pharmacology Made Ridiculously Simple. 2d ed. Miami: Med-
Master, 2001. A brief and straightforward explanation of the general
principles of pharmacology. Enhanced by excellent diagrams and tables.
See also: Cognitive Behavior Therapy; Cognitive Therapy; Psychotherapy:

Goals and Techniques.
305
Eating Disorders
Field of study: General constructs and issues
Eating disorders include a group of eating and weight disturbances, including an-
orexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa, and binge-eating disorder, associated with underly-
ing psychological problems.
Key concepts
• anorexia nervosa
• binge-eating disorder
• bulimia nervosa
• eating disorder
• obesity
Eating disorders were identified as early as ancient Roman times, when

banqueters gorged themselves, then induced vomiting. Some of the early
Christian saints were anorexic. However, eating disorders only emerged as
an area of social and medical concern in the second half of the twentieth
century.
Persons with eating disorders have a distorted body image and unrealistic
ideas about weight. Although such disorders are found primarily among
young, middle- to upper-middle-class, well-educated Caucasian women, eat-
ing disorders increasingly affect and may be overlooked in men, older
women, and persons of color. No single factor appears to be the cause of eat-
ing disorders, with social, cultural, psychological, genetic, biological, and
physical factors all playing a part. Treatment may include hospitalization for
nutritional monitoring and for stabilization in persons with serious medical
complications or who are at risk for suicide. Regardless of the setting, treat-
ment is best carried out by a multidisciplinary team, including a primary
care physician or psychiatrist, a psychotherapist, a nutritionist, and, if appro-
priate, a family therapist.
Eating disorders are best thought of as problems involving body weight
and distorted body image on a continuum of severity. The most serious is an-
orexia nervosa, a disorder characterized by weight loss greater than or equal
to 15 percent of the body weight normal for the person’s height and age. Bu-
limia nervosa is usually found in persons of normal weight and is character-
ized by consumption of large amounts of food followed by self-induced vom-
iting, purging with diuretics or laxatives, or excessive exercise. Binge-eating
disorder, found usually in persons with some degree of overweight, is char-
acterized by the consumption of large amounts of food without associated
vomiting or purging. Other, milder, forms of eating disorders are at the least
serious end of the continuum. Obesity may or may not be part of this contin-
uum, depending on the presence or absence of underlying psychological
problems. About one-third of obese persons have binge-eating disorder.
306
Eating Disorders
Population at Risk
Women constitute 90 percent of people diagnosed with eating disorders—
eight million adolescent and young adult women in the United States alone.
The majority of these are Caucasian (95 percent) and from middle- to upper-
middle-class backgrounds. Research in the latter part of the twentieth cen-
tury indicated that adolescent and young adult women were most likely to
be affected; however, these disorders are now found in girls as young as nine
and in older women. By the end of the twentieth century, eating disorders
were also increasingly identified in women from other ethnic and socioeco-
nomic groups. These disorders are most likely underreported in men and
seem to affect gay men disproportionately. Also at risk are men with certain
professions or avocations such as jockeys, dancers, body builders, and wres-
tlers, in which weight and body shape are an issue.
Causes of Eating Disorders

No single cause has been identified for eating disorders. However, nearly all
eating disorders begin with dieting to lose weight. Because these disorders
are found almost exclusively in the developed world, where food is plentiful
and where thinness in women is idealized, it appears that social and cultural
Anorexia nervosa is a
body-image disorder in
which fear of being fat
results in undereating
and other behaviors that
lead to emaciation and,
if unchecked, death.
307
Psychology Basics
factors are important contributors. Some theorists believe that cultural val-
ues of independence and personal autonomy, rather than interdependence
and the importance of human relationships, contribute to eating pathology.
Still others point to the changing and contradictory societal expectations
about the roles of women as a contributing factor.
Studies suggest a genetic predisposition to eating disorders, particularly
in those persons who engage in binge eating and purging behaviors. Their
family histories typically include higher than expected numbers of persons
with mood disorders and substance abuse problems. Dysfunctions in the
pathways for the substances that transmit messages in the brain, the neuro-
transmitters, are thought to play a role in the development and mainte-
nance of eating disorders, although these dysfunctions are not sufficient to
explain the entire problem by themselves. The psychological theories about
the causes of eating disorders postulate that individuals with underlying
feelings of powerlessness or personal inadequacy attempt to cope by becom-
ing preoccupied with their body’s shape and size. Finally, the incidence of
sexual abuse is higher among persons with eating disorders, particularly bu-
limia nervosa, than among those in the general population.
Eating disorders seem to develop in three stages. Stage 1 involves the
period from the time a child is conceived until the onset of a particular be-
havior that precipitates the eating disorder. During this stage, individual psy-
chological, personal, and physical factors, plus family, social, and cultural
factors, place the person at increased risk. Individual risk factors include a
personal history of depression, low self-esteem, perfectionism, an eagerness
to please others, obesity, and physical or sexual abuse. Family risk factors in-
clude a family member with an eating disorder or a mood disorder and ex-
cessive familial concern for appearance and weight. Social and cultural is-
sues include emphasis on the cultural ideal of excessive thinness, leading to
dissatisfaction with the body and dieting for weight loss. Young women who
are dancers, runners, skaters, gymnasts, and the like may be particularly sus-
ceptible to this kind of cultural pressure.
Stage 2 involves the factors which actually precipitate the eating disorder.
Some identified precipitating factors include onset of puberty, leaving
home, new relationships, death of a relative, illness, adverse comments
about weight and body appearance, fear of maturation, the struggle for au-
tonomy during the midteen years, and identity conflicts.
Stage 3 involves the factors which perpetuate the eating disorder. These
can be cognitive distortions, interpersonal events, or biological changes re-
lated to starvation.
Associated Medical Problems

Women with anorexia nervosa stop menstruating. Anorexics may also have
abdominal pain, constipation, and increased urination. The heart rate may
be slow or irregular. Many develop downy, dark body hair (lanugo) over nor-
mally hairless areas. They may have bloating after eating and swelling of the
308
Eating Disorders
feet and lower legs. Low levels of potassium and sodium and other imbal-
ances in the body’s electrolytes can lead to cardiac arrest, kidney failure,
weakness, confusion, poor memory, disordered thinking, and mood swings.
The death rate for anorexics is high: About 5 percent will die within eight
years of being diagnosed and 20 percent within twenty years.
Self-induced vomiting can lead to erosion of tooth enamel, gum ab-
scesses, and swelling of the parotid glands in front of the ear and over the an-
gle of the jaw. About one-third of women with bulimia have abnormal
changes in their menstrual cycles. Some bulimics consume so much food in
such a short period of time that their stomachs rupture. More than 75 per-
cent of these individuals die. Use of ipecac and laxatives can lead to heart
damage. Symptoms include chest pain, skipped heartbeats, and fainting,
and these heart problems can lead to death. In addition, bulimics are at in-
creased risk for ulcers of the stomach and small intestine and for inflamma-
tion of the pancreas.
One commonly overlooked problem is the “female athletic triad,” a com-
bination of disordered eating, loss of menstruation, and osteoporosis. This
can lead to fractures and permanent loss of bone minerals.
Anorexia Nervosa
The diagnosis of anorexia nervosa is made in persons who have lost 15 per-
cent or more of the body weight that is considered normal for their height
and age and who have an intense and irrational fear of gaining weight.
Even with extreme weight loss, anorexics perceive themselves as over-
weight. Their attitude toward food and weight control becomes obsessive
and they frequently develop bizarre or ritualistic behaviors around food,
such as chewing each bite a specific number of times. Anorexics mini-
mize the seriousness of their weight loss and are highly resistant to treat-
ment.
The two basic types of anorexia nervosa are the restricting type and the
binge-eating/purging type. The restricting type is characterized by an ex-
tremely limited diet, often without carbohydrates or fats. This may be ac-
companied by excessive exercising or hyperactivity. Up to half of anorexics
eventually lose control over their severely restricted dieting and begin to en-
gage in binge eating. They then induce vomiting, use diuretics or laxatives,
or exercise excessively to control their weight. People who are in the binge-
eating/purging group are at greater risk for medical complications.
As the weight loss in either type reaches starvation proportions, anorexics
become more and more preoccupied with food; they may hoard food or
steal. They also experience sleep abnormalities, loss of interest in sex, and
poor concentration and attention. In addition, they slowly restrict their
social contacts and become more and more socially isolated. In general,
anorexics of the binge-eating/purging type are likely to have problems with
impulse control and may engage in substance abuse, excessive spending,
sexual promiscuity, and other forms of compulsive behavior. This group is
309
Psychology Basics
also more likely to attempt suicide or to hurt themselves than others with
eating disorders.
Bulimia Nervosa
Persons who have bulimia nervosa are similar in behavior to the subset of
anorexics who binge and purge, but they tend to maintain their weight at or
near normal for their age and height. They intermittently have an over-
whelming urge to eat, usually associated with a period of anxiety or depres-
sion, and can consume as many as 15,000 calories in a relatively short period
of time, typically one to two hours. Binge foods are usually high calorie and
easy to digest, such as ice cream. The binge eating provides a sense of numb-
ing of the anxiety or relief from the depression. Failing to recognize that they
are full, bulimics eventually stop eating because of abdominal pain, nausea,
being interrupted, or some other non-hunger-related reason. At that point,
psychological stress again increases as they reflect on the amount they have
eaten. Most bulimics then induce vomiting, but some use laxatives, diuretics,
severe food restriction, fasting, or excessive exercise to avoid gaining weight.
Bulimics tend to be secretive, binge eating and purging when alone.
These episodes may occur only a few times a week or as often as several times
a day. As with binge-eating/purging anorexics, bulimics are likely to abuse
alcohol and other drugs, make suicidal gestures, and engage in other kinds
of impulsive behavior such as shoplifting. Because of the electrolyte imbal-
ances and other adverse consequences of repeated vomiting or the use of
laxatives or diuretics, bulimics are at risk for multiple serious medical com-
plications which, if uncorrected, can lead to death.
Binge-Eating Disorder
The American Psychiatric Association has developed provisional criteria for
binge-eating disorder in order to study this disorder more completely. The
criteria include compulsive and excessive eating at least twice a week for six
months without self-induced vomiting, purging, or excessive exercise. That
is, binge-eating disorder is bulimia nervosa without the compensatory weight-
loss mechanisms. For this reason, most binge eaters are slightly to signifi-
cantly overweight. In addition to the eating problems, many binge eaters ex-
perience relationship problems and have a history of depression or other
psychiatric disorders.
Other Eating Disorders

Anorexia and bulimia nervosa and binge-eating disorder have strict diag-
nostic criteria set forth by the American Psychiatric Association. However,
these three do not cover the entire spectrum of disordered eating patterns.
Those people who induce vomiting after consuming only a small amount of
food, for example, or those who chew large amounts of food and spit it out
rather than swallow it, do not fit the diagnosis of bulimia. For such persons, a
diagnosis of “Eating Disorder, Not Otherwise Specified” is used.
310
Eating Disorders
Prevalence of Eating Disorders

Anorexia nervosa is the rarest of the eating disorders, affecting fewer than 1
percent of adolescent and young women (that is, women ages thirteen to
twenty-five) and a tiny proportion of young men. Bulimia nervosa, on the
other hand, affects up to 3 percent of teenage and young adult women and
about 0.2 percent of men. Even more of this age group, probably 5 percent,
suffer from binge-eating disorder. In obese patients, fully one-third meet
the criteria for this disorder. Binge eating is the most common eating disor-
der in men, although more women actually have this disorder. Eating Disor-
ders, Not Otherwise Specified, are even more common.
Treatment
Treatment of persons with eating disorders can take place in an inpatient or
an outpatient setting. Hospitalization is indicated for patients with severe
malnutrition, serious medical complications, an increased risk of suicide,
and those who are unable to care for themselves or have failed outpatient
treatment.
The first step in the treatment of anorexics must be restoring their body
weight. This may require hospitalization. A system of carefully structured re-
wards for weight gain is often successful. For example, the gain of a target
amount of weight may be tied to being allowed to go outside or having visits
from friends. Once the anorexic is nutritionally stabilized, individual, fam-
ily, cognitive-behavioral, and other therapies are indicated to address issues
specific to the individual.
The first step in the treatment of bulimics is a comprehensive medical eval-
uation. Bulimics are less likely than anorexics to require hospitalization. As
with anorexia nervosa, treatment includes individual, family, and cognitive-
behavioral therapies. In addition, group therapy may be helpful. Cognitive-
behavioral therapies are effective in the treatment of bulimia nervosa.
Patients are taught to recognize and analyze cues that trigger the binge-
purge cycle. Once analyzed, they are taught to reframe these thoughts, feel-
ings, and beliefs to more adaptive and less destructive ones, thus altering the
cycle.
Outpatient care should be carefully coordinated among a multidisci-
plinary team: an experienced health care practitioner to monitor the pa-
tient’s medical condition, a therapist to address psychological and emo-
tional issues, a family therapist to deal with control and other issues within
the family, and a nutritionist to develop and monitor a sensible meal plan.
Medications may be a helpful adjunct in some cases, particularly in those
eating-disordered patients who have an additional psychiatric diagnosis
such as major depression or obsessive-compulsive disorder. Simply gaining
weight usually improves mood in anorexics, but antidepressants (particu-
larly the selective serotonin-reuptake inhibitors or SSRIs) may help not only
with depression but also with the obsessive-compulsive aspects of the ano-
rexic’s relationship with food.
311
Psychology Basics
Several different antidepressants (including monoamine oxidase inhibi-

tors, the tricyclics amitriptyline and desipramine, and high-dose fluoxetine,
an SSRI) are associated with fewer episodes of binge eating and purging in
bulimic patients, in addition to their use in treating anxiety and depression.
These drugs have not been studied extensively in the treatment of binge-eat-
ing disorder, however.
Prevention of Eating Disorders

Preventive measures should include education about normal body weight
for height and techniques used in advertising and the media to promote an
unrealistic body image. Parents, teachers, coaches, and health care provid-
ers all play a role in prevention. Parents, coaches, and teachers need to be
educated about the messages they give to growing children about bodies,
body development, and weight. In addition, they need to be aware of early
signs of risk. Health care providers need to include screening for eating dis-
orders as a routine part of care. Specific indicators include dieting for
weight loss associated with unrealistic weight goals, criticism of the body, so-
cial isolation, cessation of menses, and evidence of vomiting or laxative or
diuretic use.

Battegay, Raymond. The Hunger Diseases. Northvale, N.J.: Jason Aronson,
1997. Addresses the emotional hunger that, the author contends, under-
lies all eating disorders, from anorexia to obesity.
Bruch, Hilde. The Golden Cage: The Enigma of Anorexia Nervosa. Reprint. Cam-
bridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2001. A classic work by a pioneer
in the field of eating disorders. Portrays the development of anorexia
nervosa as an attempt by a young woman to attain a sense of control and
identity. Discusses the etiology and treatment of anorexia from a modi-
fied psychoanalytic perspective.
Brumberg, Joan J. Fasting Girls: The History of Anorexia Nervosa. Rev. ed.
New York: Vintage, 2000. Outlines the history of anorexia nervosa. Ex-
amines the syndrome from multiple perspectives while leaning toward a
cultural and feminist perspective. A well-researched and very readable
work.
Gordon, Richard. Eating Disorders: Anatomy of a Social Epidemic. 2d rev. ed.
New York: Blackwell, 2000. A survey of current clinical practice in dealing
with eating disorders as well as thorough coverage of their history and so-
cial context.
Hirschmann, Jane R., and Carol H. Munter. When Women Stop Hating Their
Bodies: Freeing Yourself from Food and Weight Obsessions. New York: Fawcett,
1997. Follow-up to the authors’ Overcoming Overeating (1988) reviews the
psychological basis for compulsive eating and provides alternative strate-
gies to persons who have an addictive relationship with food. Presents
convincing arguments against dieting and proposes that self-acceptance,
312
Eating Disorders
physical activity, and health are more appropriate long-term solutions to

the problem of overeating.
Sacker, Ira M., and Marc A. Zimmerman. Dying to Be Thin: Understanding and
Defeating Anorexia Nervosa and Bulimia. Updated ed. New York: Warner
Books, 2001. A practical approach, written by two medical doctors, to un-
derstanding the sources and causes of eating disorders and how to over-
come them. Includes a guide to resources, treatment clinics, and support
groups.
See also: Anxiety Disorders; Depression; Hunger; Obsessive-Compulsive

Disorder.
313
Ego Psychology
Erik Erikson
Date: The late 1930’s forward
Field of study: Personality theory
Ego psychology, pioneered by Erikson, Heinz Hartmann, Erich Fromm, Harry Stack
Sullivan, and Karen Horney, provided a significant new reformation to the personal-
ity theory of Freudian psychoanalysis. Erikson’s theory of the growth of the ego
throughout the life cycle provided an especially important contribution to this move-
ment.
Key concepts
• ego
• id
• psychoanalysis
• psychosocial
• unconscious
Ego psychology emerged in the late 1930’s as a reform movement within

psychoanalysis. Psychoanalysis, as developed by Sigmund Freud in the previ-
ous three decades, was an innovative approach to understanding psycholog-
ical life. Freud developed the methodology and vocabulary to focus on the
meaningfulness of lived experience. For Freud, the true meaning of an ex-
perience was largely unconscious. Dreams, slips of the tongue or pen, and
symptoms provided examples of such unconscious layers of meaning. In psy-
choanalytic terminology, beneath the level of the conscious ego, there is an
unconscious substructure (the id). Freud used the metaphor of an iceberg
to relate these two levels, indicating that the conscious level is analogous to
the small, visible tip of an iceberg that shows above the water, whereas the
unconscious level is like its large, underwater, invisible mass. The ego, this
small surface level of the personality, “manages” one’s relations with the
world beyond the psyche. The id, in contrast, is “intrapsychic” in the sense
that it is not in a relation with the “outer” world beyond the psyche. Rather,
the id draws its energy from the biological energy of the instinctual body
(such as instincts for sex and aggression). In this traditional psychoanalytic
theory, then, the conscious level of the person is rooted in, and motivated
by, an unconscious level, as psychological life is ultimately rooted in biologi-
cal forces.
Freudian psychoanalysis advanced psychology by legitimating the study
of the meaningfulness of human actions, but it did so at the price of conceiv-
ing of conscious, worldly experience as being only a surface, subtended by
unconscious, biological forces, mechanisms cut off from worldly involve-
ment. By the late 1930’s, some psychoanalysts had concluded this was too
314
Ego Psychology: Erik Erikson
steep a price to pay. The first to formulate these objections systematically was
Heinz Hartmann, whose writings between 1939 and 1950 advanced the ar-
gument for the autonomy of the ego as a structure of the personality inde-
pendent of the domination of the unconscious id. It was Hartmann who
gave to this protest movement the name “ego psychology.”
In the next generation of analysts, this movement found its most articu-
late voices: Erich Fromm, Harry Stack Sullivan, Karen Horney, and Erik
Erikson. Writing from the 1940’s through the 1980’s, all contributed inde-
pendently to a perspective that grants to the ego a status much more signifi-
cant than its role in Freudian psychoanalysis. For them, it is people’s rela-
tions with the world (and not their subterranean biological energy) that is
the most important aspect of their psychological life. For this reason, these
psychologists have also sometimes been known as the “social” or “interper-
sonal” analysts. While all four have unquestionably earned their enduring
international reputations, Erikson became the most well known, on account
of his formulation of a powerful and comprehensive developmental theory
to account for the growth of the ego throughout life.
Freud had asserted that the ego was a weak aspect of the personality,
whereas Hartmann posited a strong ego. However, there are wide individual
differences in ego strength. Erikson demonstrated how ego strength emerges
across stages of a person’s development and showed that its particular
growth depends on the quality, at each stage, of a person’s relations with the
world and with other people.
Erikson’s Shift to the Psychosocial Level

Freud had also sketched a developmental theory for psychoanalysis. Built
upon his view of the primacy of the intrapsychic id and its bodily source of
energy, this theory focused on psychosexual development. For Freud, “sex-
ual” means more than the usual notion of genital sexuality; it is a more gen-
eral dynamic expression of bodily energy that manifests itself in different
forms at different developmental stages. The adult (genital) stage of sexual-
ity, reached at puberty, is the culmination and completion of one’s psycho-
sexual development. Preceding that development, Freud saw four pregeni-
tal stages of psychosexual development: the oral stage, the anal stage, the
phallic stage, and the latency stage. Hence, for this theory of psychosexual
development, each stage is centralized as a stage by a particular expression
of sexual or erogenous energy. In each stage there is a particular mode of
the bodying forth of this energy as desire, manifested by the unique bodily
zone that becomes the erogenous zone of that specific stage. It is seen as
erogenous because of that bodily zone’s capacity to be especially susceptible
to stimulation or arousal, such that it becomes the prime source of bodily
satisfaction and pleasure at that stage.
Erikson concluded that this psychosexual level was a valid but incomplete
portrait of development. More than other proponents of ego psychology, he
sought to work with Freud’s emphasis on the bodily zones while striving to
315
Psychology Basics
include that vision within a larger, more encompassing framework. Erikson

theorized that each bodily mode correlated with a psychological modality,
one that implicated the person’s developing ego relations with the world. In
particular, he emphasized one’s relations with other people as the most im-
portant “profile” of the world. He saw the psychosexual meaning of the vari-
ous bodily zones grounded by changes in the person’s social existence at
each stage. For that reason, Erikson named his approach a theory of
psychosocial development and argued that the growth of the ego could not
be reduced to changes in bodily energies. He demonstrated how the psycho-
sexual dimension always implied a key human relation at the heart of each
stage, and so the interpersonal could not be reduced to some intrapsychic
cause but was itself the basis for the actual development of that stage.
The significance of this shift from the psychosexual level of development
to the psychosocial one was enormous, but it can best be appreciated in the
context of its depiction of each of the particular stages. One other impact
was also strikingly noteworthy. Whereas Freud’s theory of psychosexual de-
velopment saw the process as coming to an end with the person’s arrival at
the genital stage (with puberty), Erikson realized that the growth of the ego
in psychosocial development does not end there but continues in subse-
quent stages throughout the person’s life. In that way, he also transformed
developmental psychology from its origins as merely a child psychology into
a truly life-span psychology, a revision now widely accepted.
Stages of Development
Erikson specified eight stages of psychosocial development over the course
of the life cycle. He saw these unfolding not in a linear sense but epigenet-
ically; that is, in such a way that each stage builds upon those that came be-
fore. The first four of these stages are those of childhood, and here Erikson
accepts Freud’s delineation but adds a psychosocial dimension to each.
The first stage of development (roughly the first year of life) Freud
termed the oral stage, naming it (as he did with each stage) after that region
of the body seen to be the erogenous zone of that stage. For Freud, the
baby’s psychosexuality expresses itself primarily through the erogenous
power of the mouth and lips. Certainly babies’ tendency to mouth almost
anything they can get hold of indicates a certain erotic appeal of orality at
this time.
However, for Erikson, this bodily expression is not the foundational one.
Rather, orality is a wider theme. The essence of this oral pleasure is the satis-
faction of “taking in” the world. Such taking in is not restricted to the
mouth. Babies take in with their eyes, their ears, their fingers—in every way
possible. Orality, as taking in, is not merely a bodily zone but a psychological
modality of relating to the world. This world-relation also implicates an-
other person. For a quite helpless baby to be able to get or take in, there
must be another person there giving (typically a parent). This psychological
modality, in other words, is already essentially and profoundly interper-
316
sonal. As a result, it is the quality of this interpersonal relationship with the

“mothering ones” that will provide the basis of the baby’s growth at this
stage. If the parents (as the face of the world) are dependably there for the
baby, the baby will come to be able to count on their omnipresent benefi-
cence.
With such experience, the baby develops a sense of “basic trust”—
Erikson’s term for the ego growth of this first stage. Basic trust implies a cer-
tain relation with the world: specifically, one in which the person can relax
and take his or her own ongoingness for granted. Once trust is gained, such
a person can face the uncertainties to come with the secure confidence that,
whatever may happen, he or she will be fine. In contrast, if the baby does not
encounter a trustworthy world at this stage, he or she will be unable to de-
velop this core sense of basic trust. The baby will, instead, be overwhelmed
by the experience of “basic mistrust”—the anxiety that accompanies the
lurking, ever-present possibility of threat, that edge of anonymous malevo-
lence. Then, full openness to the world is always constricted by the need for
the self-preservation of the ego.
Freud identified the second psychosexual stage (roughly the period from
age one to three) as the anal stage, on account of the pleasure available by
the new ability of the child to control eliminative functioning—what is collo-
quially called toilet training. Here again, Erikson reexamined this bodily
mode and discovered, at the heart of it, a psychosocial dynamic. The issue of
control in mastering the processes of elimination involves two kinds of ac-
tion: retention (of feces or urine) until one gets to the toilet, and then elimi-
nation (once one is at the toilet).
Erikson recognized that this interplay between retention and elimination
is more than merely the organ mode of sphincter control. Rather, it mani-
fests a more basic psychological modality: the interplay between holding on
and letting go. It is not only with regard to the eliminative functions that this
dynamic gets played out in this stage. Most important, it is in the social
arena, with one’s parents, that toddlers grow this new capacity to exercise
control. Even toilet training itself is an exquisitely interpersonal interaction
of the child with the parental “trainers.”
It is not only toilet training that distinguishes children’s quest for control
at this stage. In many ways the child is now striving for a new encounter with
others. Securely grounded now by the sense of basic trust gained in the pre-
vious stage, children are ready to move from a relationship of dependence
to one of independence. Even being able to stand up on their own two feet
evinces this new relationship. From a newfound delight in the power of
speaking the word “no!” to the appearance of strong preferences in every-
thing from clothes to food, and most evidently in their emotional reactions
to the denial of these preferences, toddlers are asserting a declaration of in-
dependence. Though the consequent contest of wills with the parents can
be difficult, ultimately the child learns both to have autonomy and to recog-
nize its social limits. This growth of autonomy is the key gain of this second
317
Psychology Basics
stage, as the ego grasps its radical independence from the minds or control
of others. If the child does not have the opportunity to develop this experi-
ence, the consequence would be to develop a crippling sense of shame and
self-doubt instead.
The third stage of psychosexual development (ages three through six) is
Freud’s phallic stage, because the child’s sexual organs become the eroge-
nous zone at this time. Freud did not mean to imply that children experi-
ence their sexuality in the sense of adult, genital sexuality; there is no experi-
ence of orgasms and no interest in intercourse at this time. Rather, for
Freud, the sex organs become erogenous on account of their power to dif-
ferentiate gender. Hence, the classic psychoanalytic themes of penis envy
and castration anxiety are rooted in this stage as well as the Oedipal con-
flict—children’s imaginal working out of their now gender-based relations
with their parents.
For Erikson, it is not the genitals as bodily organs that are the source of
such anxiety or envy. Rather, they symbolize social roles. As a result, in a sex-
ist culture, it would be no wonder that a girl may envy the greater psycho-
social status enjoyed by the boy. Correlatively, the boy would experience the
anxiety of losing his newfound gender-based potency. Here again, Erikson
finds a profound interpersonal dynamic at work. This new positing of one-
self is not done only in the child’s fantasy life. The ego at this stage is growing
new capacities to engage the world: the ability to use language, more fine lo-
comotor activity, and the power of the imagination. Through these develop-
ing capacities, children can thrust themselves forth with a new sense of pur-
pose. On the secure basis of trust and autonomy, they can now include
initiative in their world relations, supported by their parents as encouraging
prototypes. On the other hand, the parents can so stigmatize such projects
of initiative that children may instead become convinced that they manifest
their badness. In such cases, feelings of guilt can overwhelm their sense of
initiative, as they become crippled by guilt not only for what they have done
but also for who they are as initiating beings.
Freud identified the fourth psychosexual stage as the latency stage (ages
seven to twelve) because psychosexuality was not manifest at that time. It
had become latent, or driven underground, by the conclusion of the Oedi-
pal conflict. For Freud, psychosexual development is arrested at this stage
and must await the eruption of puberty to get started again. Erikson sees in
this stage a positive growth in the child’s ego. Once more, changes in
psychosocial relations lead the way. The child goes off to school, and to a
wider world beyond the immediate family circle, to encounter the world be-
yond the imaginal realm: a place in which actual accomplishments await the
application of actual skills. Rather than being satisfied with imagining hit-
ting a home run, the child now strives to actually hit the ball. It is, in other
words, a time for the development of skills, techniques, and competencies
that will enable one to succeed at real-world events. Sports, games, school,
bicycling, camping, collecting things, taking care of pets, art, music, even
318
doing chores now offer children arenas to test their growing capacity to
learn the ways of the world.
At the heart of this learning process are teachers, not only professionals
but learned others of many kinds. The child becomes a student to many ex-
perts, from coaches to Cub Scout leaders to the older boy next door who al-
ready knows about computers. Even sports heroes or characters in books
with whom the child has no personal contact can emerge as profoundly
valuable teachers, opening the world and showing the way to mastery of it.
This is what Erikson means by a sense of industry, which is for him the key
egoic gain of this stage. If children’s efforts are not encouraged and culti-
vated, however, they can instead find their industrious tendency over-
whelmed by a sense of inferiority and inadequacy.
Psychosocial Stages of Later Childhood

It is when the child arrives at Freud’s fifth stage that the psychosexual and
psychosocial theories must part from their previous chronological company.
Freud’s fifth stage is the genital stage: the completion of psychosexual devel-
opment. With puberty, the person attains the same capacities and eroge-
nous orientation as an adult and thus becomes as mature, psychosexually
speaking, as any adult. For Erikson’s theory, however, the onset of puberty
does not mark the completion of psychosocial development, which contin-
ues throughout life, but only its next stage: adolescence (ages twelve to
twenty-one). Once more, the changing bodily zone implicates a changing
social existence, for puberty is more than a merely chemical or hormonal
change. More than the body, it is the whole person who is transformed by
this flood of new issues and possibilities. This eruption provokes questions
that had been taken for granted before. “Who am I becoming? Who am I to
be?” appear, in small and large ways. The new adolescent must confront
such new questions when on a date, at a party, or even when deciding what
to wear to school each day. In other words, the adolescent ego has now devel-
oped a self-reflective loop, in which its own identity is now taken as an issue
to be formed, a task that it must resolve for itself.
The formation of ego-identity can be an especially acute challenge in
modern culture, where the traditional embeddedness in extended families
and communities is often no longer available to provide the network of
identifications with which to resolve these questions. Instead, adolescent
peer groups become the key psychosocial relationship for this stage. These
reference groups offer the adolescent the prospect of trying on a new iden-
tity by embracing certain subgroup values, norms, and perspectives. This ex-
perimental phase is an acting “as if”—as if the person were who they are try-
ing out to be.
Optimally, adolescents will have the latitude to assume and discard pro-
spective identities within the fluidity of what Erikson called a psychosocial
moratorium—a time out from having to bear the same weight of conse-
quences for their choices that an adult would. For example, pledging a life-
319
Psychology Basics
time commitment to a boyfriend at thirteen does not, in fact, entail the same
level of commitment that a marriage would; nor does deciding to major in
accounting upon arriving at college actually bind one to follow through
with a lifetime career as an accountant. With sufficient opportunity to ex-
plore and try out various tentative choices, adolescents will, optimally, con-
clude this stage by arriving at a more clarified sense of their own values and
sense of direction. If this is not achieved, adolescents will either be left with a
feeling of identity diffusion or have prematurely foreclosed on a possible
identity that does not fit.
Psychosocial Stages of Adulthood

Beyond adolescence, Erikson also identified three psychosocial stages of
adulthood: early adulthood, middle age, and old age. The first, roughly the
period of one’s twenties and thirties, begins with the person’s moving out
from under the insulating protection of the adolescent psychosocial mora-
torium. One’s choices (of marriage, career, family) cease to be “as if”; they
are now profoundly real commitments with long-term impact. Making such
commitments is not only a momentary event (such as saying “I do”) but re-
quires devoting oneself to living an ongoing and open-ended history. This
new situation inaugurates the next psychosocial development, which Erik-
son names the crisis of intimacy versus isolation. Intimacy here has a
broader range than its connotation of sexual relations: It encompasses the
capacity to relate to another with fullness and mutuality. To be fully open
with and to another person entails obvious risks—of being misunderstood
or rejected—but with it comes the enormous gain of true love. To experi-
ence the closeness, sharing, and valuing of the other without boundaries is
the hallmark of an infinite relationship (infinite, that is, not necessarily in
duration but in depth). The relationship with a loved other is the evident
psychosocial context of this growth. If it does not occur, then the early adult
will come to experience instead a deep sense of isolation and loneliness.
This consequence can accrue either through the failure to enter into a rela-
tionship or through the failure, within a relationship, to achieve intimacy.
Some of the most terrible afflictions of isolation at this stage are within those
marriages so lacking in intimacy that the couple are essentially isolated even
though living together.
Beginning around age forty, a further stage of adult psychosocial devel-
opment begins: middle age. The situation has once again changed. People
are no longer merely starting out on their adulthood but have by now
achieved a place in the adult world. Typically, if they are going to have a fam-
ily, they have got it by now; if a career, they are well launched by now. Indeed,
middle age, the period from forty to sixty-five, marks the attainment of the
height of a person’s worldly powers and responsibilities. Whatever worldly
mountain one is going to climb in this lifetime, it is during middle age that
one gets as high up it as one will go. The arrival at this new position opens
the door to the next stage of development. Now the psychosocial growth will
320
involve one’s social relations with the next generation, centered on the issue
of generativity versus stagnation. The long plateau of middle age offers the
opportunity to become helpful to those who follow along that upward
climb. These are, most immediately, one’s own children but also include the
next generation in the community, on the job, in the profession, in the
whole human family. The middle-aged adult is in the position of being the
teacher, the mentor, the instituter, the creator, the producer—the genera-
tor. Having arrived at the peak of one’s own mountain, one no longer need
be so concerned about placating someone else and so is able now fully to be
oneself. To be an original, the middle-aged adult can also originate in the
truest sense: to give of oneself to those who, following along behind, need
that help. In this way, the person grows the specific ego-strength of care: an
extending of oneself to others in an asymmetric way, giving without expecta-
tion of an equal return, precisely because one can. The failure to grow in
this way results in stagnation—the disillusioned boredom of a life going no-
where. Some middle-aged adults, trying futilely to ward off this gnawing
feeling of stagnation, hide behind desperate efforts of self-absorption, what
Erikson called “treating oneself as one’s one and only child.”
By the late sixties, a variety of changes mark the onset of the final stage of
psychosocial development: old age. Retirement, becoming a grandparent,
declining health, and even the increasingly frequent death of one’s own age-
mates precipitate a new issue into the forefront: one’s own mortality. While
people at every age know they are mortal, this knowledge has no particular
impact on one’s life when one is younger because it is then so easily over-
looked. In contrast, by old age, this knowledge of one’s mortality is now wo-
ven into the very fabric of one’s everyday life in a way that it can no longer be
evaded by imagining it postponed until some distant, abstract future.
American society tends to avoid really confronting one’s being-towards-
death. Some psychologists have gone so far as to say that death has replaced
sex as the primary cultural taboo, hidden in hospital rooms and code words
(“passed on,” “put to sleep,” “expired”). Fearing death, people find it very
hard to grow old. If one is not available to the growth opportunities of this
stage, one is likely to sink instead into despair—a feeling of regret over a life
not lived. Often even one’s despair cannot be faced and is then hidden be-
neath feelings of disgust and bitterness: a self-contempt turned outward
against the world.
Erikson points out that this final stage of life offers the opportunity for
the ultimate growth of the ego. To embrace one’s mortality fully allows one
to stand open-eyed at the edge of one’s life, a perspective from which it be-
comes possible to really see one’s life as a whole. One can then see, and own,
one’s life as one’s own responsibility, admitting of no substitutes. It is this ho-
listic vision of one’s life that Erikson calls integrity: the full integration of the
personality. It is in this vision that people can actually realize that their own
lives are also integrated with life as a whole, in a seamless web of intercon-
nections. Thus, the ego finally finds its ultimate, transpersonal home within
321
Psychology Basics
the whole of being. It is this perspective that opens the door to wisdom, the
final growth.

Coles, Robert. Erik H. Erikson: The Growth of His Work. Boston: Little, Brown,
1970. A fine blend of Erikson’s biography with his major ideas.
__________, ed. The Erik Erikson Reader. New York: W. W. Norton, 2000. A col-
lection of Erikson’s most influential and accessible writings.
Erikson, Erik H. Childhood and Society. 1950. Reprint. New York: Norton,
1993. A wide-ranging compilation of Erikson’s studies of development,
clinical practice, cross-cultural analyses, and psychohistory. His most ac-
cessible and popular book.
__________. Gandhi’s Truth: On the Origins of Militant Nonviolence. 1970. Re-
print. New York: Norton, 1993. Erikson’s application of his developmen-
tal theory to the life of Mahatma Gandhi. This book won the Pulitzer
Prize.
__________. Identity and the Life Cycle. 1959. Reprint. New York: Norton,
1980. Erikson’s view of human development, with particular emphasis on
ego identity and its formation in adolescence.
__________. The Life Cycle Completed. Extended version. New York: W. W.
Norton, 1997. Erikson’s final book, examining the life cycle from the
viewpoint of the final stage.
Friedman, Lawrence. Identity’s Architect: A Biography of Erik H. Erikson. New
York: Simon & Schuster, 1999. A thorough and balanced biography of
Erikson, written by an author who interviewed his subject extensively in
the last years of his life.
Hartmann, Heinz. Essays on Ego Psychology. New York: International Univer-
sities Press, 1964. A collection of Hartmann’s foundational essays on the
autonomy of the ego.
Yankelovich, Daniel, and William Barrett. Ego and Instinct. New York: Vin-
tage, 1971. An original contribution to the dialogue of Freudian psycho-
analysis and ego psychology on the question of human nature.
Christopher M. Aanstoos
See also: Personality Theory; Psychoanalytic Psychology; Psychoanalytic

Psychology and Personality: Sigmund Freud.
322
Emotions
Type of psychology: Emotion
Field of study: Motivation theory
Emotion is a basic aspect of human functioning. Emotions are personal experiences

that arise from a complex interplay among physiological, cognitive, and situational
variables. Theories and measurement of emotion allow psychologists to understand di-
verse expressions of behavior, and they form the cornerstone of many approaches to the
treatment of psychological problems.
Key concepts
• cognitive appraisal
• emotional intensity
• primary emotions
• psychosomatic disorders
• secondary emotions
• state emotion
• trait emotion
• visceral responses
An emotion is a valenced experience that is felt with some degree of intensity,

involves a person’s interpretation of the immediate situation, and is accompa-
nied by learned and unlearned physical responses. Emotions are transitory
states, and they have five characteristics. First, emotions are experiences, not
specific behaviors or thoughts. Although thoughts can sometimes lead to
emotions, and behaviors can sometimes be caused by emotions, an emotion is
a personal experience. Second, an emotional experience has “valence,”
meaning that the emotion has a positive or negative quality. Because emo-
tions have valence, they often motivate people toward action. People tend to
seek activities, situations, and people that enhance their experience of posi-
tive emotional states, and they tend to avoid situations that are connected
with the experience of negative emotions.
Third, emotions involve cognitive appraisals. That is, one’s interpreta-
tion of the immediate situation influences which emotion is experienced.
For example, a child may experience either joy or fear when being chased,
depending on whether the child interprets the chase as playful or danger-
ous. Fourth, emotions involve physical responses. Physical responses may be
internal, such as changes in heart rate, blood pressure, or respiration
(called visceral responses); physical responses can also be external, such as
facial expressions. In addition, the bodily responses that characterize emo-
tions are partly reflexive (unlearned) and partly learned. An increase in
heart rate is a reflexive response that accompanies intense fear. That which a
person fears, however, and his or her accompanying bodily response may be
the product of learning; crying when afraid is an emotional expression that
323
Psychology Basics
is subject to learning experiences. Fifth, emotions can vary in intensity: An-

ger can become rage, amusement can become joy, and fear can be height-
ened to a state of terror.
Psychologist Robert Plutchik contends that there are eight innate, pri-
mary emotions: joy, anticipation, anger, disgust, sadness, surprise, fear, and
acceptance. Like the colors of a color wheel, primary emotions can combine
to produce secondary emotions: surprise plus sadness can produce disap-
pointment; anger plus disgust can produce contempt; and fear plus sur-
prise can produce awe. Because each primary emotion can vary in intensity,
and each level of intensity for one emotion can combine with some other
level of intensity of another emotion, the total number of possible emotions
runs to the hundreds. Although many psychologists agree that there exist
primary emotions, there is no way that a person could distinguish such a
large number of personal emotional experiences. Moreover, psychologists
have not even attempted to measure such an unwieldy array of secondary
emotions.
State and Trait Emotions

Nevertheless, psychologists have developed numerous assessment instru-
ments to study common emotions. (An assessment instrument is a method
used to measure some psychological quality.) Because there are so many dif-
ferent emotions, the study of emotion requires the development of specific
methods that can accurately measure each of the common emotions. The
most popular method of measuring an emotion is a self-report question-
naire in which a person answers questions relevant to a particular emotion.
When measuring emotions, researchers make a distinction between “state”
and “trait” emotion. An emotional state refers to what a person is experienc-
ing at the moment. If one is interested in assessing how anxious someone
currently is, one might use a questionnaire that asks the person to respond
to several anxiety-related statements, using a scale from 1 (“not at all”) to 5
(“very much”). Some examples of relevant statements are “I feel tense,” “I
feel nervous and shaky inside,” “My heart is beating rapidly,” and “I feel a
sense of foreboding.” The higher the total score on the questionnaire, the
more anxiety the person is experiencing at the moment.
Trait emotion refers to how often an emotion is experienced. An “anx-
ious person” is someone who frequently experiences the state of anxiety.
Moreover, one would call someone a “hostile person” if one determined
that he or she frequently exhibits states of anger. Examples of statements
that assess trait anxiety are “I frequently become tense,” “I often feel afraid
for no apparent reason,” “I am bothered by dizzy spells,” and “I tend to
worry a lot.”
Assessment Measures
Psychologists have developed numerous questionnaires to assess emotions.
There are self-report measures to assess anxiety, anger, guilt, happiness, and
324
Emotions
hopelessness, to name a few. In addition to measures of specific emotions,

researchers have developed methods for assessing emotional intensity. Emo-
tional intensity refers to the strength with which a person experiences both
positive and negative emotions. It has been found that people who are emo-
tionally intense report a feeling of well-being as “exuberance, animated joy-
fulness, and zestful enthusiasm.” On the other hand, people who score low
on a measure of emotional intensity experience a state of well-being as “se-
renity, contentment, tranquil calmness, and easygoing composure.”
In addition to the use of self-report measures of emotion, psychologists
often use physiological measures. Using sophisticated biological measuring
instruments, psychologists are able to assess emotional arousal by measur-
ing, for example, heart rate, skin sweating, respiration, blood pressure, and
muscle tension. By examining the amount these measures change in re-
sponse to a stimulus, researchers are able to infer emotional arousal. For ex-
ample, it has been found that people who have the type of personality that
puts them at risk for heart attacks show greater increases in blood pressure
when trapped in a traffic jam, in comparison to those people who have per-
sonality characteristics that do not predispose them to heart attacks. In this
instance, the psychologist uses the measure of blood pressure to infer a neg-
ative emotion, such as anger or frustration.
One question that arises when using physiological measures to assess
emotions is whether each emotion has a specific pattern of physiological re-
sponses. For example, blood pressure appears to be particularly responsive
to anger-inducing situations. People’s heart rates, however, increase during
emotional states of excitement, anxiety, anger, and sexual arousal. For this
reason, researchers may use multiple measures of emotion, assessing self-
reports of emotion while physiological responses are being recorded. An-
other way of assessing emotions is by direct observation of overt behavior.
Approach behavior can indicate acceptance, and avoidance behavior can re-
flect fear or disgust. In addition, facial expressions have been used to assess
various emotional states.
Polygraphs
When researchers developed means for measuring visceral responses and
discovered that these responses are associated with emotions, it was not long
before the possibility of detecting lies was raised. The use of a polygraph to
detect lying is based on the assumption that people will feel anxious or guilty
when asked a question that has personal, emotional significance to past
deeds. The polygraph tester measures and compares physiological responses
to both control questions and relevant questions to infer lying. For example,
if a person is suspected of murdering John Smith on May 16, the tester may
ask the control question: “Have you ever hurt someone?” Because everyone
has hurt someone at one time or another, and probably feels guilty about it,
some level of emotional response will be registered in changes in heart rate
and respiration. The relevant question is “Did you kill John Smith on May
325
Psychology Basics
16?” Supposedly, the innocent person will show a greater emotional re-
sponse to the control question than the relevant question. The perpetrator
of the crime should show a greater emotional response to the relevant ques-
tion because of its extreme emotional significance.
The use of polygraph testing is surrounded by controversy. Although
some liars can be detected, if a perpetrator does not feel guilty about the
crime—or does not believe that the polygraph can measure lying—he or she
will not show the expected response to the critical questions about the
crime. In addition, research has shown that some innocent people will be-
come so anxious when asked “relevant” questions that they are mistakenly
viewed as guilty. The American Psychological Association has expressed
grave concern over the validity of polygraph testing. The U.S. Congress has
outlawed the use of preemployment testing to predict who might, for exam-
ple, steal inventory. Despite the reservations of the American Psychological
Association, however, security agencies and defense industries are allowed
to use polygraph testing.
Clinical Applications and Theory

The development of theories of emotion and of methods for measuring
emotions has wide application in the field of clinical psychology. Many psy-
chological disorders are defined by emotional problems. People with pho-
bias exhibit excessive anxiety in situations that offer little or no possibility of
harm. Strong fears of water, heights, insects, closed spaces, flying, and social
situations are common examples of phobias. Theories of emotion provide a
framework within which clinicians can understand the development of pho-
bias. Measures of anxiety can be used to help diagnose those people who suf-
fer from phobias.
Depression is another example of a psychological disorder that has a
strong emotional component. Twenty percent of women and 10 percent of
men will experience a major depression at some time in their lives. This
complex disorder is manifested by distorted thinking (such as self-critical
thinking), physical difficulties (such as fatigue), and an array of emotions.
Some of the emotional symptoms of depression include sadness, anxiety,
and guilt. Thus, when psychologists assess the emotional aspects of depres-
sion, they use questionnaires that include items that address several differ-
ent emotions.
Not only does the study of emotion help psychologists to understand psy-
chological disorders, but methods of treatment have also been developed
based on the understanding of emotion. For example, psychological re-
search has shown that emotional responses, such as anxiety, can be learned.
Consequently, treatment strategies have been developed to help people un-
learn their anxiety reactions. As a result, many people who suffer from sim-
ple phobias can be treated effectively in a short period of time. Theories of
emotion that examine the relation between thinking and emotion have led
to therapies to alleviate depression. Aaron Beck has shown that the sadness,
326
Emotions
anxiety, and guilt that accompany depression can be treated by helping peo-
ple change their styles of thinking.
Another area within clinical psychology that has benefited by the increas-
ing understanding of emotion is psychosomatic disorders. A psychosomatic
disorder (also called a psychophysiological disorder) is an abnormal physi-
cal condition brought about by chronic negative emotions. Ulcers, hyper-
tension, headaches, and arthritis are examples of conditions that can be
brought about or worsened by negative emotions. The emotions that are
most often implicated in the development of psychosomatic disorders are
anger and anxiety. For example, researchers have discovered that pro-
longed anxiety induced by internal conflict can cause ulcers in susceptible
people. In addition, researchers now have evidence that chronic hostility is a
risk factor for the development of heart disease.
Social psychologists study the influence of social factors on behavior.
Theories of emotion have been a focus of social psychologists because one’s
experience of emotion is in part determined by the immediate situation,
and the immediate situation often includes the behavior of others. Indeed,
Stanley Schachter, a social psychologist, is responsible for the development
of a theory of emotion that underscores the importance of one’s cognitive
appraisal of the social context in determining the emotion that one experi-
ences. For example, when people experience physiological arousal, their
own emotional experience will most likely be consistent with their interpre-
tation of the social context. If they are with a happy person, they will experi-
ence happiness; if they are in the presence of an angry person, they will ex-
perience anger. Theories of emotion have also increased understanding of
many social phenomena, such as aggression and interpersonal attraction.
Emotion Research
For centuries, philosophers and psychologists have recognized the impor-
tance of understanding personality differences based on the type and de-
gree of emotional expression. In the fifth century b.c.e., the Greek physi-
cian Hippocrates classified people on the basis of emotional temperament.
The view that people differ in temperament remains today. Arnold Buss and
Robert Plomin have hypothesized that newborns differ in their susceptibil-
ity to distress, fear, and anger. Everyday descriptions of people as “happy-go-
lucky,” “stoic,” and “volatile” represent the tendency to group people ac-
cording to characteristic styles of emotional expression. Clinical psycholo-
gists speak of the “hysterical personality” as exhibiting excessive emotional
lability and the “schizoid personality” as showing emotional indifference to-
ward others.
Theologians have traditionally approached emotion as representing the
dark side of human nature. What elevates humans above other animals has
been thought to be the capacity to overcome passion with reason. Even this
seemingly archaic view of emotion has its counterpart in modern psychol-
ogy. Psychoanalysts help people gain control of their feelings through un-
327
Psychology Basics
derstanding the unconscious roots of their emotions. Cognitive therapists

attempt to alleviate emotional dysfunctions by teaching clients to “think
more rationally.”
The modern era of research on emotion can be traced to Charles Dar-
win’s 1872 book The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals. Darwin be-
lieved that emotional displays evolved as a means of communication and
had adaptive significance for the survival of the species. Indeed, there is
some scientific support for the assertion that emotional expressions are ba-
sic biological responses: Newborn infants show expressions of emotion that
closely match the expressions of adults; all infants, including those born
deaf and blind, exhibit similar facial expressions in similar situations; very
young babies can tell the difference between different emotional expres-
sions; and there is considerable similarity in the expression of emotions
across diverse cultures.
In the second half of the twentieth century, psychologists made impor-
tant advances in formulating theories of emotions and devising assessment
instruments to measure emotions. Scientists have arrived at the point where
they recognize many of the fundamental aspects of emotion: the nervous
system, thought, behavior, and the immediate situation. The challenge for
the future is to map the intricate interplay among these variables and
achieve a thorough understanding of this basic facet of human functioning.

Barlow, David H. Anxiety and Its Disorders. 2d ed. New York: Guilford Press,
2001. In the early part of the book, the author reviews basic aspects of
emotion. The remainder is devoted to the emotion of anxiety and how
anxiety forms the basis of many clinical disorders. Some of the disorders
addressed are panic disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder, phobias,
and post-traumatic stress disorder. A very comprehensive treatment of
anxiety disorders. Barlow takes a strong research orientation and pres-
ents the material at a college level.
Bernstein, Douglas A., Stewart Alison Clarke, and Louis A. Penner. Psychol-
ogy. 5th ed. New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1999. Presents an introduction
to the topic of emotion. Covers a wide range of areas: definition of emo-
tion, physiology of emotion, major theories, social aspects of emotion,
and facial expressions. The authors do not assume that the reader has any
background in psychology, and they write in a clear, concise manner, pro-
viding interesting examples and graphics.
Corcoran, Kevin J., and Joel Fischer. Adults. Vol. 2 in Measures for Clinical
Practice: A Sourcebook. 3d ed. New York: Free Press, 2000. Reprints more
than one hundred self-report assessment instruments. An excellent
source for learning how researchers measure emotions, and can be used
should one want to conduct a study. This book, however, does not include
some of the most commonly used questionnaires for measuring emo-
tions.
328
Emotions
Ekman, Paul, and Richard J. Davidson, eds. The Nature of Emotion: Fundamen-
tal Questions. New York: Oxford University Press, 1997. The editors asked
twenty-four leading theorists in the field of the psychology of emotions to
answer the same twelve questions on their subject. Areas of agreement
and disagreement are highlighted, along with a summary chapter at the
end.
Laurence Grimm
See also: Clinical Depression; Personality: Psychophysiological Measures;

Phobias.
329
Endocrine System
Field of study: Endocrine system
Behavior, by definition, includes physiological events which are responses to internal
and external stimuli; the endocrine system, through the action of hormones and in co-
operation with the nervous system, plays a necessary role in bringing about these reac-
tions in animals and humans.
Key concepts
• adrenal glands
• biopsychology
• endocrine system
• ethology
• hormone
• hypothalamus
• pituitary gland
Curiosity about behavior, both animal and human, is of long standing. The
suspicion that substances in the body contribute to behavior also has a long
history. During the fifth century b.c.e., Hippocrates suggested, in his hu-
moral theory, that personality was determined by four body fluids: phlegm,
black bile, yellow bile, and blood. The dominance of one or another of the
fluids was associated with a behavior pattern. A proportionate distribution
of the fluids resulted in a balanced personality. This theory has contributed
terms such as phlegmatic, sanguine, bilious, and good- or bad-humored to
describe personality types and states of mind.
Aristotle (384-322 b.c.e.) is reported to have performed castration exper-
iments on both fowl and men in order to alter behavior. He believed that
something produced by the testes caused typically male behavior. Several
nineteenth century researchers continued the study of the connection be-
tween the testes and male reproductive behavior. In 1849, Arnold Adolphe
Berthold initiated a series of experiments on cockerels. He removed the tes-
tes from six birds and noted their loss of “male” behavior. Testes were trans-
planted into the abdomens of half the castrated birds. Successful transplan-
tation restored the typical male crowing and combativeness.
During the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the sciences be-
came more organized. Interest in behavior and its causes continued. The
science of ethology, which focuses on animal behavior, came into existence.
In the early 1900’s, John B. Watson founded a branch of psychology that be-
came known as behavior science. This area of psychology concentrated on
human behavioral studies. Eventually, ethology and behavior science con-
tributed to biopsychology, a new branch of psychology which incorporates
and applies data from neuroscience, genetics, endocrinology, and physiol-
ogy in the quest for biological explanations of behavior. Biopsychology em-
330
Endocrine System
braces several subdivisions. Physiological psychology focuses on nervous sys-

tem and endocrine system research. Psychopharmacology specializes in the
effects of drugs on the nervous system and, ultimately, on behavior. The de-
velopment of therapeutic drugs is a goal of this discipline. The neuropsy-
chologist studies the effects of brain damage on behavior. Psychophysiology
differs from physiological psychology in that the psychophysiologist uses
only human subjects, while the physiological psychologist experiments on
laboratory animals, especially rats.
Early research in physiological psychology focused on the nervous sys-
tem, but it soon became evident that the endocrine system also influenced
behavior and that the effects of the two systems were interrelated contribu-
tors to behavior. The endocrine system essentially consists of ductless glands
that produce chemical substances called hormones. The hormones elicit
physiological reactions, either locally or at some distant target site. When
acting at a distance, the hormones travel to the site by way of the circulatory
system.
Hans Selye, a Canadian scientist, proposed a direct connection between
the endocrine system and behavior. In 1946, he described physiological
events that were triggered by stress. This set of bodily changes became
known as the general adaptation syndrome. The syndrome involved the mo-
bilization of the autonomic nervous system, the adrenal glands, and the an-
terior lobe of the pituitary.
As research continued, data on the role of the endocrine system in deter-
mining behavior began to accumulate. Researchers continue to look to the
endocrine system to provide clues about the causes of psychiatric diseases
and the efficacy of hormone therapy in treating the diseases, as well as in al-
tering behavior patterns.
Invertebrates
Among most invertebrates (animals without backbones), endocrine glands
are not in evidence. Specialized cells known as neurosecretory cells serve as
endocrine tissue. The cells, which resemble neurons (the functional cells of
the nervous system) are hormone producers. In invertebrate animals such
as the hydra and planaria, the secretions (hormones) of the neurosecretory
cells seem to influence growth and may be the underlying cause of the tre-
mendous powers of regeneration possessed by the animals. There are indi-
cations that the development of sexuality, the laying of eggs, and the release
of sperm may be under hormonal control in these animals. Attempts to es-
tablish the link between hormones and invertebrate behavior when the hor-
mones are produced by neurosecretory cells have inherent problems. A
common method of studying hormone influence involves removal of the se-
creting organ, which causes a hormone deficit. Changes in physiology or be-
havior are observed. A hormone is then provided to the animal to see if the
original condition can be restored. Use of this method is complicated by the
difficulty in removing all the functioning neurosecretory cells. In addition,
331
Psychology Basics
the cells regenerate rapidly. This prevents an accurate assessment of the ef-
fects of hormone deficit.
Hormone effects are observable and measurable in the more developed
invertebrates such as the Arthropoda. Studies carried out on insects and crus-
taceans indicate the presence of both neurosecretory cells and endocrine
glands. Among the behaviors and activities controlled by the hormones re-
leased from either the cells or the glands are molting, sexual differentiation,
sexual behavior, water balance, and diapause. Because arthropods are en-
cased in an outer skeletal structure, it is necessary for the animals to shed
their outer structure in order to grow. During the growth years, the animals
go through cycles of shedding the outer skeleton—or molting—growing,
and reforming an outer coat. There is evidence that insects are under hor-
monal control when they enter a state of diapause, or arrested behavior in
adverse times.
Vertebrates
All vertebrates (animals with backbones) have a well-developed and highly
organized endocrine system. The system consists of the following glands:
the pituitary, the pineal, the thyroid, the thymus, the pancreas, a pair of ad-
renals (each adrenal actually acts as two glands—the adrenal cortex pro-
duces unique hormones and functions independently of the adrenal me-
dulla), a pair of parathyroids, and a pair of ovaries or testes. Endocrine
tissue in the gastrointestinal tract readies the system for the digestive pro-
cess. During a pregnancy, the placental tissue assumes an endocrine func-
tion. Although the kidneys do not produce a hormone directly, they release
an enzyme which converts a blood protein into a hormone that stimulates
red blood cell production.
All vertebrates have a pituitary. The pituitary is a small, round organ
found at the base of the brain. This major endocrine gland interacts with the
hypothalamus of the nervous system. Together, they control behavior. The
hypothalamus receives information about physiological events in the body
by monitoring the composition of the blood. In turn, the hypothalamus sig-
nals the pituitary by either a nerve impulse or a chemical messenger. The pi-
tuitary responds by releasing or ceasing to release hormones that will have a
direct effect on physiology or will stimulate other endocrines to release their
hormones in order to alter the physiological event and influence behavior.
The endocrine system exerts its effects on a biochemical level.
The human endocrine system is typical of vertebrate endocrine systems and
their effect on behavior, although certain hormones may have a more pro-
nounced and obvious effect in other vertebrates. For example, melanocyte-
stimulating hormone, which is generated by the anterior lobe of the pituitary,
greatly increases skin pigmentation in amphibians. This creates a protective
coloration. In humans, the darkening effect is not achieved unless excessive
hormone is administered. The protective function is not apparent. There
are enough similarities among human and animal endocrine functions and
332
Endocrine System
Glands of the Endocrine System
effects, however, to warrant the use of data from both ethology and human
behavioral studies in determining the biological bases for behavior.
Influence on Reproductive Behavior

The influence of the endocrine system on behavior has been studied on
many levels. Much of the work has been done on animals; laboratory rats
333
Psychology Basics
have been the most frequently used subjects. There is, however, a growing
body of information on hormonal effects on a variety of human behaviors,
including reproductive and developmental behavior, reaction to stress,
learning, and memory. Studies carried out in reproductive and develop-
mental biology on both animal and human subjects have substantiated the
belief that hormones influence mating behavior, developmental events in-
cluding sexual differentiation, and female and male sexuality.
Castration experiments have linked the testes with a male mating behav-
ior pattern in animals. The sexually active male animal aggressively seeks
and attempts to mount the female, whether she is receptive or not. The cas-
trated male retains the ability to mount a female but loses the aggressiveness
and does not persistently pursue females. The male may assume the more
submissive female behavior and even engage in homosexual encounters.
Normally, the release of reproductive hormones in the male is noncyclic,
whereas in the female it is cyclic. Castrated animals begin to exhibit the fe-
male, cyclic pattern of hormone release. The hormonal influence is con-
firmed by administering androgens (male hormones) to the castrated ani-
mals. Male mating behavior and the noncyclic release of hormones returns.
The presence of male hormones has an effect on the female cycle and
sexual receptivity. Pheromones are substances secreted on the body of one
individual which influence the behavior of another. These chemical mes-
sengers function during mate attraction, territoriality, and episodes of fear.
Their existence and functions are well documented throughout the animal
kingdom, especially among insects and mammals. In experiments using
rats, it was shown that the pheromones act in conjunction with male hor-
mones in bringing the female to a state of receptivity. The urine of non-
castrated male rats contains androgens. When a male rat is introduced into
a cage of sexually inactive females, the male sends off chemical signals by
way of pheromones and the androgen-containing urine. The result is the ac-
celerated onset of estrus, or sexual receptivity, on the part of the females.
Castrated males produce pheromones but do not have androgens in the
urine. When castrated males are introduced into a cage of inactive females,
the estrous cycle is not affected.
All female mammals, with the exception of monkeys, apes, and humans,
experience estrus. Under hormonal control, the female is receptive to the
male once or twice a year, when her eggs are available for fertilization. This
period of receptivity is known as the estrous phase, or heat. Research shows
that the particular female hormone which induces estrus is progesterone.
Hormonal Influences
The work done by researchers in developing contraceptives clarified the
role of hormones in the functioning of the human female reproductive sys-
tem. The system operates in a monthly cycle during which ovarian and uter-
ine changes occur under hormonal control. These hormones do not affect
a woman’s receptivity, which is not limited to fertile periods.
334
Endocrine System
Testosterone derivatives known as anabolic steroids are illegally used by

some athletes in an attempt to increase muscularity, strength, and perfor-
mance. While both sexes do experience the desired effects, long-term, high-
dosage usage has undesirable consequences. This is particularly true in
women, who begin to exhibit a deepening of the voice, a male body shape,
and increased body and facial hair. Both men and women can become ster-
ile. Psychotic behaviors and states such as depression and anger have been
recorded.
Developmental biologists indicate that hormones exert their influence as
early as six or seven weeks into embryonic development. At this point, undif-
ferentiated tissue with the potential of developing into either a female or a
male reproductive system will develop into a male system in the presence of
testosterone and into a female system in its absence. There is some evidence
that the embryonic hormones have an effect on the developing brain, pro-
ducing either a male or female brain. Functionally, this may account for the
cyclic activity of female reproductive hormones and the noncyclic activity of
the male. A few anatomical differences between male and female brains
have been observed in both rats and humans. In the hypothalamus of the
brain, there are cell bodies called nuclei. In rats and in humans, these nuclei
are larger in males than in females.
Learning and memory can be experimentally affected by hormones. Ex-
periments reveal that chemicals which resemble adrenocorticotropic hor-
mone (ACTH) can extend the memory time of rats. Rats, stimulated by elec-
tric shock and provided with an avoidance possibility such as moving into
another chamber of a cage or climbing a pole in the center of the cage, were
administered ACTH-like molecules. The treated rats were able to remember
the appropriate reaction to the stimulus for a longer period of time than the
untreated rats. In other experiments, rats in a maze were administered
vasopressin, a posterior pituitary hormone, which increased their frequency
in selecting the correct pathway through the maze.
The effect of vasopressin on human memory is not as clearly defined.
There have been positive results with schizophrenic patients and patients
with alcohol-induced amnesia. In these cases, memory has been enhanced
to a limited degree. There is no solid evidence that learning and memory in
humans will be greatly improved by the administration of vasopressin.
Areas such as eating disorders, psychotic behavior, hormone therapy, be-
havior modification, and biological clocks and rhythms challenge the physi-
ological psychologist to further research to test hormonal influences.

Bioscience 33 (October, 1983). The entire issue is devoted to the effects of
hormones on behavior. Includes an article on invertebrates in general,
followed by articles on fish through primates. Written in nonesoteric lan-
guage.
Brennan, James F. History and Systems of Psychology. 5th ed. Englewood Cliffs,
335
Psychology Basics
N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1997. Readable presentation of the history and devel-

opment of psychology. Covers the highlights of the discipline from the
time of ancient Greece. Good background material for those not well
grounded in psychology and interesting reading for those with a histori-
cal leaning.
Donovan, Bernard T. Hormones and Human Behaviour. New York: Cambridge
University Press, 1985. An excellent compilation of the information avail-
able on hormones and behavior up to 1985. Uses technical language, but
one who reads on a high-school level and has had some exposure to sci-
ence will find the book informative and interesting. Focuses on the pitu-
itary, the gonads, and the adrenals, and their effect on human behavior.
Drickamer, Lee C., Stephen H. Vessey, and Elizabeth Jakob. Animal Behavior.
5th ed. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2001. Intended for undergraduate stu-
dents who are interested in animal behavior. Of particular interest is
chapter 10, which deals with hormones and behavior. Presents a clear
explanation of the endocrine system and the mechanism of hormone ac-
tion. Avoids highly technical language. The effect of hormones on behav-
ior of invertebrates and vertebrates is well illustrated with many interest-
ing examples from the animal world.
Highnam, Kenneth Charles, and Leonard Hill. The Comparative Endocrinol-
ogy of the Invertebrates. 2d ed. Baltimore: University Park Press, 1977. Vari-
ous types of invertebrate endocrine systems are described in this book.
Although the book was published in 1977, it is a valuable source of infor-
mation, especially on the insect and crustacean hormones. Technical lan-
guage is used but is clearly explained in laypersons’ terms. Drawings and
charts contribute to the understanding of the material.
Pinel, John P. J. Biopsychology. 4th ed. Boston: Allyn & Bacon, 1999. A text-
book intended for use by undergraduate college students. There are two
chapters of particular interest. Chapter 1 defines the position of bio-
psychology within the larger field of psychology, delineates the subdivi-
sions of biopsychology, and describes the type of research carried out in
each area. An account of research involving the human reproductive hor-
mones and their effects is found in chapter 10. Both chapters are interest-
ing and well written. The author makes use of good examples, drawings,
and charts.
Rosemary Scheirer
See also: Emotions; Hormones and Behavior; Memory: Animal Research;

Stress: Physiological Responses.
336
Experimentation
Independent, Dependent, and Control
Variables
Fields of study: Experimental methodologies; methodological issues
The scientific method involves the testing of hypotheses through the objective collection
of data. The experiment is an important method of data collection in which the re-
searcher systematically controls multiple factors in order to determine the extent to
which changes in one variable cause changes in another variable. Only the experimen-
tal method can reveal cause-effect relationships between the variables of interest.
Key concepts
• control group
• control variables
• dependent variable
• ecological validity
• experiment
• field experiment
• hypothesis
• independent variable
• random assignment
Psychology is typically defined as the science of behavior and cognition and

is considered a research-oriented discipline, not unlike biology, chemistry,
and physics. To appreciate the role of experimentation in psychology, it is
useful to view it in the context of the general scientific method employed by
psychologists in conducting their research. This scientific method may be
described as a four-step sequence starting with identifying a problem and
forming a hypothesis. The problem must be one suitable for scientific in-
quiry. Questions concerning values, such as whether rural life is “better”
than city life, are more appropriate for philosophical debate than scientific
investigation. Questions better suited to the scientific method are those that
can be answered through the objective collection of facts—for example,
“Are children who are neglected by their parents more likely to do poorly in
school than children who are well treated?” The hypothesis is the tentative
guess, or the prediction regarding the question’s answer, and is based upon
other relevant research and existing theory. The second step, and the one
with which this article is primarily concerned, is the collection of data (facts)
in order to test the accuracy of the hypothesis. Any one of a number of meth-
ods might be employed, including simple observation, survey, or experi-
mentation. The third step is to make sense of the facts that have been accu-
mulated by subjecting them to careful analysis; the fourth step is to share
any significant findings with the scientific community.
337
Psychology Basics
Research Approaches
In considering step two, the collection of data, it seems that people often
mistakenly use the words “research” and “experiment” interchangeably. A
student might ask whether an experiment has been done on a particular
topic when, in fact, the student really wants to know if any kind of research
has been conducted in that area. All experiments are examples of research,
but not all research is experimental. Research that is nonexperimental in
nature might be either descriptive or correlational.
Descriptive research is nearly self-explanatory; it occurs when the re-
searcher wants merely to characterize the behaviors of an individual or,
more likely, a group. For example, one might want to survey the students
of a high school to ascertain the level of alcohol use (alcohol use might
be described in terms of average ounces consumed per student per week).
One might also spend considerable time observing individuals suffering
from, for example, infantile autism. A thorough description of their typi-
cal behaviors could be useful for someone investigating the cause of this
disorder. Descriptive research can be extremely valuable, but it is not use-
ful when researchers want to investigate the relationship between two or
more variables (things that vary, or quantities that may have different val-
ues).
In a correlational study, the researcher measures how strongly the vari-
ables are related, or the degree to which one variable predicts another vari-
able. A researcher who is interested in the relationship between exposure to
violence on television (variable one) and aggressive behavior (variable two)
in a group of elementary school children could administer a survey asking
the children how much violent television they view and then rank the sub-
jects from high to low levels of this variable. The researcher could similarly
interview the school staff and rank the children according to their aggres-
sive behavior. A statistic called a correlation coefficient might then be com-
puted, revealing how the two variables are related and the strength of that
relationship.
Cause and Effect

Correlational studies are not uncommon in psychological research. Often,
however, a researcher wants even more specific information about the rela-
tionships among variables—in particular, about whether one variable causes
a change in another variable. In such a situation, experimental research is
warranted. This drawback of the correlational approach—its inability to es-
tablish causal relationships—is worth considering for a moment. In the hy-
pothetical study described above, the researcher may find that viewing con-
siderable television violence predicts high levels of aggressive behavior, yet
she cannot conclude that these viewing habits cause the aggressiveness. Af-
ter all, it is entirely possible that aggressiveness, caused by some unknown
factor, prompts a preference for violent television. That is, the causal direc-
tion is unknown; viewing television violence may cause aggressiveness, but
338
Experimentation: Independent, Dependent, and Control Variables
the inverse (that aggressiveness causes the watching of violent television pro-
grams) is also feasible.
As this is a crucial point, one final illustration is warranted. What if, at a
certain Rocky Mountain university, a correlational study has established that
high levels of snowfall predict low examination scores? One should not con-
clude that something about the chemical composition of snow impairs the
learning process. The correlation may be real and highly predictive, but the
causal culprit may be some other factor. Perhaps, as snowfall increases, so
does the incidence of illness, and it is this variable that is causally related to
exam scores. Maybe, as snowfall increases, the likelihood of students using
their study time for skiing also increases.
Experimentation is a powerful research method because it alone can re-
veal cause-effect relationships. In an experiment, the researcher does not
merely measure the naturally occurring relationships between variables for
the purpose of predicting one from the other; rather, he or she systemati-
cally manipulates the values of one variable and measures the effect, if any,
that is produced in a second variable. The variable that is manipulated is
known as the independent variable; the other variable, the behavior in ques-
tion, is called the dependent variable (any change in it depends upon the
manipulation of the independent variable). Experimental research is char-
acterized by a desire for control on the part of the researcher. Control of
the independent variable and control over extraneous variables are both
wanted. That is, there is a desire to eliminate or hold constant the factors
(control variables) other than the independent variable that might influ-
ence the dependent variable. If adequate control is achieved, the researcher
may be confident that it was, in fact, the manipulation of the independent
variable that produced the change in the dependent variable.
Control Groups
Returning to the relationship between television viewing habits and aggres-
sive behavior in children, suppose that correlational evidence indicates that
high levels of the former variable predict high levels of the latter. Now the
researcher wants to test the hypothesis that there is a cause-effect relation-
ship between the two variables. She decides to manipulate exposure to tele-
vision violence (the independent variable) to see what effect might be pro-
duced in the aggressiveness of her subjects (the dependent variable). She
might choose two levels of the independent variable and have twenty chil-
dren watch fifteen minutes of a violent detective show, while another twenty
children are subjected to thirty minutes of the same show.
If an objective rating of playground aggressiveness later reveals more hos-
tility in the thirty-minute group than in the fifteen-minute group, she still
cannot be confident that higher levels of television violence cause higher
levels of aggressive behavior. More information is needed, especially with re-
gard to issues of control. To begin with, how does the researcher know that it
is the violent content of the program that is promoting aggressiveness? Per-
339
Psychology Basics
haps it is the case that the more time they spend watching television, regard-
less of subject matter, the more aggressive children become.
This study needs a control group: a group of subjects identical to the ex-
perimental subjects with the exception that they do not experience the in-
dependent variable. In fact, two control groups might be employed, one
that watches fifteen minutes and another that watches thirty minutes of non-
violent programming. The control groups serve as a basis against which the
behavior of the experimental groups can be compared. If it is found that the
two control groups aggress to the same extent, and to a lesser extent than
the experimental groups, the researcher can be more confident that violent
programming promotes relatively higher levels of aggressiveness.
The experimenter also needs to be sure that the children in the thirty-
minute experimental group were not naturally more aggressive to begin
with. One need not be too concerned with this possibility if one randomly
assigns subjects to the experimental and control groups. There are certainly
individual differences among subjects in factors, such as personality and in-
telligence, but with random assignment (a technique for creating groups of
subjects across which individual differences will be evenly dispersed) one
can be reasonably sure that those individual differences are evenly dispersed
among the experimental and control groups.
Subject Variables
The experimenter might want to control or hold constant other variables.
Perhaps she suspects that age, social class, ethnicity, and gender could also
influence the children’s aggressiveness. She might want to make sure that
these subject variables are eliminated by either choosing subjects who are
alike in these ways or by making sure that the groups are balanced for these
factors (for example, equal numbers of boys and girls in each group). There
are numerous other extraneous variables that might concern the researcher,
including the time of day when the children participate, the length of time
between television viewing and the assessment of aggressiveness, the chil-
dren’s diets, the children’s family structures (single versus dual parent, sib-
lings versus only child), and the disciplinary styles used in the homes. Re-
source limitations prevent every extraneous variable from being controlled,
yet the more control, the more confident the experimenter can be of the
cause-effect relationship between the independent and dependent vari-
ables.
Influence of Rewards
One more example of experimental research, this one nonhypothetical, will
further illustrate the application of this methodology. In 1973, Mark Lepper,
David Greene, and Richard Nisbett tested the hypothesis that when people
are offered external rewards for performing activities that are naturally en-
joyable, their interest in these activities declines. The participants in the
study were nursery school children who had already demonstrated a fond-
340
ness for coloring with marking pens; this was their preferred activity when
given an opportunity for free play. The children were randomly assigned
to one of three groups. The first group was told previously that they would
receive a “good player award” if they would play with the pens when later
given the opportunity. Group two received the same reward but without ad-
vance notice; they were surprised by the reward. The last group of children
was the control group; they were neither rewarded nor told to expect a re-
ward.
The researchers reasoned that the first group of children, having played
with the pens in order to receive a reward, would now perceive their natural
interest in this activity as lower than before the study. Indeed, when all
groups were later allowed a free play opportunity, it was observed that the
“expected reward” group spent significantly less time than the other groups
in this previously enjoyable activity. Lepper and his colleagues, then, experi-
mentally supported their hypothesis and reported evidence that reward
causes interest in a previously pleasurable behavior to decline. This research
has implications for instructors; they should carefully consider the kinds of
behavior they reward (with gold stars, lavish praise, high grades, and so on)
as they may, ironically, be producing less of the desired behavior. An aca-
demic activity that is enjoyable play for a child may become tedious work
when a reward system is attached to it.
Criticisms
While most would agree that the birth of psychology as a science took place
in Leipzig, Germany, in 1879, when Wilhelm Wundt established the first lab-
oratory for studying psychological phenomena, there is no clear record of
the first use of experimentation. Regardless, there is no disputing the attrac-
tion that this method of research has had for many psychologists in the twen-
tieth century. Psychologists clearly recognize the usefulness of the expe-
riment in investigating potential causal relationships between variables.
Hence, experimentation is employed widely across the subfields of psychol-
ogy, including developmental, cognitive, physiological, clinical, industrial,
and social psychology.
This is not to say that all psychologists are completely satisfied with exper-
imental research. It has been argued that an insidious catch-22 exists in
some experimental research that limits its usefulness. The argument goes
like this: Experimenters are motivated to control rigorously the conditions
of their studies and the relevant extraneous variables. To gain such control,
they often conduct experiments in a laboratory setting. Therefore, subjects
are often observed in an artificial environment, engaged in behaviors that
are so controlled as to be unnatural, and they clearly know they are being
observed—which may further alter their behavior. Such research is said to
be lacking in ecological validity or applicability to “real-life” behavior. It may
show how subjects behave in a unique laboratory procedure, but it tells little
about psychological phenomena as displayed in everyday life. The catch-22,
341
Psychology Basics
then, is that experimenters desire control in order to establish that the inde-
pendent variable is producing a change in the dependent variable, and the
more such control, the better; however, the more control, the more risk that
the research may be ecologically invalid.
Field Experiments
Most psychologists are sensitive to issues of ecological validity and take pains
to make their laboratory procedures as naturalistic as possible. Additionally,
much research is conducted outside the laboratory in what are known as
field experiments. In such studies, the subjects are unobtrusively observed
(perhaps by a confederate of the researcher who would not attract their no-
tice) in natural settings such as classroom, playground, or workplace. Field
experiments, then, represent a compromise in that there is bound to be less
control than is obtainable in a laboratory, yet the behaviors observed are
likely to be natural. Such naturalistic experimentation is likely to continue
to increase in the future.
Although experimentation is only one of many methods available to psy-
chologists, it fills a particular need, and that need is not likely to decline in
the foreseeable future. In trying to understand the complex relationships
among the many variables that affect the way people think and act, experi-
mentation makes a valuable contribution: It is the one methodology avail-
able that can reveal unambiguous cause-effect relationships.

Barber, Theodore Xenophon. Pitfalls in Human Research. New York: Perga-
mon Press, 1976. It is useful to learn from the mistakes of others, and Bar-
ber provides an opportunity by describing ten categories of likely errors
in designing and conducting research. This is not a long book (117
pages), and it is enjoyable reading, especially the specific accounts of
flawed research.
Carlson, Neil R. Psychology: The Science of Behavior. 5th ed. Upper Saddle River,
N.J.: Prentice Hall, 1999. The second chapter of this introductory psy-
chology text may be the most reader-friendly reference in this bibliog-
raphy. Titled “The Ways and Means of Psychology,” it provides a brief
introductory overview of the scientific method, experimental and cor-
relational research, and basic statistics; it is well suited for the novice. Col-
orful graphics, a concluding summary, and a list of key terms are all help-
ful.
Hearst, Eliot, ed. The First Century of Experimental Psychology. Hillsdale, N.J.:
Lawrence Erlbaum, 1979. Primarily for the student interested in the his-
tory of experimental psychology. This is a 693-page book; while most of
the fourteen chapters are devoted to specific topics in psychology such as
emotion, development, and psychopathology, the final chapter by Wil-
liam Estes provides an excellent overview of experimental psychology
and considers some broad, profound issues.
342
Shaughnessy, John J., and Eugene B. Zechmeister. Research Methods in Psy-

chology. 6th ed. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2002. This is one of a number of
textbooks that discuss psychological research in the light of the scientific
method. It is fairly accessible, has a thorough and competent description
of experimentation, and considers some ethical issues. Glossary, index,
and references are all provided.
Stern, Paul C., and Linda Kalof. Evaluating Social Science Research. 2d ed. New
York: Oxford University Press, 1996. A clearly written, nonthreatening
book for the early to middle-level college student. The focus of the au-
thor is on encouraging the critical analysis of research; to this end, case-
research examples are presented for examination. End-of-chapter exer-
cises are included to aid the student in integrating information.
Mark B. Alcorn
See also: Animal Experimentation.
343
Field Theory
Kurt Lewin
Fields of study: Motivation theory; personality theory; social perception
and cognition
Lewin’s field theory maintains that behavior is a function of the life space, or psycho-
logical reality, of the individual. Individuals are motivated to reduce tensions that
arise in this life space. Lewin’s theory can be used to understand a wide range of every-
day behavior and to suggest strategies for addressing social problems, such as the re-
duction of prejudice and the resolution of social conflicts.
Key concepts
• life space
• locomotion
• quasi-stationary equilibrium
• region of life space
• tension
Kurt Lewin was a theorist of everyday life. His field theory attempts to ex-
plain people’s everyday behavior, such as how a waiter remembers an order,
what determines the morale and productivity of a work group, what causes
intergroup prejudice, how a child encounters a new environment, or why
people eat the foods that they do.
For Lewin, what determines everyday behavior is the “life space” of the in-
dividual. The life space represents the psychological reality of the individ-
ual; it is the totality of all psychological facts and social forces that influence
an individual at a given time and place. For example, the life space of a child
entering a novel domain is, for the most part, undifferentiated, and thus re-
sults in exploration on the part of the child. On the other hand, the life
space of an employee at work may be well differentiated and populated with
demands from the employer to produce more goods, from coworkers to fol-
low a production norm, and from home for more income. There might, ad-
ditionally, be physical needs to slow down.
Evolution of Lewin’s Theory

Field theory was born on the battlefields of World War I. Lewin served as a
soldier in the German army. His first published article was titled “The War
Landscape,” and it described the battlefield in terms of life space. The sol-
dier’s needs determined how the landscape was to be perceived. When the
soldier was miles from the front, the peaceful landscape seemed to stretch
endlessly on all sides without direction. As the war front approached, the
landscape took on direction, and peaceful objects such as rocks and trees
became elements of battle, such as weapons and places to hide.
After the war, Lewin took an academic appointment at the Psychological
344
Field Theory: Kurt Lewin
Institute of Berlin, where he served on the faculty with Gestalt psychologists

Wolfgang Köhler and Max Wertheimer. While at the institute, Lewin further
developed his field theory and conducted the first program of experimental
social psychological research exploring topics such as memory for inter-
rupted tasks, level of aspiration, and anger. His work derived as much from
field theory as it did from his curiosity about the social world. For example,
research on memory for interrupted tasks began when he and his students
wondered why a waiter could remember their rather lengthy order but
would forget it immediately after the food was served. In field theory terms,
noncompleted tasks (such as the waiter’s recall before delivering the order)
were recalled better because they maintained a tension for completion com-
pared to completed tasks, for which this tension is resolved.
As the Nazi Party rose to power in Germany, Lewin correctly perceived
that his own Jewish life space and that of his family were becoming progres-
sively more threatened and intolerable. Like many Jewish intellectuals of
the time, Lewin emigrated to the United States; he obtained a number of vis-
iting appointments until he established the Center for Group Dynamics at
the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1944. Lewin’s American re-
search was much more applied than his work in Europe, and it concentrated
particularly on social problems such as prejudice and intergroup conflict—
perhaps as a result of his own experience of prejudice as a Jew in Germany.
Before his death in 1947, Lewin helped train the first generation of Amer-
ican students interested in experimental social psychology, including such
notables as Leon Festinger, Harold Kelley, Stanley Schachter, and Morton
Deutsch. As a result, Lewin’s intellectual legacy pervades the field of experi-
mental social psychology. Today, first-, second-, third-, and even fourth-
generation Lewinian social psychologists continue to carry on his research
legacy by investigating topics of long-standing interest to Lewin, such as prej-
udice, achievement, organizational behavior, social cognition, and the re-
duction of cognitive tensions or dissonance and by attempting to explain
how individuals construe their environments and how those environments
affect behavior.
Life Space Regions

The concept of life space is usually divided into two parts: person and environ-
ment. These two parts can be differentiated further into regions. A region is
any major part of the life space that can be distinguished from other parts
and is separated by more or less permeable boundaries. For example, regions
differentiated within the person might consist of needs, goals, hopes, and as-
pirations of the individual, whereas the differentiation of the environment
might consist of profession, family, friendships, social norms, and taboos.
Locomotion, or behavior and change in the life space, is determined by
the differentiation of regions in the life space and by the forces for change
emanating from each region. Often, in any given life space, there are oppos-
ing or conflicting forces. For example, a boss may want to increase produc-
345
Psychology Basics
tivity as much as possible, whereas coworkers may seek to limit production to

levels obtainable by all workers. According to Lewin, these tensions, or op-
posing social forces, provide the motivation for behavior and change in the
life space. Tension can be resolved by any number of activities, including
reconfiguring the life space either physically (for example, getting a new
job) or mentally (for example, devaluing either the boss’s or coworkers’
opinions); performing a substitute task that symbolically reduces tension
(for example, performing different tasks of value to the boss); or finding the
“quasi-stationary equilibrium,” or position where all opposing forces are
equal in strength (for example, performing at a level between boss’s and co-
workers’ recommendations).
Comparison with Behaviorism and Psychoanalysis

It is useful to compare Lewin’s field theory with the two other major theories
of the time: behaviorism and psychoanalysis. Lewin’s field theory can be
summarized by the equation B = f(P,E), or, “Behavior is a function of person
and environment.” In other words, behavior is function of the life space of a
total environment as perceived by the individual. In psychoanalytic thought,
behavior is a function of the history of the individual. For example, past
childhood experience is supposed to have a direct impact on current psy-
chological processes. In contrast, Lewin’s theory is ahistorical. Although the
individual’s past may influence that person’s approach and construal of the
psychological field, its influence is only indirect, as behavior is a function of
the current and immediate life space.
Lewin’s field theory differs from behaviorism on at least two key dimen-
sions. First, Lewin emphasized the subjectivity of the psychological field. To
predict and understand behavior successfully, a therapist needs to describe
the situation from the viewpoint of the individual whose behavior is under
consideration, not from the viewpoint of an observer. Second, Lewin’s the-
ory emphasizes that behavior must be understood as a function of the life
space or situation as a whole. In other words, behavior is motivated by the
multitude of often interdependent forces affecting an individual, as op-
posed to one or two salient rewards or reinforcers that may be present.
Role in Social Change

Lewin’s field theory has had many applications, particularly in the area of so-
cial change. Lewin’s approach to solving social problems was first to specify, in
as much detail as possible, the life space of the individual involved. Next, he
would identify the social forces affecting the individual. Finally, Lewin would
experiment with changing these social forces or adding new ones to enact so-
cial change. Two applications of field theory performed by Lewin and his as-
sociates serve as good examples. One deals with changing food preferences
and the other with the reduction of intergroup conflicts and prejudice.
During World War II, there was a shortage of meat, an important protein
source, in the United States. As part of the war effort, Lewin was assigned the
346
Field Theory: Kurt Lewin
task of convincing Americans to eat sweetbreads—certain organ meats, which

many Americans find unappetizing—to maintain protein levels. Lewin began
by first describing the consumption channel, or how food reaches a family’s
table. At the time, housewives obtained food from either a garden or a gro-
cery store and then moved it to the table by purchasing it, transporting it
home, storing it in an icebox or pantry, and then preparing it. At each step,
Lewin identified forces that kept the gatekeeper—in this case, the house-
wife—from serving sweetbreads. Such forces might have included the belief
that family members would not eat sweetbreads, inexperience with the se-
lection and preparation of sweetbreads, or inherently distasteful aspects of
the food.
In attempting to remove and redirect these forces, Lewin experimented
with two approaches, one successful and the other not. In the unsuccessful
case, Lewin presented housewives with a lecture detailing the problems of
nutrition during the war and stating ways of overcoming obstacles in serving
sweetbreads; he discussed ways to prepare sweetbreads, provided recipes,
and indicated that other women had successfully served sweetbreads for
their families with little complaint. Only 3 percent of the housewives hear-
ing this lecture served sweetbreads. From Lewin’s perspective, such a lec-
ture was ineffective because it did not involve the audience and arouse the
level of tension needed to produce change. Lewin’s second method was a
group discussion. The housewives were asked to discuss how they could per-
suade “housewives like themselves” to serve sweetbreads. This led to a dis-
cussion of the obstacles that the housewife might encounter, along with ways
of overcoming these obstacles (just as in the lecture). Such a discussion was
effective because it created tension for the housewife: “I just told everyone
why they should and how they could eat sweetbreads, and I am not currently
serving them myself.” After this group discussion, 32 percent (an almost
elevenfold increase) of the housewives involved served sweetbreads.
Conflict and Prejudice

Lewin approached the problem of intergroup conflict and racial prejudice
by describing the life spaces of the members of the conflicting parties. For
example, Lewin saw the life space of many minority group members (such as
religious and racial minorities) as full of obstacles and barriers which re-
strict movement in the life space. The life space of the majority member of-
ten consigned the minority member to a small and rigidly bounded region
(for example, a ghetto). By isolating minority group members, majority
group members can develop unrealistic perceptions or stereotypes of the
out-group. Such life spaces are very likely to result in intergroup conflict.
The field theory analysis of racial prejudice suggests that one way to re-
duce intergroup conflict is to remove obstacles and increase the permeabil-
ity of intergroup barriers. In the later part of his career, Lewin established
the Commission on Community Interrelations as a vehicle for discovering
ways of removing intergroup barriers. Lewin and his colleagues discovered
347
Psychology Basics
some of the following successful techniques for promoting intergroup har-

mony: enacting laws that immediately removed barriers, such as racial quo-
tas limiting the number of Jews who could attend certain universities; imme-
diate hiring of blacks as sales personnel, thereby increasing the permeability
of intergroup boundaries by making contact between group members more
likely; responding directly to racial slurs with a calm appeal based on Ameri-
can traditions and democracy to provide a countervailing force to the slur;
promoting meetings of warring groups in a friendly atmosphere as a means
of breaking down group boundaries; and immediately integrating housing
as a successful way of promoting racial harmony.

Bar-Gal, David, Martin Gold, and Miriam Lewin, eds. The Heritage of Kurt
Lewin: Theory, Research, and Practice. New York: Plenum Press, 1992. Pub-
lished with the Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues. In-
cludes a bibliography.
De Rivera, Joseph, comp. Field Theory as Human-Science: Contributions of
Lewin’s Berlin Group. New York: Gardner Press, 1976. An English transla-
tion of research conducted by Lewin and his students when Lewin was at
the University of Berlin.
Lewin, Kurt. A Dynamic Theory of Personality. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1959.
Lewin’s first major English work, consisting of a translation of many of his
first papers published in Germany.
__________. “Group Decision and Social Change.” In Readings in Social Psy-
chology, edited by Theodore M. Newcomb and Eugene L. Hartley. New
York: Holt, 1958. Describes how Lewin changed food preferences during
World War II, providing an excellent example of how to apply field the-
ory to practical problems.
__________. Resolving Social Conflicts; and, Field Theory in Social Science. Wash-
ington, D.C.: American Psychological Association, 1997. A reprint of two of
Lewin’s most influential works, collecting his major papers discussing prac-
tical problems of modern society such as prejudice and group conflict. Pro-
vides excellent examples of how to apply field theory to social problems.
Marrow, Alfred Jay. The Practical Theorist: The Life and Work of Kurt Lewin. New
York: Teachers College Press, 1977. This definitive biography of Lewin,
written by one of his students, describes the life of Lewin and provides a
glimpse of the personality behind field theory.
Wheelan, Susan A., Emmy A. Pepitone, and Vicki Abt, eds. Advances in Field
Theory. Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Sage, 1990. A collection of essays address-
ing issues in field theory such as managing social conflict, self-help
groups, field theory and the construction of social problems, and aca-
demic sex discrimination.
Anthony R. Pratkanis and Marlene E. Turner
See also: Groups; Motivation.

348
Gender-Identity Formation
Fields of study: Cognitive development; infancy and childhood
Gender-identity formation refers to the complex processes through which children come
to incorporate their gender into their behavior, attitudes, and self-understanding. This
includes the development of an inner sense of one’s femaleness or maleness; the acquisi-
tion of knowledge about cultural expectations for females and males; and the develop-
ment of attitudes, interests, and behavior that reflect these expectations.
Key concepts
• gender constancy
• gender identity
• gender schema
• sex role
• sex-role socialization
• sex typing
The first question that is usually asked about a newborn baby is whether it is
a boy or a girl. The single fact of the child’s gender has enormous implica-
tions for the course of his or her entire life. Gender-identity formation refers
to the complex processes through which children incorporate the biologi-
cal and social fact of their gender into their behavior, attitudes, and self-
understanding.
This area includes ideas about two major, interrelated processes: gender-
identity development and sex typing. The term “gender-identity develop-
ment,” used in its narrower sense, refers to the process through which chil-
dren come to label themselves cognitively as boys or girls and to have an in-
ner sense of themselves as male or female. “Sex typing,” also called gender-
role acquisition, refers to the processes through which children learn what
is expected of members of their gender and come to exhibit primarily those
personality traits, behaviors, interests, and attitudes.
Cultural Contexts
Social-learning theorists such as Walter Mischel have described mechanisms
of learning through which children come to exhibit sex-typed behavior. Boys
and girls often behave differently because they are rewarded and punished
for different behaviors. In other words, they receive different conditioning. In
addition, children’s behavior becomes sex typed because children observe
other males and females regularly behaving differently according to their
gender, and they imitate or model this behavior.
Parents are especially important in the process of learning one’s gender
role, both as models for gender-appropriate behavior and as sources of re-
wards or reinforcement. Because parents become associated with positive
experiences (such as being fed and comforted) early in life, children learn
349
Psychology Basics
to look to them and other adults for rewards. Parents and other adults such
as teachers often react differentially to gender-typed behaviors, rewarding
gender-appropriate behavior (for example, giving praise or attention) and
punishing gender-inappropriate behavior (for example, frowning, ignor-
ing, or reprimanding).
As children become more involved with their peers (children their own
age), they begin to influence one another’s behavior, often strongly rein-
forcing traditional gender roles. The fact that children are usually given dif-
ferent toys and different areas in which to play based on their gender is also
important. Girls are given opportunities to learn different behaviors from
those of boys (for example, girls learn nurturing behavior through playing
with dolls) because they are exposed to different experiences.
Using what is called a cognitive developmental perspective, Lawrence
Kohlberg described developmental changes in children’s understanding of
gender concepts. These changes parallel the broad developmental changes
in the way children’s thinking is organized, first described by Jean Piaget
and Barbel Inhelder. Children mature naturally through stages of increas-
ingly complex cognitive organization. In the area of understanding gender,
the first stage is the acquisition of a rudimentary gender identity, the ability
to categorize oneself correctly as a boy or a girl.
Children are able to apply correct gender labels to themselves by about
age three. At this stage, young children base gender labeling on differences
in easily observable characteristics such as hairstyle and clothing, and they
do not grasp the importance of genital differences in determining gender.
As children’s thinking about the physical world becomes more complex, so
does their understanding of gender. Gradually, by about age seven, children
enter a second stage and acquire the concept known as gender constancy.
Gender Constancy
Gender constancy refers to the understanding that gender is a stable charac-
teristic that cannot change over time and that is not altered by superficial
physical transformations such as wearing a dress or cutting one’s hair. As
children come to see gender as a stable, important characteristic of them-
selves and other people, they begin to use the concept consistently to orga-
nize social information. They learn societal expectations for members of
each gender by watching the actions of the people around them.
Kohlberg proposed that children use their developing knowledge of cul-
tural gender expectations to teach themselves to adopt culturally defined
gender roles (self-socialization). He argued that children acquire a strong
motive to conform to gender roles because of their need for self-consistency
and self-esteem. A young boy says to himself, “I am a boy, not a girl; I want to
do boy things, play with boy toys, and wear boy clothes.”
Children hold more rigid gender stereotypes before they acquire gender
constancy (ages two through seven); once gender constancy is achieved,
they become more flexible in their adherence to gender roles. As children
350
enter adolescence, their thinking about the world again enters a new stage
of development, becoming even more complex and less rigid. As a result,
they may be able to achieve what Joseph Pleck has called “sex-role transcen-
dence” and to choose their interests and behaviors somewhat independent
of cultural gender-role expectations.
Gender Schema
Gender-schema theory is a way of explaining gender-identity formation,
which is closely related to the cognitive developmental approach. The con-
cept of a schema or a general knowledge framework comes from the field of
cognitive psychology. Sandra Bem proposed that each person develops a set
of gender-linked associations, or a gender schema, as part of a personal
knowledge structure. This gender schema filters and interprets new infor-
mation, and as a result, people have a basic predisposition to process infor-
mation on the basis of gender. People tend to dichotomize objects and at-
tributes on the basis of gender, even including qualitites such as color, which
has no relevance to biological sex.
Bem proposed that sex typing develops as children learn the content of
society’s gender schema and as they begin to link that schema to their self-
concept or view of themselves. Individuals vary in the degree to which the
gender schema is central to their self-concept; it is most central to the self-
concept of highly sex-typed individuals (traditionally masculine males or
traditionally feminine females).
Gender Identity Disorder

Ideas about gender-identity formation have important implications for
child rearing and education. Most parents want to help their child identify
with and feel positive about his or her gender. Those few children who fail to
develop a clear inner sense of themselves as male or female consistent with
their biological sex may have significant social adjustment difficulties; they
are sometimes given psychological treatment for a condition called gender-
identity disorder.
According to the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Sta-
tistical Manual of Mental Disorders: DSM-IV-TR (rev. 4th ed., 2000), gender-
identity disorder is defined by a strong and persistent cross-gender identifi-
cation. In a child, it is manifested by such features as repeated statements of
the desire to be, or insistence that he or she is, the other gender; preference
for or insistence on wearing stereotypical clothing of the opposite sex;
strong and persistent preference for cross-sex roles in make-believe play or
fantasies of being the other gender; an intense desire to participate in the
stereotypical games of the opposite sex; and a strong preference for play-
mates of the other sex. A boy with this disorder may assert that his penis is
disgusting or will disappear, or that it would be better not to have one. He
may show an aversion toward rough-and-tumble play and reject male stereo-
typical toys, games, and activities. A girl with this disorder may reject urinat-
351
Psychology Basics
Image not available
Gender-role acquisition refers

to the processes through
which children learn what is
expected of members of their
gender and come to exhibit
primarily those personality
traits and interests. (CLEO
Photography)
ing in a sitting position, assert that she has or will grow a penis, claim that she
does not want to grow breasts or to menstruate, or show a marked aversion
toward feminine clothing.
Adults who continue to have a gender identity that is inconsistent with
their biological sex may desire surgery and hormonal treatments to change
their sex. This rare condition, called transsexualism, is more common
among biological males than females. Although many people have interests,
personality characteristics, or sexual preferences commonly associated with
the other gender, they are not transsexuals; their inner sense of their gender
is consistent with their biological sex.
Gender Equality
Often parents and educators want to help children avoid becoming strongly
sex typed. They do not want children’s options for activities, interests, and
aspirations to be limited to those traditionally associated with their gender.
Adopting strongly sex-typed interests may be especially problematic for girls
because the traditional female role and the qualities associated with it (that
is, emotionality, nurturance, and dependence) tend to be devalued in
American culture. Traditionally masculine interests and behaviors are usu-
ally tolerated in girls before puberty; it is all right to be a “tomboy.” Tradi-
tionally feminine interests and behaviors, however, tend to be vigorously dis-
couraged in boys; it is not acceptable to be a “sissy.”
352
Considerable research has focused on whether and how socializing agents,

including parents, teachers, peers, and media such as children’s books and
television, reinforce gender stereotypes and teach children to exhibit sex-
typed behaviors. Researchers have been concerned both with how gender
roles are modeled for children and with how sex-typed behavior is rewarded.
A study by Lisa Serbin and her colleagues carried out in the 1970’s is an ex-
ample. These researchers observed teachers’ interactions with children in a
preschool setting and recorded their observations in a standardized way.
They found that teachers gave more attention to girls when they were physi-
cally close to them than when they were farther away; however, teachers’ at-
tention to boys did not vary with the child’s proximity. This finding suggests
that teachers reinforce girls more than boys for “dependent” behavior with-
out necessarily meaning to do so.
Parents often report that they try to treat their children the same regard-
less of their gender. Many of the most powerful influences parents exert re-
sult from behaviors of which they are probably unaware. Research studies
have shown that parents consistently interact differently with male and fe-
male children in areas such as engaging in gross motor play (for example,
running, jumping, throwing), encouraging children’s sex-typed play (par-
ticularly discouraging doll play among boys), demanding effort and giving
help with problem-solving tasks, and allowing children to have indepen-
dence and freedom from supervision.
Children’s peers have been shown to play an important role in sex-role
socialization. Particularly in early childhood, when children’s gender con-
cepts tend to be far more rigid than those of adults, peers may be the source
of misinformation (for example, “girls can’t be doctors; girls have to be
nurses”) and of strong sanctions against behavior that is inconsistent with
one’s gender role.
Laboratory studies have shown that exposure to gender stereotypes in
books and on television tends to have a measurable effect on children’s sex-
typed behavior. For example, children are more likely to play with a “gender-
inappropriate” toy after reading a story in which a child of their gender
played with that toy. In addition, these media may be important in the devel-
opment of a child’s gender schema because they provide a rich network
of information and associations related to gender. Extensive studies of the
gender-related content of children’s books and children’s television were
conducted in the 1970’s, and this led to reform efforts by some textbook
publishers and television producers.
One influential study by a group called Women on Words and Images
published in 1975 analyzed the contents of 134 grade-school readers and
found gender-stereotypic portrayals of male and female characters, gender-
stereotypic themes, and male dominance to be the rule. Boys outnumbered
girls as major characters by five to two; in 2,760 stories examined, only three
mothers were shown working outside the home. Systematic studies of chil-
dren’s television have produced similar results.
353
Psychology Basics
Freudian Theory
Psychologists have been interested in gender-identity formation since the
work of Sigmund Freud and other early psychoanalytic theorists in the be-
ginning of the twentieth century. Since the early 1970’s, however, there has
been a major shift in thinking about this topic, largely as a result of the
women’s movement. Early work in this area considered sex typing to be a
healthy and desirable goal for children. Since the 1970’s, much research has
been based on the assumption that rigid adherence to traditional gender
roles is restrictive and undesirable.
Freud’s theory of psychosexual development was the first to attempt to ex-
plain gender-identity formation. Freud believed that sex-typed behavior re-
sults primarily from girls identifying with (wanting to be like) their mothers
and boys identifying with their fathers. However, he believed that during in-
fancy both boys and girls form strong sexual feelings for their mothers and
identify with them. Thus, Freud tried to explain how boys come to identify
with their fathers and how girls transfer their sexual feelings to their fathers.
Freud believed that the discovery that girls and women do not have pe-
nises leads the three- to five-year-old boy to develop great fear that he will
lose his own penis (castration anxiety). As a result, the boy begins to identify
with his father out of fear that the father will take away his penis. He gives up
his identification with his mother and suppresses his sexual feelings toward
her. For a little girl, the same discovery leads to penis envy and to blaming
her mother for her lack of this desired organ. Because of her disappoint-
ment, she transfers her sexual feelings from her mother to her father, and
she fantasizes that her father will give her a penis substitute—a baby.
Freud’s theory was an important inspiration for much of the work done
on gender identity prior to the late 1960’s. Since that time, however, devel-
opmental psychologists have not often used Freud’s theory because most of
its concepts rely on the idea of unconscious forces that cannot be evaluated
scientifically.
Freud’s idea that “anatomy is destiny”—that profound psychological dif-
ferences between the sexes are inevitable—met with strong criticism with
the rise of the women’s movement. The issue of the relative importance of
biological, genetic factors (or “nature”) compared with experiential, social
factors (or “nurture”) in gender-identity formation has been a major source
of controversy in psychology. Most psychologists acknowledge a role for
both nature and nurture in forming differences in the behavior of boys and
girls. Psychologists are interested in understanding the ways in which inborn
capacities (such as cognitive organization) interact with environmental ex-
periences in forming a person’s identity as a male or a female.
The twentieth century experienced a great upheaval in thinking about
gender roles, and this has been mirrored by changes in psychological re-
search and theory about gender. The growing scientific understanding of
gender identity may help to form future societal attitudes as well as being
formed by them.
354

Abbott, Tina. Social and Personality Development. New York: Routledge, 2002.
An introductory psychology textbook. Part 2 covers gender and gender
identity development.
Bem, Sandra Lipsitz. The Lenses of Gender: Transforming the Debate on Sexual In-
equality. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1993. Discusses theo-
ries about gender relations through the lenses of androcentrism (taking
male experience for the norm), gender polarization (placing male and
female experience at opposite ends of a cultural spectrum, with nothing
in between), and biologic essentialism (using biological differences to ac-
count for cultural realities).
Butler, Judith. Gender Trouble. Reprint. New York: Routledge, 1999. The
tenth anniversary reprint of this classic work on gender formation and
transgression in American society.
Fast, Irene. Gender Identity: A Differentiation Model. Hillsdale, N.J.: Lawrence
Erlbaum, 1984. Reviews theories in the light of Freudian psychoanalytic
theory.
Kimmel, Michael. The Gendered Society. New York: Oxford University Press,
2001. Examines gender from the positions of difference (placing “male”
and “female” on a spectrum rather than opposite ends of a pole) and
dominance (arguing that gender inequality causes the perception of gen-
der difference, which in turn is used to justify inequality).
Unger, Rhoda K., ed. Handbook of the Psychology of Women and Gender. New
York: John Wiley & Sons, 2001. A clinical and research handbook cover-
ing major theories, trends, and advances in the psychology of women and
gender. Emphasizes multicultural issues and the impact of gender on
physical and mental health.
Lesley A. Slavin
See also: Development; Hormones and Behavior; Personality Theory; Psy-

choanalytic Psychology and Personality: Sigmund Freud; Women’s Psychol-
ogy: Karen Horney; Women’s Psychology: Sigmund Freud.
355
Giftedness
Type of psychology: Developmental psychology; intelligence and
intelligence testing
Fields of study: Ability tests; cognitive development; general issues in
intelligence; intelligence assessment
Giftedness refers to a capability for high performance in one or more areas of accom-
plishment. The focus on giftedness as a human capability has led to efforts to identify
giftedness early in life, to develop special programs of instruction for gifted children
and adolescents, and to design counseling interventions to help gifted learners realize
their potentials.
Key concepts
• asynchronous development
• child prodigies
• gifted education program
• intelligence test scores
• Marland definition
• precociousness
• prodigious savants
• standardized test scores
• talent
Modern studies of giftedness have their origin in the work of Lewis Terman
at Stanford University, who in the 1920’s used intelligence test scores to
identify intellectually gifted children. His minimal standard for giftedness
was an intelligence quotient (IQ) of 140 on the Stanford-Binet Intelligence
Test, a number at or above which only 1 percent of children are expected to
score. (The average IQ score is 100.) Terman and his associates identified
more than fifteen hundred children in California as gifted, and follow-up
studies on “the Terman gifted group” were conducted throughout these
children’s later lives. Although individuals in the gifted group tended to
achieve highly in school and in their careers, they were not greatly different
from average scorers in other ways. Terman’s research dispelled the myths
that high scorers on IQ tests were, as a group, socially maladjusted or
“burned out” in adulthood. They were high achievers and yet normal in the
sense that their social relationships were similar to those of the general pop-
ulation.
By the time the Terman gifted group reached retirement age, it was clear
that the study had not realized the hope of identifying eminence. None of
the children selected had, as adults, won a Nobel Prize, although two chil-
dren who were rejected for the study later did so (physicist Luis Alvarez and
engineer William Shockley). High IQ scores did not seem to be characteris-
tic of artistic ability. Apparently, an IQ score of 140 or above as a criterion for
356
Giftedness
giftedness in children was not able to predict creative accomplishments in

later life.
Studies conducted in the 1950’s under the direction of Donald Mac-
Kinnon at the University of California at Berkeley tended to confirm this
conclusion. Panels of experts submitted the names of whomever they be-
lieved to be the most creative architects, mathematicians, and research sci-
entists in the United States. Then these individuals were invited to take part
in assessments, including measurement of their intelligence through the
Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale. The IQ scores of these highly creative in-
dividuals ranged from 114 to 145, averaging around 130, significantly below
Terman’s criterion for giftedness. No one knows how these adults would
have scored on the Stanford-Binet test as children, or how creative adults in
other domains would have scored, but the results confirmed that a score of
140 on an intelligence test is not a prerequisite for outstanding creative ac-
complishment.
More recent studies have cast light on the importance of nurture in the
development of a broader range of talent. A team of researchers at the Uni-
versity of Chicago headed by Benjamin Bloom investigated the lives of 120
talented adults in six fields: piano, sculpture, swimming, tennis, mathemat-
ics, and research neurology. They found that in most cases, accomplish-
ments on a national or international level by the time an individual has
reached the age of forty had their origin not in a prodigious gift but in child-
centered homes. The child’s early experiences of the field were playful, re-
warding, and supported by parents. Rapid progress was due to a work ethic
instilled by parents (“always do your best”) and by increasingly expert and
selective teachers, whom parents sought out. Bloom’s findings did not ex-
actly contradict those of Terman (no testing was done), but they suggested
that nurture and motivation play the lead and supporting roles in the devel-
opment of a wide range of talent.
Just what general ability IQ tests measure remains uncertain, but increas-
ingly, psychologists and educators have conceptualized giftedness as a func-
tion of specialized capabilities and potential for performance in specific
fields such as mathematics, biology, dance, or visual arts. A definition of
giftedness first offered in a 1971 report to the Congress of the United States
by Sidney Marland, then commissioner of education, indicates a much
broader concept of giftedness than high IQ scores have been found to mea-
sure. “Gifted and talented children are those identified by professionally
qualified persons who, by virtue of outstanding abilities, are capable of high
performance.” He continued,
Children capable of high performance include those with demonstrated

achievement or potential ability in any of the following areas, singly or in com-
bination:
1. general intellectual ability
2. specific academic aptitude
357
Psychology Basics
3. creative or productive thinking

4. leadership ability
5. visual or performing arts
6. psychomotor ability.
This definition of giftedness, known after its author as the Marland defini-
tion, does not distinguish giftedness from talent and includes performance
capabilities that are sometimes related only distantly to performance on an
IQ test. Nevertheless, the legacy of the Terman study of giftedness is that
high IQ test scores remain one among several ways for psychologists and ed-
ucators to identify intellectual giftedness among children in the general
population. Giftedness in academic, creative, leadership, artistic, and psy-
chomotor domains, however, is generally identified in other ways.
Identification of Giftedness
Different percentages of the general population have been identified as
gifted, depending on the definition of giftedness. Terman’s use of IQ scores
of 140 or above identified 1 percent of scorers as gifted. The current com-
mon indicator of intellectual giftedness is a score of 130 or above on a stan-
dardized, individually administered intelligence test, which is achieved by
the top 2.5 percent of scorers. By the broader Marland definition, some
form of which has been enacted through legislation by most states that have
mandated gifted education programs, a minimum of 3 to 5 percent of
school children are estimated to be gifted. Other definitions would identify
as many as 10 to 15 percent of schoolchildren as gifted, or as many as 15 to
25 percent in a talent pool. Gifted and talented students receiving services
in schools in the United States constitute about 6 percent of all children who
are enrolled.
By almost any definition, giftedness is very difficult to identify during in-
fancy. Most researchers would agree that giftedness has a biological founda-
tion, but whether this foundation exists as a general or a specific capability is
unknown. One of the earliest indicators of many forms of giftedness is pre-
cociousness, or unusually early development or maturity. During preschool
years, precociousness can generalize across several domains, such as the use
of logic with an extensive vocabulary, or it can be more specialized, such as
drawing realistic pictures of animals or objects, or picking out a tune by ear
on a musical instrument. Development does not seem to proceed in all areas
at the same pace, however, so a young child may develop early in one or two
areas but still behave in many ways like other children of the same age. Be-
cause of such asynchronous development, parents should not assume that a
child who can master the moves of checkers at four years of age, for exam-
ple, will accept losing a game any better than the average four-year-old.
A surprising number of gifted children are their parents’ only children or
first-borns, but this fact only reveals that their precocious development is
due, at least in part, to learning from the models in their early environment
358
Giftedness
who are adults rather than age-mates. As Bloom’s study suggested, parents
or other adult caretakers provide opportunities, resources, and encourage-
ment to learn. Whatever reading ability a child may have, for example, can
be nurtured by adults who read both to her and around her, who provide ap-
propriate materials to read, and who show interest in the child’s spontane-
ous efforts to read.
A child who is developing a talent early often will tend to rehearse it spon-
taneously, or call for repeated performance or for explanation by the parent
(or other model) to review or understand what the child wants to learn. An
eight-year-old, for example, might draw a whimsical but easily recognizable
portrait of a parent’s face while watching cartoons. A nine-year-old might
play a competent if not yet masterful game of chess with the school princi-
pal, who then asks the child to explain certain moves, and so on. The prod-
ucts and performances of gifted children in elementary school are often
similar to the products and performances of skilled but less gifted adoles-
cents. For this reason, gifted children are often bored when instruction is
designed for their age level rather than for an advanced level and rapid pace
of learning.
By the school years, children’s giftedness can be assessed reliably in ways
other than observation of precociousness. Assessment usually begins with
nomination by a teacher, parent, group of peers, or possibly the child him-
self or herself to identify who is gifted. Some psychologists have argued that
nominations by those who know children well can be sufficient for place-
ment in a gifted education program or a set of services beyond those nor-
mally provided by the regular school program, in order to help gifted chil-
dren realize their potentials.
Teacher nominations cannot be the sole indicator of who is gifted, how-
ever, because studies have shown them to miss about half of all gifted chil-
dren. Nominations by teachers and others are often supported by academic
marks during the previous year, and these evidences of achievement are of-
ten supplemented by standardized test scores. These scores can result from
individual or group assessments of intelligence, school ability, cognitive abil-
ities, academic aptitudes or achievements, and creative or productive think-
ing abilities. Because tests themselves have been found to identify only half
of all gifted children, test scores are sometimes supplemented by scores
from other types of instruments (such as checklists), ratings of portfolios or
performances, or interviews to complete the assessment process. No single
assessment technique or instrument has been found to identify satisfactorily
all types of giftedness in the Marland definition. Underrepresentation of Af-
rican American, Latino, and American Indian children in gifted education
programs in the United States remains largely a problem of identification.
Instruction of Gifted Children and Adolescents

Eligibility for a gifted education program may be decided as a result of the
process of identification, but the design of a program of instruction for each
359
Psychology Basics
child is often a separate set of decisions, sometimes requiring further assess-

ments. It must be decided whether a child who is nearing the end of first
grade but who has performed at the seventh-grade level on a standardized
achievement test should be promoted to a much higher grade next year. An
adolescent who is writing commercial music, and who is successfully per-
forming it on weekends, might be allowed to leave school during the day to
make a recording. The programming decisions to be made are as diverse as
the talents of the children themselves.
It is not surprising, then, that no single strategy for teaching gifted chil-
dren has been found to be the best. Rather, broad strategies of intervention
can be classified as modifications in curriculum content or skills and modifi-
cations in school environment. Either of these strategies might be formal-
ized by means of a written plan or contract, which is an agreement between
individuals, such as the learner, the teacher, and (when relevant) others, in-
cluding the gifted education teacher or the parent(s). Parents have the right
to refuse special services for their children, but few do.
Image not available
Children who display

advanced cognitive skills
at an early age may need
additional educational
opportunities to maximize
their potential. (CLEO
Photography)
360
Giftedness
Modifications in curriculum content for gifted students might include

content acceleration (such as early admission, grade skipping or “telescop-
ing” two years into one); content enrichment (materials to elaborate on ba-
sic concepts in standard program); content sophistication (more abstract or
fundamental considerations of basic concepts); and content novelty (such
as units on highly specialized topics). Modifications in skills include training
in component skills of problem solving; various forms of problem solving
(such as creative, cooperative, or competitive); and development of creativ-
ity. A program for the first-grader who is performing on achievement tests at
the seventh-grade level, for example, might call for placement in a higher
grade level (grade skipping), although which grade level to place the child
in would have to be determined using teacher observations, interview re-
sults, and diagnostic tests.
Possible modifications in the school environment include provisions for
enrichment in the regular classroom (such as access to special equipment);
a consultant teacher (who helps the classroom teacher develop lessons); a
resource room (or “pullout” program); mentoring (often by a professional
in the community); independent study (often a special project); special-
interest classes (such as creative writing); special classes (such as advanced
placement biology); and special schools (such as a statewide math and sci-
ence school). A program for the musically creative adolescent might incor-
porate mentoring by a music professional, who would report to the school
on a regular basis about work completed by the adolescent at a recording
studio or while otherwise away from school during school hours.
Of all of these modifications, teachers and parents seem to be most con-
cerned about content acceleration, particularly if it involves grade skipping.
As long as children are not socially and emotionally “hurried” by adults to
achieve early, research suggests that the impact of content acceleration is
positive. Most children who spend all or part of the school day with older
children have ample opportunities to socialize with age-mates (if they wish)
after school, on weekends, and in their neighborhoods. Being gifted can im-
ply a preference for working alone or with older children, but it does not im-
ply being lonely, particularly for those who are moderately gifted.
Individualized education programs (IEPs) are especially important for
highly gifted children, such as child prodigies, who have either an extremely
high IQ (180 or above) or expertise in a domain-specific skill by age ten;
prodigious savants, formerly known as idiots savants, who have an IQ below
70 but expertise in a domain-specific skill (such as calendar calculating);
and gifted children with disabilities. Children with disabilities (some of
them multiple disabilities) may represent several percent of those who are
gifted. In the United States, an IEP for these children is mandated by law.
The importance of an individual program is evidenced by the case of Helen
Keller, whose home tutoring not only resulted in the development of her in-
tellectual abilities but also enabled her later accomplishments as an advo-
cate for the blind throughout the world.
361
Psychology Basics
Counseling Gifted Learners

Beginning in the 1920’s, Leta Hollingworth at Columbia University investi-
gated characteristics of children who scored over 180 on the Stanford-Binet
test. Her study of twelve children (eight boys and four girls) suggested that
despite their overall adjustment, children who were highly intellectually
gifted tended to encounter three challenges not encountered by most other
children. The first was a failure to develop work habits at school because of a
curriculum paced for much less capable learners. The second was difficulty
in finding satisfying companionship because of their advanced interests
and abilities in relation to their age-mates. The third was vulnerability to
frustration and depression because of a capacity to understand informa-
tion on an adult level without sufficient experience to know how to respond
to it.
Hollingworth suggested that the problem of work habits could be ad-
dressed by a combination of acceleration and enrichment. The problem of
loneliness could be solved by training gifted children in social games—such
as checkers or chess—that could be played by people of any age, and the
problems of frustration and depression by careful adult supervision and pa-
tience. Research has tended to confirm that the problems Hollingworth
identified often need to be addressed, not only in cases of extreme preco-
ciousness but, to a lesser extent, in the lives of many people identified as
gifted.
If underachievement by a gifted child has its source in an unchallenging
or otherwise inappropriate educational program, the recommended action
is to assess strengths and weaknesses (a learning disability may be the prob-
lem), then design a more appropriate program or place the child in one
that already exists. If the source of underachievement is low self-esteem, the
home environment may be unlike that found by Bloom to nurture talent. In
this case, family counseling can often reverse underachievement.
To help a gifted child with peer relations, group counseling with other
gifted children can be particularly beneficial. Not only can group members
share their experiences of being gifted, but they can establish and maintain
friendships with those who have similar (or sometimes quite different)
exceptionalities. Group sessions can be both therapeutic and developmen-
tal.
At least some of the emotional challenges facing gifted children develop
from their emotional sensitivity and excitability. Because parents and sib-
lings often share these characteristics, the stage is set for conflict. What is
surprising is that conflict does not create unhappiness more often. In the
main, gifted people report satisfaction with their home lives. If tensions in
the home arise more often than average, the parents of gifted children and
the children themselves may need to develop more effective conflict resolu-
tion strategies and higher levels of self-understanding. Developmental coun-
seling can assist parents and children in making these changes.
362
Giftedness

Bloom, Benjamin S., ed. Developing Talent in Young People. New York: Ballan-
tine, 1985. A landmark study of the environmental influences which
shape talent.
Colangelo, Nicholas, and Gary A. Davis, eds. Handbook of Gifted Education. 2d
ed. Boston: Allyn & Bacon, 1997. A valuable collection of chapters for
those with some background knowledge of gifted education.
Gallagher, James, and Shelagh Gallagher. Teaching the Gifted Child. 4th ed.
Boston: Allyn & Bacon, 1994. A general overview of strategies for teach-
ing gifted learners.
MacKinnon, Donald W. In Search of Human Effectiveness. Buffalo, N.Y.: Cre-
ative Education Foundation, 1978. A technical but readable account of
an intensive effort to assess adult creativity.
Marland, Sidney P. Education of the Gifted and Talented. Washington, D.C.:
Government Printing Office, 1972. Many current definitions of gifted-
ness have their origin in this report, which is accessible in the Educa-
tional Resource Information Center (ERIC) collection as document Nos.
ED056243 (Volume 1, Report to the Congress of the United States) and
ED056244 (Volume 2, Background Papers).
Shurkin, Joel N. Terman’s Kids: The Groundbreaking Study of How the Gifted
Grow Up. Boston: Little, Brown, 1992. A highly readable summary of Ter-
man’s findings, set in a modern perspective by a journalist.
Silverman, Linda K. Counseling the Gifted and Talented. Denver, Colo.: Love,
1993. Describes the personal and emotional characteristics of gifted chil-
dren, their home lives, and the challenges of raising them. Recom-
mended reading for parents as well as professionals.
Winner, Ellen. Gifted Children: Myths and Realities. New York: Basic Books,
1996. Responds to nine myths about gifted children with a balance of
case studies and research evidence. Recommended especially for those
interested in the nature and nurture of unusually gifted children.
John F. Wakefield
See also: Creativity and Intelligence; Intelligence; Intelligence Tests; Learning.
363
Groups
Field of study: Group processes
The structure and function of groups have stimulated a large quantity of research over
the years. What groups are, how groups form, and the positive and negative effects of
groups on individuals are the primary areas of research that have provided insights
into social behavior.
Key concepts
• deindividuation
• density
• group formation
• identity
• self-attention
• social support
In any newspaper, one is likely to find several captivating stories that high-
light the powerful negative influence that groups can exert on individuals.
For example, one may recall the tragic violence exhibited by British sports
fans at the international soccer matches in Belgium in the spring of 1985.
One may also consider the one-man crime wave of Fred Postlewaite. For
twenty years, Postlewaite engaged in a cross-country vandalism spree against
the Sigma Alpha Epsilon college fraternity, which had rejected him in his
youth.
There are equally dramatic instances of the powerful positive influences
of groups. When the Spy Run Creek in Fort Wayne, Indiana, began to flood
its banks in 1982, a group of the community’s youths voluntarily partici-
pated in efforts to hold back its rising waters. There was also the rescue of
four-year-old Michelle de Jesus, who had fallen from a subway platform into
the path of an onrushing train. Everett Sanderson, a bystander, leapt down
onto the tracks and flung the child into the crowd above. After he failed in
his attempt to jump back to the platform, he was pulled up to safety at the
last instant by bystanders.
These real-life events are noteworthy because they illustrate the universal-
ity of groups and the various ways that groups influence individual behavior.
Although everyone can attest the prevalence of groups and the power that
they can wield over individuals, several characteristics of groups are not as
well defined. Several questions remain as to what groups are, how groups
form, what groups look like, and the disadvantages and advantages of group
membership. In spite of these questions, psychologists have come to under-
stand many aspects of groups and the ways in which they influence individ-
ual behavior.
364
Groups
Definition and Formation of Groups

The members of Congress who compose the House of Representatives of
the United States are a group. The urban committee deciding how to allo-
cate budgetary resources for unwed mothers in a particular city is a group.
The members of a car pool sharing a ride to the train station every day are a
group. The family seated around the dinner table at home in the evening is
a group. The acting troupe performing Hamlet is a group. There are other
examples of groups, however, that may be a little less obvious. All the unwed
mothers in an urban area might be considered a group. A line of people
waiting to buy tickets to a Broadway show might be thought of as a group.
People eating dinner at the same time in a diner might even be considered a
group. The people in the audience who are watching an acting troupe per-
form could behave as a group.
There are several ways in which people come to join the groups to which
they belong. People are born into some groups. Several types of groupings
are influenced in large part by birth: family, socioeconomic status, class,
race, and religion. Other groups are formed largely by happenstance: for
example, a line of the same people waiting for the 8:05 ferry every day. Some
groups, however, are determined more clearly by intentional, goal-oriented
factors. For example, a group of people at work who share a concern for
well-being, health, and fitness may decide to form an exercise and nutrition
group. Students interested in putting on a concert might decide to form a
committee to organize bake sales, car washes, and fund drives in order to
raise the money needed to achieve this goal. Finally, group memberships are
sometimes created or changed as an effort toward self-definition or self-
validation. For example, one can try to change one’s religion, political ori-
entation, professional associations, friendships, or family in an effort to en-
hance how one feels about oneself—or how others feel about one. An indi-
vidual searching for a positive self-definition may join a country club, for
example, to benefit from the social status acquired from such group mem-
bership.
Stages of Group Development

Although there are countless underlying reasons for someone’s member-
ship in a given group, the work of Bruce Tuckman suggests that groups
progress through a relatively consistent series of stages or phases in their de-
velopment. Forming refers to a phase of coming together and orientation.
Group members become acquainted with one another and define the re-
quirements of group membership as well as the tasks to be performed.
Storming refers to a phase of polarization and conflict. During this phase,
group members deal with disagreements, compete for attractive positions
within the group, and may become dissatisfied with other group members
or the group as a whole. Norming refers to a phase when conflicts are solved
and group members arrive at agreements regarding definitions of tasks and
the requirements of group membership. Performing refers to the phase
365
Psychology Basics
when group members concentrate on achieving their major task and strive
toward shared goals. Finally, for some groups, adjourning refers to the dis-
banding or dissolution of the group after task completion.
For example, consider a special task force created to search for a missing
child. During the forming stage, the members of this group will volunteer
for, or be appointed to, the group. Although the general goals and defini-
tion of the group may have been established with the decision to implement
such a task force, a storming phase would occur that would lead the group
members into the sometimes difficult task of defining specific procedures of
operation, responsibilities of particular task force members, a functional hi-
erarchy, and so on. The norming phase would represent the resolution of the
polarizations that emerged during the storming phase, as the committee pro-
ceeded to establish an agenda, a decision structure, and a means of imple-
menting decisions. During the performing phase, the task force would actu-
ally perform the tasks agreed upon during the norming phase. Having
finished its task, the group would then be adjourned.
Group Topography
The topography of a group refers to its physical features. This includes such
elements as the size of the group, the composition of the group, and the re-
lationships between the various members of the groups. These topographi-
cal features of groups have been the focus of countless studies.
One obvious physical feature that could vary from one group to another
is size. Some scholars have categorized group types in terms of size. For ex-
ample, some researchers have found it useful to distinguish between small
primary groups (from two to twenty group members), small nonprimary
groups (from three to a hundred members), large groups (one thousand to
ten thousand members), and largest groups (ten thousand-plus members).
While such classifications may be interesting, the realities of everyday groups
are typically more modest than such grand schemes would suggest. In a large
number of settings, naturally occurring, free-forming groups typically range
in size from two to seven persons, with a mean of about three. There are cer-
tainly exceptions to this rule of thumb; for example, most audiences watch-
ing theater troupes are considerably larger than three people. Nevertheless,
most of the groups in which people interact on a day-to-day basis are rela-
tively small. The size of a group tends to set the stage for many other topo-
graphical features of group life.
Variations in Group Composition

The number of relationships possible in a group, according to James H. S.
Bosard, is a direct consequence of the size of the group: the larger the
group, the larger the number of possible relationships the individual might
find within the group. It is possible to express the precise mathematical
function relating the number of possible relationships between individuals
in a group and group size (N): This function is represented by the formula
366
Groups
(N2−N)/ 2. For example, if the group is made of Tom and Dick, there is only
one possible relationship between members of the group (Tom-Dick). If the
group is made up of the three people Tom, Dick, and Harry, there are three
possible relationships (Tom-Dick, Tom-Harry, and Dick-Harry). If the group
is made up of seven people, there are twenty-one possible relationships be-
tween individuals; if there are ten people in the group, there are forty-five
possible relationships between individuals.
Thus, groups have the potential to become increasingly complex as the
number of people in the group increases. There are many possible conse-
quences of this increasing complexity. For one thing, it becomes increas-
ingly harder to pay an equal amount of attention to everyone in the group as
it increases in size. Brian Mullen and colleagues state that the person in the
group who talks the most is paid the most attention, and in turn is most
likely to emerge as the leader of the group; this effect (sometimes referred
to as the “blabbermouth” theory of leadership) increases as the size of the
group increases. It also becomes increasingly difficult to get to know every-
one in the group and to spend equal amounts of time with everyone in the
group as the group increases in size.
Simplifying Group Complexity

People in groups may tend toward a convenient simplification of this inevi-
table complexity. Scholars have long recognized the tendency for group
members to divide other group members into groups of “us” and “them”
rather than to perceive each person as a distinct entity. Groups can often be
divided into perceptually distinct, smaller groups. For example, a commit-
tee might be composed predominantly of elderly members, with only one or
a few young members. The general tendency is for people to focus their at-
tention on the smaller group. The reason for this is that the smaller group
seems to “stand out” as a perceptual figure against the background of the
larger group. Thus, the youthful member of an otherwise elderly committee
is likely to attract a disproportionate amount of attention from the commit-
tee members.
Not only will the members of the larger group pay more attention to the
smaller group, but the members of the smaller group will do so as well.
Thus, the members of the smaller group will become more self-attentive,
more aware of themselves and their behavior. On the other hand, the mem-
bers of the larger group become less self-attentive, or, as Ed Diener con-
tends, more deindividuated—less aware of themselves and their behavior.
For example, the single woman in a group of mechanical engineers that are
otherwise men will quickly stand out. The male mechanical engineers may
tend to think of that one distinct individual in terms of her status as a
woman. Moreover, the lone woman may become more sensitive than usual
about her behavioral transgressions of the norms guiding sexual roles in an
all-male working environment.
367
Psychology Basics
Implications for Social Behavior

Thus, group composition has been demonstrated to predict the extent to
which people pay attention to and are aware of, themselves and specific facets
of themselves, and to predict a variety of social behaviors including participa-
tion in religious groups, bystander intervention in emergencies, worker pro-
ductivity, stuttering in front of an audience, and conformity.
For example, an analysis of the participation of congregation members in
their religious groups documented the powerful effect of group composi-
tion on behavior of group members. As the size of the congregation in-
creased relative to the number of ministers, the congregation members
were less likely to participate in the group (in terms of activities such as at-
tending worship services, becoming lay ministers, or “inquiring for Christ”).
In this instance, becoming “lost in the crowd” impaired the normal self-
regulation behaviors necessary for participation. Alternatively, analysis of
the behavior of stutterers in front of an audience also documented the pow-
erful effects of group composition on the behavior of group members. As
the size of the audience increased relative to the number of stutterers speak-
ing, the verbal disfluencies (stuttering and stammering) of the speakers in-
creased. In this instance, becoming the center of attention exaggerated the
normal self-regulation behaviors necessary for speech, to the point of inter-
fering with those behaviors. Group composition’s effects of making the indi-
vidual lost in the crowd or the center of attention are not inherently good or
bad; positive or negative effects depend on the context.
Image not available
Studying group dynamics, such as the reactions of an audience, can yield important psycho-
logical information. (CLEO Photography)
368
Groups
Group Density
Another facet of the topography of the group that is related to group size is
density. Density refers to the amount of space per person in the group (the
less space per person, the higher the density). Doubling the number of peo-
ple in the group meeting in a room of a given size will decrease by one-half
the amount of space available for each member of the group. Alternatively,
halving the number of people in the group will double the amount of space
available per person. Thus, in a room of a given size, density is directly
linked to the size of the group. This particular approach to density is called
social density, because it involves a change in density by manipulation of the
social dimension (group size). One could also manipulate the physical di-
mension (room size), rendering a change in what is called spatial density.
Thus, halving the size of the room will halve the amount of space available to
each group member.
Density has been demonstrated to influence a variety of social behaviors.
People have been found to report feeling more anxious, more aggressive,
more unpleasant, and, understandably, more crowded as a function of den-
sity. An analysis of the effects of “tripling” in college dormitories illustrates
these types of effects. As a cost-cutting measure, colleges and universities will
often house three students in a dormitory room that was initially constructed
for two (hence, tripling). Tripling has been demonstrated to lead to an in-
crease in arguments among the roommates, increased visits to the student
health center, decreased grades, and increased overall dissatisfaction.
Role in Behavior and Identity

Groups exert sometimes dramatic, sometimes subtle influences on behav-
ior. These influences are sometimes beneficial and sometimes detrimental.
An understanding of the effect of groups on the individual sets the stage for
a deeper understanding of many facets of social life. One of the reasons for
the formation or joining of groups is the definition of the self. On a com-
monly used questionnaire that requires a person to respond twenty times to
the question “Who am I?,” people tend to respond with references to some
sort of group membership, be it family, occupation, hobby, school, ethnic,
religious, or neighborhood. Groups help establish one’s identity, both for
one’s own benefit and for the benefit of others with whom one interacts.
Costs of Group Membership

Belonging to groups has its price, however; as discussed at length by Chris-
tian Buys, one’s very membership in a group may carry with it hidden costs,
risks, or sacrifices. A more complete understanding of groups requires a
consideration of this aspect of membership in a group. Attaining certain
types of rewards may be incompatible with belonging to a group. For exam-
ple, the goal of completing a difficult and complicated task may be facili-
tated by belonging to a group of coworkers who bring the varied skills and
knowledge required for successful task completion. Yet one group mem-
369
Psychology Basics
ber’s goal of always being the center of attention, or of needing to feel spe-
cial and unique, may have to be subverted if the group is to perform the task
for which it formed. What the individual wants or needs may sometimes be
displaced by what the group needs.
Moreover, the deindividuation (an individual’s loss of self-awareness, re-
sulting in a breakdown in the capacity to self-regulate) fostered by groups
breaks down the individual’s ability to self-regulate. Research has demon-
strated the state of deindividuation to increase the (simulated) electric
shocks people will deliver to other people in experiments, to increase the
use of profanity, and to increase stealing among Halloween trick-or-treaters.
The paradigmatic illustration of the negative effects of deindividuation is
the lynch mob. An analysis of newspaper accounts, conducted by Brian
Mullen, of lynch mob atrocities committed in the United States over a sixty-
year period showed that the savagery and atrocity of the mob toward its vic-
tim(s) increased as the size of the mob increased relative to the number of
its victims.
Group Membership Benefits

As discussed by Lynn Anderson, just as there are costs involved in belonging
to a group, there are also benefits that accrue from group membership. Al-
though the negative aspects of group membership may capture one’s atten-
tion more forcefully, the positive aspects are no less common or important.
A complete understanding of the purpose of groups requires a consider-
ation of the positive side of belonging to a group. A considerable amount of
evidence has documented the physiological, attitudinal, and health effects
of social support systems. For example, people who belong to a varied and
tight social support network have been found to be in better physical health
and to be better able to resist stress than those lacking such support. As ex-
amples, one might consider the effects of such popular support groups as
Alcoholics Anonymous and Mothers Against Drunk Driving as well as lesser
known support groups that deal with specific issues such as loss and bereave-
ment. These groups provide the imperative psychological function of allow-
ing their members a new avenue for coping with their problems.
Perhaps the most notable effects of the group on self-definition and iden-
tity are observed when these taken-for-granted benefits are taken away. The
woman who has defined herself in terms of her marital status can find her
identity cast adrift after a divorce. Similarly, foreign-exchange students often
report dislocation or disorientation of identity immediately upon their re-
turn home. After months or years of trying to establish a new identity based
on new friends, new social contexts, or new groups, that new identity is now
inappropriate and out of place in their old social context.

Brown, Rupert, ed. Group Processes: Dynamics Within and Between Groups. 2d
rev. ed. New York: Basil Blackwell, 2000. This is a readable treatment of
370
Groups
theories and research on group processes, with a particular emphasis on

British and European contributions. A variety of compelling and relevant
social issues are covered, such as social conformity, crowd behavior,
group productivity, and ethnic prejudice.
Canetti, Elias. Crowds and Power. Translated by Carol Stewart. 1962. Reprint.
New York: Noonday Press, 1998. This is a classic historical discussion of
the effects of crowds on individuals and societies. Such avenues of group
behavior are described as open and closed crowds, invisible crowds, bait-
ing crowds, and feast crowds.
Forsyth, Donelson R. Group Dynamics. 3d ed. Belmont, Calif.: Wadsworth,
2000. This thorough volume provides access to a wide-ranging review of
evidence regarding all aspects of group processes.
Mullen, Brian, and George R. Goethals, eds. Theories of Group Behavior. New
York: Springer-Verlag, 1987. This comprehensive edited volume consid-
ers several theories of group behavior in order to expand fully on the
phenomenon. Classic as well as modern and controversial theories are
described by several of the social psychologists who originally formulated
the accounts.
Turner, John C., et al. Rediscovering the Social Group: A Self-Categorization The-
ory. Oxford, England: Basil Blackwell, 1987. A sophisticated in-depth
treatment of a new theory of behavior in groups. This theoretical ap-
proach integrates a vast amount of data and sets the stage for further re-
search in group behavior.
Tara Anthony and Brian Mullen
See also: Affiliation and Friendship; Support Groups.
371
Habituation and Sensitization
Field of study: Biological influences on learning
Habituation, a form of behavior modification, is a decrease in behavioral response
that results from repeated presentation of a stimulus. Sensitization is a heightened be-
havioral response that results from a stronger stimulus.
Key concepts
• adaptation
• innate
• learning
• neuron
• opponent process theory
• stimulus
• synapse
Habituation and sensitization are the two most fundamental and wide-
spread forms of learning in the animal kingdom. According to ethologists,
learning is any modification in behavior that results from previous experi-
ence, in some way involves the nervous system, and is not caused by develop-
ment, fatigue, or injury. More advanced forms of learning include associa-
tion, perceptual or programmed learning, and insight. The two simplest
(nonassociative) forms of learning are habituation and sensitization. These
two processes can be characterized as behavioral modifications that result
from repeated presentation of simple environmental stimuli.
Habituation is a decrease in response to repeated presentation of a stimu-
lus—an environmental cue that can potentially modify an animal’s behavior
via its nervous system. One of the most widely cited examples of this kind of
learning involves the startle response exhibited by nestling birds in response
to potential predators such as hawks. A young duck, for example, will exhibit
an innate startle response whenever a hawk-shaped model or silhouette is
passed overhead. With repeated presentation of the model, however, the in-
tensity of the bird’s response will decline as the animal becomes habituated,
or learns that the stimulus bears no immediate significance.
Common throughout the animal kingdom and even among some groups
of protozoans, habituation is important for preventing repeated responses
to irrelevant environmental stimuli that could otherwise overwhelm an or-
ganism’s senses and interfere with other critical tasks. In the case of a nest-
ling bird, there is a clear advantage to an alarm response in the presence of a
potential predator; however, a continued fixed response would result in an
unnecessary expenditure of energy and distraction from other important
activities such as feeding.
In identifying a habituation response, it is necessary to distinguish be-
372
tween true habituation and sensory adaptation and fatigue. These latter two
phenomena involve a waning in responsiveness that is caused by temporary
insensitivity of sense organs or by muscle fatigue and thus are not consid-
ered forms of learning. In contrast, habituation results in a drop in respon-
siveness even though the nervous system is fully capable of detecting a signal
and eliciting a muscle response.
In contrast to habituation, sensitization is the heightened sensitivity (or
hypersensitivity) that results from initial or repeated exposure to a strong
stimulus. Examples of sensitization include the increased sensitivity of hu-
mans to soft sounds following exposure to a loud, startling noise such as a
gunshot, or the increased responsiveness and sensitivity of a laboratory ani-
mal to mild (usually irrelevant) tactile stimulation after an electric shock.
Sensitization increases an organism’s awareness and responsiveness to a va-
riety of environmental stimuli, thereby preparing it for potentially danger-
ous situations.
Comparison of Responses
At first glance, habituation and sensitization seem to be opposite behavioral
responses—one a decrease in responsiveness and the other an increase—
but, in fact, they are physiologically different processes, each with its own set
of unique characteristics.
At the physiological level, the two responses are determined by contrast-
ing neurological processes that take place in different parts of the nervous
system. Habituation is thought to take place primarily in the reflex arc (or
SR) system, which consists of short neuronal circuits between sense organs
and muscles. In contrast, sensitization is assumed to occur in the state sys-
tem, or that part of the nervous system that regulates an organism’s state of
responsiveness. The SR system controls specific responses, whereas the state
system determines an organism’s general level of readiness to respond. The
interaction between habituation and sensitization and these systems deter-
mines the exact outcome of a response. At the cellular level, habituated sen-
sory neurons produce fewer neurotransmitters on the postsynaptic mem-
brane, while sensitized neurons are stimulated by other neurons to increase
neurotransmitter production and hence responsiveness of the nerves. Thus,
while their ultimate neurological effects are somewhat opposite, the mecha-
nisms by which such effects are achieved are quite different.
Other important differences between habituation and sensitization in-
clude contrasting recovery times, opposite patterns of stimulus specificity,
and differences in responsiveness to stimulus intensity. Sensitization is gen-
erally characterized by a short-term or spontaneous recovery, as are some
cases of habituation. In certain situations, however, recovery from habitua-
tion may take several days, and even then it may result in incomplete or less
intense responses.
In comparison to sensitization, habituation is usually elicited by very spe-
cific sign stimuli such as certain colors, shapes, or sounds. Thus, even after
373
Psychology Basics
complete habituation to one stimulus, the organism will still respond fully to
a second stimulus. Sensitization, on the other hand, can be characterized as
a more generalized response, one in which a single stimulus will result in
complete sensitization to a variety of stimuli. Such fundamental differences
between these two learning processes reflect differences in their function
and survival value. It is a clear advantage to an organism to increase its gen-
eral awareness to a variety of stimuli (such as occurs in sensitization) once it
is alarmed. A similar generalized pattern of habituation, however, would
shut down the organism’s sensitivity to many important stimuli and possibly
put the organism in danger.
A final important difference between habituation and sensitization is the
manner in which the two processes are affected by stimulus strength. Habit-
uation is more likely to occur if the repeated stimulus is weak, and sensitiza-
tion will occur when the stimulus is strong.
These various characteristics have important survival implications, espe-
cially for species that rely on stereotypic responses to avoid predation and
other life-threatening situations. They ensure that the response is elicited in
a timely fashion, that the animal is returned to a normal state in a relatively
short period of time, and that the animal is not overwhelmed with sensory
input.
Aplysia Research
Habituation and sensitization have been studied in a variety of contexts and
in a number of organisms, from simple protozoans (such as Stentor) to hu-
man subjects. Such studies have focused on the adaptive significance of
these simple learning processes, their neurological control, and the range
of behavioral responses that result from interaction between these two
forms of learning.
One particular organism in which the neurological basis of habituation
and sensitization has been extensively studied is the marine slug Aplysia. Eric
Kandel and his associates at Columbia University showed that when the
mantle of this organism is prodded, the slug quickly withdraws its gills into a
central cavity. After repeated prodding, it learns to ignore the stimulus; that
is, it becomes habituated. Conversely, when the slug is stimulated with an
electric shock, its sensitivity to prodding increases greatly, and it withdraws
its gills in response to even the slightest tactile stimulation (that is, it be-
comes sensitized).
Because Aplysia possesses only a few, large neurons, it is an excellent or-
ganism in which to study the physiological basis of learning. Capitalizing on
this unique system, Kandel and his colleagues have been able to establish
the neurological changes that accompany simple forms of learning. In the
case of habituation, they have shown that repeated stimulation interferes
with calcium ion channels in the nerve which, under normal circumstances,
causes synaptic vesicles to release neurotransmitters, which in turn relay a
nervous impulse between two neurons. Thus, habituation results in a block-
374
ing of the chemical signals between nerves and thereby prevents gill with-
drawal.
When Aplysia is stimulated (or sensitized) by an electric shock, an inter-
neuron (a closed nerve circuit contained within one part of the nervous sys-
tem) stimulates the sensory neuron by opening calcium ion channels,
increasing neurotransmitter production, and promoting gill withdrawal.
Thus, the proximate neurological changes that take place during sensitiza-
tion and habituation are nearly opposite, but they are achieved by very dif-
ferent neurological circuits.
Studies of the Sucking Reflex

A second area in which habituation and sensitization responses have been
the subject of extensive investigation is the sucking reflex exhibited by hu-
man infants. When the cheeks or lips of a young child are touched with a
nipple or finger, the infant will automatically begin sucking. In a study de-
signed to explore how various stimuli affect this reflex, it was shown that ba-
bies respond much more vigorously to a bottle nipple than to the end of a
piece of rubber tubing. In addition, repeated presentation of a bottle nipple
causes an increase in sucking response, whereas repeated stimulation with
rubber tubing causes a decrease in sucking. The sensitized or elevated re-
sponse to a rubber nipple is a result of activation of the state system, which
increases the baby’s awareness and readiness to respond. Sensitization, how-
ever, does not occur when the baby is stimulated with rubber tubing, and in-
stead the child habituates to this stimulus.
Role in Emotional Reactions

In addition to influencing simple innate behaviors such as sucking reflexes
and withdrawal responses, habituation is believed to be responsible for a
number of more complex emotional reactions in humans. Explanations for
the effects of habituation on emotions are derived primarily from the oppo-
nent process theory of motivation.
The opponent process theory holds that each emotional stimulation (or
primary process) initiated by an environmental stimulus is opposed by an
internal process in the organism. The emotional changes that actually occur
in the organism are predicted to result from the net effect of these two pro-
cesses. The opponent process detracts from the primary process, and sum-
mation of the two yields a particular emotional response. It is hypothesized
that when the organism is repeatedly stimulated, the primary process is un-
affected, but the opponent process is strengthened, which results in a net
reduction in the overall emotional response. In other words, repeated pre-
sentation of an emotion-arousing stimulus results in habituation in the emo-
tional response, primarily as a result of the elevated opponent response.
An increase in drug tolerance which results from repeated usage of a
drug is best explained by this kind of habituation. Habitual users of alcohol,
caffeine, nicotine, or various opiate derivatives must consume greater quan-
375
Psychology Basics
tities of such drugs each time they are ingested in order to achieve the same
emotional stimulation. Thus, with repeated usage, there is a decline in the
overall emotional response. This decline in the euphoric effects of a drug is
primarily the result of an increase in the opponent process, which can be
characterized as the negative effects of the drug. This is presumably why ha-
bitual users experience severe physiological problems (for example, head-
aches or delirium tremens) upon termination of a drug.
Similar patterns of habituation have also been suggested to explain the
human emotional responses associated with love and attachment and the
extreme feelings of euphoria derived from various thrill-seeking activities
such as skydiving. Thus, while habituation and sensitization are simple
forms of learning, they may be involved in a variety of more complex behav-
iors and emotions as well.
Interaction of Learning and Instinct

Studies of habituation and sensitization have been especially helpful in clari-
fying the physiological and genetic mechanisms that control various forms
of learning. Such investigations have also shown that habituation and sensi-
tization are widespread phenomena with tremendous adaptive significance
throughout the animal kingdom.
Ethologists, in marked contrast with psychologists (especially behaviorist
psychologists), historically have emphasized the importance of underlying
physiological mechanisms in the regulation of various behavioral phenom-
ena. Traditionally, they argued that many forms of behavior are not only ge-
netically determined, or innate, but further constrained by the physiologi-
cal hardware of the organism. They held that psychologists completely
ignored these factors by focusing on only the input and output of experi-
ments. Psychologists, on the other hand, have maintained that nearly all
forms of behavior are influenced in some way by learning. These contrast-
ing views, which developed largely as a result of different experimental ap-
proaches, eventually gave way to a more modern and unified picture of be-
havior.
One area of research that greatly facilitated this unification was the study
of habituation and sensitization. By discovering the chemical and neurologi-
cal changes that take place during these simple forms of learning, neuro-
biologists succeeded in demonstrating how the physiological environment
is modified during the learning process and that such modifications are re-
markably similar throughout the animal kingdom. Thus, it became quite
clear that an understanding of proximate physiological mechanisms was
central to the study of behavior and learning.
In addition, other studies on sensitization and habituation helped estab-
lish the generality of these processes among various groups of animals. They
showed that simple forms of learning can occur in nearly all major animal
phyla, and that these learning processes often result in modification of sim-
ple innate behaviors as well as a variety of more complex responses. From
376
these and other studies, it was soon evident that learning and instinct are
not mutually exclusive events but two processes that work together to pro-
vide animals with maximum adaptability to their environment. The kind of
learning that occurs during habituation and sensitization allows animals to
modify simple, fixed behaviors in response to repeated exposure to environ-
mental stimuli. Habituation allows an organism to filter irrelevant back-
ground stimuli and prevent sensory overload and interference of normal ac-
tivities critical to its survival. Sensitization helps increase an organism’s
awareness of stimuli in the face of potentially dangerous situations.
These two forms of learning represent important behavioral adaptations
with tremendous generality in the animal kingdom. Even in humans, a vari-
ety of seemingly complex behaviors can be attributed to interactions be-
tween sensitization and habituation and the simple neurological changes
that accompany them.

Domjan, Michael. Principles of Learning and Behavior. 5th ed. Belmont, Calif.:
Thomson/Wadsworth, 2003. Provides a complete treatment of the psy-
chological basis and mechanisms of learning. Chapter 3 is devoted en-
tirely to habituation and sensitization, and it provides several specific ex-
amples of these processes in both human and animal subjects. Includes
many original data tables and graphs and a thorough review of the litera-
ture.
Grier, James W. Biology of Animal Behavior. 2d ed. New York: McGraw-Hill,
1992. This college-level text provides comprehensive treatment of the
study of animal behavior. Clearly written and well illustrated; should pro-
vide a good introduction for the layperson. Six chapters are devoted to
the physiological control of behavior, and one chapter deals entirely with
learning and memory.
McFarland, David, ed. The Oxford Companion to Animal Behavior. Rev. and en-
larged ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 1987. Intended as a refer-
ence guide, this comprehensive survey of behavior was written by a team
of internationally known biologists, psychologists, and neurobiologists. It
contains more than two hundred entries covering a variety of topics. Pro-
vides a detailed summary of various forms of learning, including habitua-
tion and sensitization. The index provides cross-references organized by
both subject and species lists.
Manning, Aubrey, and Marian Stamp Dawkins. An Introduction to Animal Be-
havior. 5th ed. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1998. A concise
handbook offering a light introduction to many general aspects of ani-
mal behavior and learning. Provides a discussion on stimulus filtering, an
entire chapter on the physiological basis of behavior and motivation, and
a complete summary of various forms of learning. Well researched,
clearly written, and effectively illustrated.
Raven, Peter H., and George B. Johnson. Biology. 6th ed. Boston: McGraw-
377
Psychology Basics
Hill, 2002. Chapter 56 of this general text on the science of biology offers
an excellent first introduction to the general concepts of ethology and
animal behavior. Includes a brief summary of learning and detailed cov-
erage of habituation, sensitization, and conditioning in Aplysia. A concise
summary, suggestions for additional reading, and review questions ap-
pear at the end of each chapter.
Shepherd, Gordon Murray. Neurobiology. 3d ed. New York: Oxford University
Press, 1997. This somewhat advanced college-level volume on neuro-
biology offers an in-depth account of the physiological basis of learning
and memory. A portion of chapter 30 is devoted to the neurological
changes associated with habituation and sensitization. Detailed diagrams,
data summaries, and complete literature reviews are provided.
Michael A. Steele
See also: Conditioning; Learning; Motivation; Pavlovian Conditioning; Re-

flexes.
378
Helping
Type of psychology: Developmental psychology; motivation; personality;
social psychology
Field of study: Prosocial behavior
Theories of helping behavior have attempted to explain why people offer physical and
psychological assistance to others in both emergency and nonemergency situations.
These theories have considered the roles of physiological arousal, judgments of costs
and rewards, mood states, and attributions of responsibility in influencing helping be-
havior.
Key concepts
• arousal cost-reward model
• attributions about responsibility
• mood and helping
• norm of reciprocity
• prosocial behavior
• self-help groups
• spirituality
Helping involves assisting, in some way, another person or animal in need.

Helping behaviors can take a variety of forms. Some, such as carrying a book
for a friend, require little effort. Others, such as jumping into a frozen lake
to rescue a drowning stranger, are life-threatening. To explain helping be-
havior, researchers have studied many variables and have developed theo-
ries to organize them and account for their interrelationships.
Arousal Cost-Reward Model

In 1981, Jane Allyn Piliavin, John Dovidio, Samuel Gaertner, and Russell
Clark introduced the “arousal cost-reward” model. This model assumes that
witnessing the need or distress of another person is physiologically arousing.
When one attributes the source of one’s arousal to another person’s distress,
the arousal is sometimes experienced as emotionally unpleasant, and one
becomes motivated to reduce it.
According to the arousal cost-reward model, a person will choose to en-
gage in the arousal-decreasing response associated with the fewest net costs.
Net costs are based on two types of rewards and costs associated with the
helping situation: costs for not helping and rewards and costs for helping.
Costs for not helping occur when no assistance is given and may include ex-
periences such as feeling troubled because someone in need is continuing
to suffer, or receiving criticism from others for being callous. Costs for help-
ing are direct negative outcomes that the potential helper might experience
after offering help, such as loss of time, embarrassment, or injury. Helping,
however, can also be associated with positive outcomes such as praise, grati-
tude, and feelings of self-worth.
379
Psychology Basics
Piliavin and her colleagues suggest that both types of costs influence the
decision to help. When net costs are low, as the costs for not helping in-
crease, helping in the form of direct intervention becomes more likely. If
net costs for helping are high, however, direct intervention is unlikely re-
gardless of potential costs for not helping. In this latter situation, a person
may give indirect assistance (for example, by calling someone else to help).
Alternatively, the person may deny responsibility for helping, reinterpret
the situation as one in which help is not needed, or try to leave the scene al-
together.
Attributions of Responsibility
Philip Brickman and his colleagues argue that when one sees a person in
need, one makes attributions about how responsible that person is for the
problem he or she faces and also about how much responsibility that person
should take for its solution. These attributions, in turn, influence one’s
judgment about who one thinks is best suited to deliver help, and, if one de-
cides to offer help oneself, they influence its form. One may be most likely
to offer direct assistance if one attributes little responsibility to that person
for solving the problem—as when a child is lost in a shopping mall. In con-
trast, if one judges a person to be responsible for solving his or her problem,
as when a friend has a nasty boss, one may offer encouragement and moral
support but not directly intervene. Thus, who one thinks should provide the
remedy—oneself, experts, or the person who needs the help—depends on
attributions that one makes about responsibility.
Mood
One’s mood may also influence one’s decision to help someone who is in
need. In general, people experiencing a positive mood, such as happiness,
are more likely to offer help than are those in neutral moods. Using quanti-
tative procedures for summarizing the results of thirty-four experimental
studies, Michael Carlson, Ventura Charlin, and Norman Miller concluded
that the best general explanation for why positive moods increase helpful-
ness is that they heighten sensitivity to positive reinforcement or good out-
comes. This sensitivity includes both thinking more about good outcomes
for oneself and increased thought about the goodness of behaving pro-
socially. This general summary incorporates many explanations that have
been proposed for the relation between positive moods and helping, among
them the mood maintenance and social outlook explanations.
Mood maintenance argues that one behaves more helpfully when happy
because doing so prolongs one’s good mood. The social outlook explana-
tion points instead to the fact that positive moods are often the conse-
quences of another person’s behavior (for example, being given a compli-
ment). Such actions by others trigger thoughts about human kindness,
cooperativeness, and goodness. These thoughts, if still present when some-
one asks for help, make a person more likely to respond positively.
380
Helping
The effects of bad moods on helpfulness are more complex. Carlson and
Miller also quantitatively summarized the effects found in forty-four studies
concerned with the impact of various mood-lowering events on helpfulness.
These studies included such diverse procedures for inducing negative moods
as having subjects repeat depressing phrases, view unpleasant slides, imagine
sad experiences, and fail at a task. Two factors can apparently account for
most of the findings on negative moods and helping. The first is whether the
target of the mood-lowering event is the self or someone else; the second is
whether the self or an outside force is responsible for the mood-lowering
event. When one is responsible for imposing a mood-lowering event on an-
other person and therefore feels guilty, helping is very likely. When one is re-
sponsible for an event that lowers one’s own mood (as when one engages in
self-harm) or when one witnesses another person impose a mood-lowering
event on someone else (that is, when one experiences empathy), a positive
response to a subsequent request for help is more likely but not as much so
as in the first case. In contrast, when someone else is responsible for one’s
own negative mood—when one has been victimized—one’s helpfulness
tends to be inhibited.
Theoretical Explanations
These explanations can be applied to a wide range of helping situations—
reactions to both physical and psychological distress, situations in which
helping appears to be determined by a rational consideration of costs and
rewards, and situations in which the help offered seemingly is irrational and
very costly.
One study on which the arousal cost-reward model was based suggests
how consideration of costs and rewards might affect the decision to offer di-
rect physical assistance. In this study, a man feigned collapse on the floor of a
New York subway a few minutes after boarding the train and remained there
until help was given. In some cases, the man smelled of alcohol and carried
an alcohol bottle wrapped in a paper bag, giving the impression that drunk-
enness had caused his fall. In other instances, the man carried a cane, sug-
gesting that he had fallen because of a physical impairment. Although many
people offered assistance in both conditions, more people helped the man
with the cane than the man who appeared to be drunk.
The different amounts of assistance in the two conditions may result from
differences in perceived net costs. Potential helpers may have expected
greater costs when the man looked drunk than when he appeared to be dis-
abled. Helping a drunk may require more effort and be more unpleasant
than helping someone with a physical impairment. It may also be less in-
trinsically and extrinsically rewarding than helping someone with a physi-
cal impairment. Finally, costs for not helping may be lower in the case of
the drunk than for the man with the cane. The drunk may be perceived as
“only drunk” and therefore not really needy. Thus, the finding that more
people helped the man with the cane is consistent with the hypothesis that
381
Psychology Basics
helping increases as the net costs associated with the helping response de-
crease.
Although considerations of costs and rewards are important, it would be
unrealistic to think that helping only occurs when net costs are low. People
may engage in very costly helping behaviors when physiological arousal is es-
pecially high, such as in clear, unambiguous emergencies. The actions of an
unknown passenger aboard an airplane that crashed into a frozen river illus-
trate this point. As a helicopter attempted to pull people out of the water to
safety, this passenger repeatedly handed the lowered life ring to other, more
seriously injured passengers, even though these acts of heroism eventually
cost him his life.
Much research on helpfulness has asked, When do people help? It is also
important, however, to look at what type of help is given and how the person
in need is expected to react to offers of assistance. The Brickman model, in-
volving attributions of responsibility for the problem and its solution, does
this. It also looks at more everyday forms of helping. According to Brick-
man, if one attributes responsibility for both the problem and its solution to
the person in need, one is applying the moral model of helping. With this
orientation, one may have the tendency to view the person in need as lazy
and undeserving of help. In the subway example, people may not have
helped the fallen drunk because they made such attributions. Although
people who apply the moral model may not give direct assistance, they may
sometimes support and encourage the person’s own effort to overcome the
problem.
If one sees people as responsible for their problem but not for its solu-
tion, then one is applying the enlightenment model. Criminals are held re-
sponsible for violating the law but are jailed because they are judged incapa-
ble of reforming themselves, and jail is believed to be rehabilitating as well
as punishing. Discipline from those in authority is seen as the appropriate
helping response, and submission to it is expected from the person receiv-
ing the “assistance.”
The medical model applies when the person is seen as responsible for
neither the problem nor its solution. This orientation is often taken toward
the ill. Such situations call for an expert whose recommendations are to be
accepted and fulfilled.
In the final combination of attributions of responsibility for a problem
and its solution, the compensatory model, the person is not held responsi-
ble for having caused the problem. The problem may be judged to be
caused by factors beyond the person’s control, such as when an earthquake
occurs. In this model, however, the person is held responsible for solving the
problem. Helpers may provide useful resources but are not expected to take
the initiative for a solution. In the case of an earthquake, the government
may offer low-interest loans for rebuilding, but victims must decide whether
to apply for one and rebuild their homes.
382
Helping
Historical Background
Concern with helping behavior has its roots in early philosophy. Thinkers
such as Aristotle, Socrates, Niccolò Machiavelli, and Thomas Hobbes de-
bated whether humans are by nature good or bad, selfish or selfless. Most
empirical psychological research on the topic, however, was not initiated un-
til after the 1950’s. This was probably not coincidental. Many people were
concerned with the atrocities of World War II and, in the United States, with
rising crime rates. In response, psychologists not only began to investigate
human cruelty but also gave increased attention to what could be done to
offset it. Similarly, the emergence of the Civil Rights movement, with its em-
phasis on cooperation and harmony, probably further propelled the study
of prosocial behavior. The term “prosocial behavior,” or behavior intended
to benefit other people, is sometimes used synonymously with “helping” and
is sometimes meant to be a larger category that includes helping.
Early studies of helping behavior examined situational variables that in-
fluence the decision to help someone who is in physical distress. The arousal
cost-reward model and the subway experiment characterize this type of work.
Also important during this period were Alvin Gouldner’s theorizing on the
norm of reciprocity and subsequent empirical investigation of the norms
governing helping behavior, such as Leonard Berkowitz’s work in the 1960’s.
As social psychologists explored situational variables that influence helping,
developmental psychologists examined the emergence of positive social be-
havior in children. Some, such as Jean Piaget and Lawrence Kohlberg, pos-
tulated distinct stages of moral development. Others focused on how people
who model helping behavior influence children’s subsequent behavior.
Extensions of the Earlier Research

While research continues in all these areas, other questions also attract in-
terest. Studies of people’s responses to others’ physical distress have been
extended by research on how people respond to someone in psychological
distress. Similarly, researchers have extended their interests in the potential
helper to examine how the person in need of help is affected by seeking and
receiving it.
Also important in understanding helping behavior has been the study of
personality and how individuals differ in their tendency to help. Some of
this work is related to research on norms, in that it looks at whether people
develop a personal set of rules or standards which govern their helping be-
havior. Another approach, adopted by Margaret Clark and Judson Mills, has
looked at how the relationship between the help requester and the help
giver influences helpfulness. Research on helping now incorporates many
different influences on the helping process, from individual to social to de-
velopmental factors. In the process, the applicability of the research find-
ings has grown and has given rise to a broader understanding of the types of
helping behavior that may occur, when they may occur, who might engage
in them, and why.
383
Psychology Basics

Batson, Charles Daniel. The Altruism Question: Toward a Social-Psychological
Answer. Hillsdale, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum, 1991. Discusses altruism and
empathy from a social psychological perspective and addresses the de-
bate about whether or not altruism is merely self-serving egoism. Also dis-
cusses altruistic motivation and personality. Batson is highly regarded for
his many experimental studies of helping behavior.
Blumenthal, David R. The Banality of Good and Evil: Moral Lessons from the
Shoah and Jewish Tradition. Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University
Press, 1999. The author is a theologian who reviews social, psychological,
child developmental, and personality research in the presentation of his
ideas regarding the ordinariness of good and evil. The book is a study of
the behavior, character, and motivation of people who rescued or pro-
tected Jews in Nazi Europe. The commentary on what it means to be a
moral human is often moving. This book is especially important in light
of the Christian bias in much of the helping and prosocial research litera-
ture. Very highly recommended.
Clark, Margaret S., ed. Prosocial Behavior. Newbury Park, Calif.: Sage Publica-
tions, 1991. Focuses on the broad area of positive social behaviors and
therefore includes discussions of altruism as well as chapters on helping.
Two chapters deal with the development of prosocial behavior. Also note-
worthy is a chapter that covers aspects of help-seeking behavior. A chap-
ter on moods and one on the arousal cost-reward model are included as
well.
Derlega, Valerian J., and Janusz Grzelak, eds. Cooperation and Helping Behav-
ior: Theories and Research. New York: Academic Press, 1982. The first chap-
ter provides a nontechnical discussion of the similarities and differences
between the related issues of helping and cooperation, while also serving
as an introduction to later chapters. Chapters on helping discuss the
arousal cost-reward model and extend the model to show how help seek-
ers may be influenced by cost/reward considerations.
Oliner, Pearl M., and Samuel P. Oliner. Toward a Caring Society: Ideas into Ac-
tion. Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 1995. The Oliners are social scientists af-
filiated with the Altruistic Personality and Prosocial Behavior Institute.
They offer guidelines for promoting caring behavior in families, in
schools, at work, and in religious organizations based on careful consid-
eration of a variety of sources, including the literature on altruism, help-
ing, and prosocial behavior. They present caring, or the assumption of
responsibility for the welfare of others, as a way to redress an overly indi-
vidualistic and materialistic culture. Many poignant and inspiring narra-
tive excerpts are included.
Rushton, J. Philippe, and Richard M. Sorrentino, eds. Altruism and Helping
Behavior: Social, Personality, and Developmental Perspectives. Hillsdale, N.J.:
Lawrence Erlbaum, 1981. Covers, as the title implies, three main areas.
Under developmental issues, varied topics such as the influence of televi-
384
Helping
sion and the role of genetics (sociobiology) are covered. Also includes a
discussion of moods and a model of how norms may influence helping.
Schroeder, David A., Louis A. Penner, John F. Dovidio, and Jane A. Piliavin.
The Psychology of Helping and Altruism: Problems and Puzzles. New York:
McGraw-Hill, 1995. Good review of the research literature. Includes dis-
cussions of the relationships among biology, personality, and social learn-
ing as they relate to prosocial behavior. The reciprocity involved in seek-
ing and giving help is also discussed. The book is intended for upper-level
undergraduate and graduate students.
Staub, Ervin, Daniel Bar-Tal, Jerzy Karylowski, and Janusz Reykowski, eds.
Development and Maintenance of Prosocial Behavior: International Perspectives
on Positive Morality. New York: Plenum Press, 1984. This set of twenty-four
chapters from various researchers focuses not only on helping but also on
other positive behaviors such as cooperation, generosity, and kindness.
Covers a range of topics, from developmental aspects of prosocial behav-
ior to the effects of help seeking and help receiving to applications of
knowledge about helping behavior. A unique aspect of this book is its
consideration of research done in many different countries.
Tiffany A. Ito and Norman Miller; updated by Tanja Bekhuis
See also: Aggression; Crowd Behavior; Moral Development.
385
Homosexuality
Fields of study: Attitudes and behavior; interpersonal relations; physical
motives
Sexuality is one of the most complex and individual attributes of the human psyche.
There are four types of theories with regard to the development of sexual orientation,
but none seems sufficient to explain the huge diversity to be found in sexual expression
across ages and cultures.
Key concepts
• androgyny
• gay
• homophobia
• homosexual
• lesbian
• pedophile
• transsexual
• transvestite
Theories on the origin and development of homosexual orientation can be

categorized into four groups: psychoanalytic, biological, social learning, and
sociobiological theories. Psychoanalytic theories are based on the Freudian
model of psychosexual stages of development, developed by Austrian psy-
chiatrist Sigmund Freud. According to this model, every child goes through
several stages, including the “phallic stage,” during which he or she learns to
identify with his or her same-sex parent. For boys, this is supposed to be par-
ticularly difficult, as it requires redefining the strong bond that they have
had with their mother since birth. According to Freudian theorists, homo-
sexuality is an outcome of the failure to resolve this developmental crisis: If a
boy’s father is absent or “weak” and his mother is domineering or overpro-
tective, the boy may never come to identify with his father; for a girl, having a
“cold” or rejecting mother could prevent her from identifying with the fe-
male role.
Theoretical Models
Research has found that homosexuals are, in fact, more likely to feel an in-
ability to relate to their same-sex parent than are heterosexuals and to re-
port that the same-sex parent was “cold” or “distant” during their childhood.
Some studies have suggested, however, that this psychological distance be-
tween parent and offspring is found mostly in families with children who
show cross-gender behaviors when very young and that the distancing is
more likely to be a result of preexisting differences in the child than a cause
of later differences.
386
Homosexuality
Biological theories have suggested that homosexuality is genetic, a result

of hormone levels different from those found in heterosexuals, or is a result
of prenatal maternal effects on the developing fetus. Although there may be
genes that predispose a person to become homosexual under certain cir-
cumstances, no specific genes for homosexuality have been identified. Simi-
larly, there are no consistent differences between levels of hormones in
homosexual and heterosexual adults. The possibility remains that subtle
fluctuations of hormones during critical periods of fetal development may
influence brain structures which regulate sexual arousal and attraction.
Social-learning models suggest that homosexual orientation develops as
a response to pleasurable homosexual experiences during childhood and
adolescence, perhaps coupled with unpleasant heterosexual experiences.
Many boys have homosexual experiences as part of their normal sexual ex-
perimentation while growing up. According to the model, some boys will
find these experiences more pleasurable or successful than their experi-
ments with heterosexuality and will continue to seek homosexual interac-
tions. Why only certain boys find their homosexual experiences more plea-
surable than their heterosexual experiences could be related to a variety of
factors, including the child’s age, family dynamics, social skills, and person-
ality. Young girls are less likely to have early homosexual experiences but
may be “turned off” from heterosexuality by experiences such as rape,
abuse, or assault.
Sociobiological models are all based on the assumption that common be-
haviors must have evolved because they were somehow beneficial, or related
to something beneficial, which helped the individuals who performed them
to pass their genes to the next generation. From this perspective, homosexu-
ality seems incongruous, but because it is so common, researchers have
tried to find out how homosexual behavior might, in fact, increase a per-
son’s ability to pass on genes to subsequent generations. Theorists have
come up with three possible explanations—the parental manipulation
model, the kin selection model, and the by-product model.
The parental manipulation model suggests that homosexuals do not di-
rectly pass on more of their genes than heterosexuals but that their parents
do. According to this model, parents subconsciously manipulate their
child’s development to make him or her less likely to start a family; in this
way, the adult child is able to contribute time, energy, and income to broth-
ers, sisters, nieces, and nephews. In the end, the parents have “sacrificed”
one child’s reproduction in exchange for more grandchildren—or, at least,
for more indulged, more evolutionarily competitive grandchildren.
The kin selection model is similar, but in it, the homosexual individual is
not manipulated but sacrifices his or her own reproduction willingly (al-
though subconsciously) in exchange for more nieces and nephews (that is,
more relatives’ genes in subsequent generations). According to this model,
individuals who are willing to make this sacrifice (no matter how subcon-
scious) are either those who are not likely to be very successful in heterosex-
387
Psychology Basics
ual interactions (and are thus not actually making much of a sacrifice) or
those who have a particular attribute that makes them especially good at
helping their families. As an analogy, theorists point out how, through much
of human history, reproductive sacrifice in the form of joining a religious or-
der often provided income, protection, or status for other family members.
The by-product model suggests that homosexuality is an inevitable out-
come of evolved sex differences. According to this model, the facts that,
overall, men have a higher sex drive than women and that, historically, many
societies have allowed polygyny (where one man has more than one wife)
will result in many unmated males who still have an urge to satisfy their high
sex drive. Thus, men will become (or will at least act) homosexual when
male partners are easier to find than female partners. This model is the one
most likely to explain “facultative homosexuality,” that is, homosexual be-
havior by people who consider themselves basically heterosexual.
Social Contexts
Prior to the gay liberation movement of the 1970’s, homosexuality was classi-
fied as a mental disorder. In the 1970’s, however, when psychiatrists were re-
vising the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Man-
ual of Mental Disorders (DSM), they removed homosexuality from the list of
illnesses. The third edition of the manual (DSM-III), published in 1980, re-
flected this change. Homosexuality is not associated with disordered think-
ing or impaired abilities in any way. Therefore, counseling or therapy for the
purpose of changing sexual orientation is not recommended. Even when
sought, such therapy is rarely successful. On the other hand, many gays, es-
pecially adolescents, find benefit from counseling in order to find informa-
tion, support, and ways to cope with their sexuality.
For men, sexual orientation seems to be fixed at an early age; most gay
men feel that they were always homosexual, just as most heterosexual men
feel they were always heterosexual. In women, however, sexual orientation is
less likely to be fixed early; some women change from a heterosexual to ho-
mosexual orientation (or vice versa) in adulthood. In such cases, sexual ori-
entation is better seen as a choice than as an acting out of something preex-
isting in the psyche, and often such changes are made after a woman has left
an unhealthy or abusive relationship or has experienced some other sort of
emotional or psychological awakening that changes her outlook on life. In
these cases, counseling for the sake of changing sexual orientation per se is
not recommended, but it may be appropriate for the woman to seek help
dealing with the other changes or events in her life. Most women in this cir-
cumstance find that a same-sex, even lesbian, therapist is most helpful, be-
cause she will be likely to empathize with her client.
Many women who change sexual orientation in midlife already have chil-
dren, and many who are lesbian from adolescence choose to have children
by artificial insemination or by having intercourse with a male friend. Often,
such women have found a lack of support for their parenting and sometimes
388
Homosexuality
experience legal problems retaining custody rights of their children. Gay

men, too, have had difficulty retaining parental rights or becoming foster or
adoptive parents.
Psychological research shows, however, that homosexuals are as good at
parenting as heterosexuals and that they are as effective at providing role
models. Homosexuals are more likely than heterosexuals to model an-
drogyny—the expression of both traditionally masculine and traditionally
feminine attributes—for their children. Some research has shown that an
androgynous approach is healthier and more successful in American society
than sticking to traditionally defined roles. For example, sometimes women
need to be assertive on the job or in relationships, whereas traditionally,
men were assertive and women were passive. Similarly, men are less likely to
experience stress-related mental and physical health problems if they learn
to express their emotions, something only women were traditionally sup-
posed to do.
Neither modeling androgyny nor modeling homosexuality is likely to
cause a child to become homosexual, and children raised by homosexual
parents are no more likely to become homosexual than children raised by
heterosexual parents. Similarly, modeling of androgyny or homosexuality
by teachers does not influence the development of homosexuality in chil-
dren and adolescents. Having an openly homosexual teacher may be a stim-
ulus for a gay child to discover and explore his or her sexuality, but it does
not create that sexuality.
Other variations in adult sexual expression, sometimes associated with or
confused with homosexuality, are transvestism and transsexuality. Transves-
tism occurs when a person enjoys or is sexually excited by dressing as a mem-
ber of the opposite sex. Some gay men enjoy cross-dressing, and others en-
joy acting feminine. The majority of homosexuals, however, do not do
either; most transvestites are heterosexual. Transsexuality is different from
both homosexuality and transvestism; it is categorized by a feeling that one
is trapped in a body of the wrong sex. Transsexuality, unlike homosexuality
or transvestism, is considered a mental disorder; it is officially a form of gen-
der dysphoria—gender confusion. Transsexuals may feel as though they are
engaging in homosexual activity if they have sexual relations with a member
of the opposite sex. Some transsexuals decide to cross-dress and live as a
member of the opposite sex. They may have hormone treatments or surgery
to change legally into a member of the opposite sex. Transsexuality, unlike
homosexuality or transvestism, is very rare.
The Homosexual Spectrum

The word “homosexual” is usually used in everyday language as a noun, re-
ferring to someone who is sexually attracted to, and has sexual relations
with, members of the same sex. As a noun, however, the word is misleading,
because few people who call themselves homosexual have never engaged in
heterosexual activity. Similarly, many people who call themselves heterosex-
389
Psychology Basics
ual have at some time engaged in some sort of homosexual activity. There-
fore, many sex researchers (sexologists) use a seven-point scale first devised
for the Alfred Kinsey surveys in the 1940’s, ranging from 0 (exclusively het-
erosexual) to 6 (exclusively homosexual). Others prefer to use the words
“heterosexual” and “homosexual” as adjectives describing behaviors rather
than as nouns.
Homosexual behavior has been documented in every society that sexolo-
gists have studied; in many societies it has been institutionalized. For exam-
ple, the ancient Greeks believed that women were spiritually beneath men
and that male-male love was the highest form of the emotion. In Melanesian
societies, homosexual activity was thought to be necessary in order for
young boys to mature into virile, heterosexual adults. Homosexuality as an
overall preference or orientation is harder to study, but it is thought that be-
tween 5 percent and 10 percent of adult males, and between 2 percent and 4
percent of females, have a predominantly homosexual orientation.
Negative Cultural Stereotypes

In Western, Judeo-Christian culture, homosexual behavior has long been
considered taboo or sinful. Thus, in the United States and other predomi-
nantly Christian cultures, homosexuality has been frowned upon, and ho-
mosexuals have been ostracized, being seen as perverted, unnatural, or sick.
In 1974, however, the American Psychiatric Association determined that ho-
mosexuality was not indicative of mental illness. In contrast to early twenti-
eth century studies of homosexuals who were either psychiatric patients or
prison inmates, later studies of a representative cross-section of people
showed that individuals with a homosexual orientation are no more likely to
suffer from mental illness than those with a heterosexual orientation.
In spite of these scientific data, many heterosexuals (especially men) still
harbor negative feelings about homosexuality. This phenomenon is called
homophobia. Some of this fear, disgust, and hatred is attributable to the in-
correct belief that many homosexuals are child molesters. In fact, more than
90 percent of pedophiles are heterosexual. Another source of homophobia
is the fear of acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS). This deadly,
sexually transmitted disease is more easily transmitted through anal inter-
course than through vaginal intercourse and thus has spread more rapidly
among homosexuals than heterosexuals. Education about safe sex prac-
tices, however, has dramatically reduced transmission rates in homosexual
communities.
Sexologists have not been able to avoid the political controversies sur-
rounding their field, making the study of a difficult subject even harder. Re-
search will continue, but no one should expect fast and simple explanations.
Sexuality, perhaps more than any other attribute of the human psyche, is
personal and individual. Questions about sexual orientation, sexual devel-
opment, and sexual behavior are all complex; it will take a long time to un-
ravel the answers.
390
Homosexuality

Baird, Vanessa. The No-Nonsense Guide to Sexual Diversity. New York: Verso,
2001. A wide-ranging survey of cultural attitudes toward homosexuality
throughout the world and over time. Provides a country-by-country sur-
vey of laws concerning homosexuality and addresses the rise in opposi-
tion to sexual nonconformism among religious fundamentalists of all
stripes.
Bell, Alan P., and Martin Weinberg. Homosexualities: A Study of Diversity Among
Men and Women. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1978. This official Kinsey
Institute publication presents the methods and results of the most ex-
tensive sex survey to focus specifically on homosexual behavior. Pre-
sents descriptions of homosexual feelings, partnerships, and lifestyles,
based on intensive interviews with more than fifteen hundred men and
women.
Brookey, Robert Alan. Reinventing the Male Homosexual: The Rhetoric and Power
of the Gay Gene. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2002. Discusses re-
cent attempts to identify a genetic component to sexual orientation and
the cultural effect of such research on gay identity.
Dean, Tim, and Christopher Lane, eds. Homosexuality and Psychoanalysis.
Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2001. Reviews the often conflicted
relationship between psychoanalytic theory and homosexuality. Covers
the attitudes toward homosexuality found in the writings of Sigmund
Freud, Melanie Klein, Wilhelm Reich, Jacques Lacan, and Michel Fou-
cault, among others.
Garnets, Linda, and Douglas C. Kimmel, eds. Psychological Perspectives on Les-
bian and Gay Male Experiences. New York: Columbia University Press, 1993.
A collection of essays focusing on gay identity development, gender dif-
ferences, ethnic and racial variation, long-term relationships, adult devel-
opment, and aging.
Koertge, Noretta, ed. Nature and Causes of Homosexuality: A Philosophic and Sci-
entific Inquiry. New York: Haworth Press, 1982. This volume is the third in
an ongoing monograph series titled Research on Homosexuality, each
volume of which was originally published as an issue of the Journal of Ho-
mosexuality. All volumes are valuable, although somewhat technical. This
one is a good place to start; others cover law, psychotherapy, literature, al-
coholism, anthropology, historical perspectives, social sex roles, bisexual-
ity, and homophobia.
Tripp, C. A. The Homosexual Matrix. 2d ed. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1987. For
those who want to read for pleasure as well as for information. Tripp cov-
ers fact, culture, and mythology, both historical and modern. A good rep-
resentative of the “gay liberation” era books on homosexuality, most of
the text is as valid as when it was written (though it clearly does not cover
post-AIDS changes in homosexual culture and behavior).
Whitham, Frederick L. “Culturally Invariable Properties of Male Homosexu-
ality: Tentative Conclusions from Cross-Cultural Research.” Archives of
391
Psychology Basics
Sexual Behavior 12 (1983): 40. Unlike much of the cross-cultural literature

on homosexuality, this article focuses specifically on cross-cultural preva-
lence and attributes of those with a homosexual orientation, rather than
on the institutionalized and ritual forms of homosexual behavior found
in many non-Western cultures.
Linda Mealey
See also: Adolescence: Sexuality; Attraction Theories; Gender-Identity For-

mation; Sexual Variants and Paraphilias.
392
Hormones and Behavior
Fields of study: Auditory, chemical, cutaneous, and body senses;
endocrine system
Hormones are chemical messengers, usually of protein or steroid content, that are pro-
duced in certain body tissues and that target specific genes in the cells of other body tis-
sues, thereby affecting the development and function of these tissues and the entire or-
ganism. By exerting their influences on various parts of the body, hormones can affect
behavior.
Key concepts
• endocrine gland
• hormone
• human growth hormone (HGH)
• hypothalamus
• melatonin
• oxytocin
• pheromone
• pituitary
• steroid
• vasopressin
Cell-to-cell communication among the trillions of cells that make up multi-

cellular animals relies primarily upon the specialized tissues of the nervous
and endocrine systems. These two systems are intricately connected, with
the former having evolved from the latter during the past five hundred mil-
lion years of animal life. The endocrine system consists of specialized duct-
less glands located throughout the animal body that produce and secrete
hormones directly into the bloodstream. Hormones are chemical messen-
gers that usually are composed of protein or steroid subunits. The blood-
stream transports the hormones to various target body tissues, where the
hormones contact cell membranes and trigger a sequence of enzyme reac-
tions which ultimately result in the activation or inactivation of genes lo-
cated on chromosomes in the cell nucleus.
A gene is a segment of a chromosome that is composed of deoxyribo-
nucleic acid (DNA). The DNA nucleotide sequence of the gene encodes a
molecule of messenger ribonucleic acid (mRNA) which, in turn, encodes a
specific protein for the given gene. If the control sequence of a gene is acti-
vated, then ribonucleic acid (RNA) and protein will be produced. If the con-
trol sequence of a gene is inactivated, then RNA and protein will not be pro-
duced. Hormones target the genes in specific cells to start or stop the
manufacture of certain proteins. Within cells and the entire organism, pro-
teins perform important functions. Therefore, hormones control the pro-
393
Psychology Basics
duction of proteins by genes and, as a result, control many activities of the

entire animal.
The nervous system, which in vertebrate animals has evolved to become
more elaborate than the endocrine system, consists of billions of neurons
(nerve cells) that conduct electrical impulses throughout the body. Neu-
rons transmit information, contract and relax muscles, and detect pres-
sures, temperature, and pain. Neuron networks are most dense in the brain
(where there are one hundred billion neurons) and spinal cord, where
much of the electrical information is centralized, relayed, and analyzed.
Neurons must communicate electrical information across the gaps, or syn-
apses, which separate them. To accomplish this goal, the transmitting neu-
ron releases hormones called neurotransmitters, which diffuse across the
synapse to the receiving neuron, thereby instructing the receiving neuron
to continue or stop the conduction of the electrical message. There are
many different types of neurotransmitters, just as there are many different
types of regular hormones.
Nervous System-Endocrine System Interactions

The link between the nervous and endocrine systems lies in two glands lo-
cated between the cerebrum and the brain stem, the hypothalamus and the
hypophysis (the pituitary gland). Electrical impulses from neurons in the
cerebral cortex may activate the hypothalamus to release hormones that ac-
tivate the hypophysis to release its hormones, which in turn activate or inac-
tivate other endocrine glands throughout the body. These glands include
the thyroid, parathyroids, thymus, pancreas, adrenals, and reproductive or-
gans. This entire system operates by negative feedback homeostasis so that,
once information is transferred and specific bodily functions are achieved,
nervous or hormonal signals travel back to the hypothalamus to terminate
any further action.
Animal behavior occurs as a result of the actions of the nervous and endo-
crine systems. There is a complex interplay among these two body systems,
the environment, and an individual’s genetic makeup in terms of the cause-
and-effect, stimulus-response events that constitute behavior. An animal re-
ceives external information via its special senses (eyes, ears, nose, mouth)
and somatic sense organs (touch, pain, temperature, pressure). This exter-
nal information travels along sensory neurons toward the brain and spinal
cord, where the information is analyzed and a motor response to the exter-
nal stimulus is initiated. Some of these motor responses will be directed to-
ward the sense organs, locomotory muscles, and organs such as the heart
and intestines. Other impulses will be directed toward the hypothalamus,
which controls body cycles such as all endocrine system hormones, heart
rate, sleep-wake cycles, and hunger.
When the hypothalamus releases the hormone corticoliberin, the pitu-
itary gland (the hypophysis) releases the hormones thyrotropin (which acti-
vates the thyroid gland), prolactin (which stimulates milk production in the
394
female breast), and growth hormone (which triggers growth in children

and metabolic changes in adults). When the thyroid gland is activated, hor-
mones such as thyroxine and triiodothyronine are released to accelerate cel-
lular metabolism, an event which may occur in certain situations such as
stress or fight-or-flight encounters.
If the pituitary gland releases adrenocorticotropic hormone (ACTH),
the adrenal glands will be activated to release their hormones. The adrenal
cortex produces and secretes a variety of hormones, such as aldosterone,
which regulates the blood-salt balance directly and blood pressure indi-
rectly; cortisol, which accelerates body metabolism; and androgens, or sex
hormones. All of these are steroid hormones, which are involved in rapidly
preparing the body for strenuous performance. Even more pronounced are
the effects of the adrenal medulla, which produces and secretes the hor-
mone neurotransmitters epinephrine and norepinephrine; these two hor-
mones accelerate heart, muscle, and nerve action as well as stimulate the re-
lease of fat and sugar into the bloodstream for quick energy, all of which are
extremely important for spontaneous activity such as fighting with or fleeing
from enemies. The control of sugar storage and release from the liver by the
pancreatic hormones insulin and glucagon also are important in this pro-
cess.
The Effects of Hormones on Behavior

The study of hormones and their effects upon individual and group behav-
iors is of immense interest to psychologists. Hormones represent the bio-
chemical control signals for much of animal and human behaviors. Under-
standing precisely how hormones affect individuals, both psychologically
and physiologically, could be of great value in comprehending many differ-
ent human behaviors, in treating abnormal behaviors, and in helping indi-
viduals to cope psychologically with disease and stress. The hormonal con-
trol of behavior in humans and in many other animal species has been
extensively studied, although much research remains to be performed.
Hormones have been clearly linked to reproductive behavior, sex-specific
behavioral characteristics, territoriality and mating behaviors, physiological
responses to certain external stimuli, and stress.
The pineal gland, located in the posterior cerebrum, releases the hor-
mone melatonin, which regulates the body’s circadian rhythms and possibly
its sexual cycles as well. Melatonin is normally synthesized and secreted be-
ginning shortly after dusk throughout the night and ending around dawn. It
thus corresponds with the individual’s normal sleep-wake cycle. Melatonin
may play an important role in humans adapting to shift work. It is promoted
as a nutritional supplement to help people get a good night’s sleep.
Hormones and Reproduction

The most extensive research involving hormonal effects on behavior has been
conducted on reproductive behavior. Among the most powerful behavior-
395
Psychology Basics
Hormones control a variety of behaviors in humans and animals, such as maternal imprint-
ing. (Digital Stock)
influencing hormones are the pituitary gonadotropins luteinizing hor-

mone (LH) and follicle-stimulating hormone (FSH). These two hormones
target the reproductive organs of both males and females and stimulate
these organs to initiate sexual development and the production of sexual
steroid hormones—estrogen and progesterone in females, testosterone in
males. These sex hormones are responsible not only for the maturation of
the reproductive organs but also for secondary sexual characteristics such as
male aggression and female nesting behavior.
Reproductive patterns vary from species to species in occurrence, repeti-
tion of occurrence, and behaviors associated with courtship, mating, and
caring for young. The achievement of reproductive maturity and reproduc-
tive readiness in a given species is subject to that species’ circadian rhythm, a
phenomenon regulated by hormones released from the hypothalamus,
hypophysis, and pineal gland. These three endocrine glands are influenced
primarily by the earth’s twenty-four-hour rotation period and the twenty-
eight-day lunar cycle. Furthermore, genetically programmed hormonal
changes at specific times during one’s life cycle also play a major role in the
occurrence of reproductive behaviors.
In female vertebratesm, LH, FSH, and estrogen are responsible for the
maturation of the ovaries, the completion of meiosis (chromosome halving)
and the release of eggs for fertilization, and secondary sexual characteris-
tics. The secondary sexual characteristics involve physiological and closely
related behavioral changes. In bird species, these changes include the con-
396
struction of a nest and receptivity to dominant males during courtship ritu-

als. In mammals, these same hormones are involved in female receptivity to
dominant males during courtship. Physiological changes in mammals in-
clude the deposition of fat in various body regions, such as the breasts and
buttocks, and increased vascularization (more blood vessel growth) in the
skin. Females of most mammal and bird species go into heat, or estrus, one
or several times per year, based on hormonally regulated changes in repro-
ductive organs. Human females follow a lunar menstrual cycle in which LH,
FSH, estrogen, and progesterone oscillate in production rates. These hor-
monal variations influence female body temperature and behavior accord-
ingly.
Male sexual behavior is controlled predominantly by testosterone pro-
duced in the testicles and male androgens produced in the adrenal cortex.
These steroid hormones cause muscle buildup, increased hair, and aggres-
sive behavior. As a consequence, such steroids are often used (illegally) by
athletes to improve their performance. In a number of mammal and bird
species, elevation of sex steroids causes increased coloration, which serves
both as an attractant for females and as an antagonistic signal to competitor
males. The aggressive behavior that is stimulated by the male sex steroid
hormones thus plays a dual role in courtship and mating rituals and in terri-
torial behavior, phenomena which are tightly linked in determining the bio-
logical success of the individual.
Pheromones are hormones released from the reproductive organs and
skin glands. These hormones target the sense organs of other individuals
and affect the behavior of these individuals. Sex pheromones, for example,
attract males to females and vice versa. Other pheromones enable a male to
mark his territory and to detect the intrusion of competitor males into his
territory. Others enable an infant to imprint upon its mother. Such hor-
mones number in the hundreds, but only a few dozen have been studied in
detail. Pheromones released by males serve as territorial markers, as is evi-
denced by most mammalian males spraying urine on objects in their own
territory. Exchanges of pheromones between males and females are impor-
tant stimulants for courtship and mating. In some species, the release of
pheromones—or even the sight of a potential mate—will trigger hormo-
nally controlled ovulation in the female. Furthermore, in several species,
such as elephant seals and lions, the takeover of a harem by a new dominant
male, a process that usually involves the killer of the previous male’s off-
spring, stimulates the harem females to ovulate. The diversity of reproduc-
tive behaviors that is regulated by hormones seems to be almost as great as
the number of species.
Hormones and Stress

The fight-or-flight response is a hormonally controlled situation in which
the body must pool all of its available resources within a relatively short time
span. The detection of danger by any of the special senses (sight, smell,
397
Psychology Basics
hearing) triggers the hypothalamus to activate the pituitary gland to release

adrenocorticotropic hormone, which causes the adrenal gland to release its
highly motivating hormones and neurotransmitters. Many body systems are
subsequently affected, especially the heart and circulatory system, the cen-
tral nervous system, the digestive system, and even the immune system. One
reason the fight-or-flight response is of major interest to psychologists is its
link to stress.
Stress is overexcitation of the nervous and endocrine systems. It is caused
by the body’s repeated exposure to danger, excessive physical exertion, or
environmental pressures that affect the individual psychologically. Stress is a
major problem for humans in a fast-paced technological society. The physio-
logical and behavioral manifestations of stress are very evident. There is con-
siderable evidence that stress is associated with heart disease, cancer, weak-
ened immune systems, asthma, allergies, accelerated aging, susceptibility to
infections, learning disorders, behavioral abnormalities, insanity, and vio-
lent crime.
The demands that are placed upon individuals in fast-paced, overpopu-
lated societies are so great that many people exhibit a near-continuous fight-
or-flight response. This response, in which the body prepares for maximum
physical exertion in a short time span, is the physiological basis of stress. It is
not intended to be maintained for long periods of time; if it is not relieved,
irreparable effects begin to accumulate throughout the body, particularly
within the nervous system. Medical psychologists seek to understand the hor-
monal basis of physiological stress in order to treat stress-prone individuals.
Hormones and Aging

Another hormone that greatly influences human behavior and develop-
ment is human growth hormone (HGH). This hormone is produced by the
anterior pituitary (adenohypophysis) gland under the control of the hypo-
thalamus. HGH production peaks during adolescence, corresponding to
the growth spurt. While it is produced throughout life, it declines with age
in all species studied to date. In humans, HGH production tends to drop
quickly beginning in the thirties so that by age sixty, HGH production is only
about 25 percent of what it was earlier in life, and it continues to decline un-
til death. The decrease in HGH production with age has been tied to thin-
ning of skin and wrinkle formation, muscle wasting, sleep problems, cogni-
tive and mood changes, decreased cardiac and kidney function, lessening of
sexual performance, and weakening of bones, contributing to osteoporosis.
Nutritional supplements including the amino acids arginine, lysine, and
glutamine are being investigated as growth hormone releasers, thought to
decrease signs of aging. Their use remains controversial.
Hormone Treatment of Health Problems

The ultimate goals of hormone studies are to arrive at an understanding of
the physiological basis of behavior and to develop treatments for behavioral
398
abnormalities. Synthetic hormones can be manufactured in the laboratory.

Their mass production could provide solutions to many psychological prob-
lems such as stress, deviant behavior, and sexual dysfunction. Synthetic hor-
mones already are being used as birth control mechanisms aimed at fooling
the female body’s reproductive hormonal systems.
Ongoing research focuses on the importance of many hormones, espe-
cially on understanding their functions and how they might be used in the
treatment of common disorders. Two hormones produced by the hypothal-
amus and released by the posterior pituitary (neurohypophysis) gland are
vasopressin (antidiuretic hormone) and oxytocin. Vasopressin keeps the
kidneys from losing too much water and helps maintain the body’s fluid bal-
ance. Variants of vasopressin which decrease blood pressure, identified by
Maurice Manning, may lead to a new class of drugs to control high blood
pressure. Oxytocin induces labor by causing uterine contractions and also
promotes the production of milk for breastfeeding. Manning and Walter
Chan are working to develop oxytocin receptor antagonists that may be
used to prevent premature births.
The Past, Present, and Future of Hormones

The activities of all living organisms are functionally dependent upon the
biochemical reactions that make up life itself. Since the evolution of the first
eukaryotic cells more than one billion years ago, hormones have been uti-
lized in cell-to-cell communication. In vertebrate animals (fish, amphibians,
reptiles, birds, and mammals), endocrine systems have evolved into highly
complicated nervous systems. These nervous systems are even evident in the
invertebrate arthropods (crustaceans, spiders, and so on), especially among
the social insects, such as ants. The endocrine and nervous systems are intri-
cately interconnected in the control of animal physiology and behavior.
Psychologists are interested in the chemical basis of human behavior and
therefore are interested in human and mammalian hormones. Such hor-
mones control a variety of behaviors, such as maternal imprinting (in which
an infant and mother bond to each other), courtship and mating, territori-
ality, and physiological responses to stress and danger. Animal behaviorists
and psychologists study the connection between hormones and behavior in
humans, primates, and other closely related mammalian species. They iden-
tify similarities in behaviors and hormones among a variety of species. They
also recognize the occurrence of abnormal behaviors, such as antisocial be-
havior and sexual deviance, and possible hormonal imbalances that contrib-
ute to these behavioral anomalies.
While the biochemistry of hormones and their effects upon various be-
haviors have been established in considerable detail, numerous behaviors
that are probably under hormonal influence have yet to be critically ana-
lyzed. Among them are many subtle pheromones that affect a person’s inter-
actions with other people, imprinting pheromones that trigger attraction
and bonding between individuals, and hormones that link together a variety
399
Psychology Basics
of bodily functions. These hormones may number in the hundreds, and

they represent a challenging avenue for further research. Unraveling the re-
lationships between hormones and behavior can enable researchers to gain
a greater understanding of the human mind and its link to the rest of the
body and to other individuals. These studies offer potential treatments for
behavioral abnormalities and for mental disturbances created by the physio-
logically disruptive effects of drug use, a major problem in American society.
They also offer great promise in the alleviation of stress, another major so-
cial and medical problem.

Campbell, Neil A., Jane B. Reece, and Laurence G. Mitchell. Biology. 6th ed.
San Francisco: Benjamin Cummings, 2002. This introductory biology
text presents an exhaustive overview of biology. Unit 7, dealing with ani-
mal form and function, gives an overview of the endocrine system, along
with a discussion of its effects on reproduction, development, and behav-
ior.
James, Vivian, ed. “Hormones and Sport Symposium.” Journal of Endocrinol-
ogy 170 (2001). This special issue is devoted to the effects of hormones on
sporting activity. The coverage within the issue focuses on the role of hor-
mones in sports as well as the problems in attempting to eliminate poten-
tially problematic drug abuse by athletes.
Manning, Aubrey. An Introduction to Animal Behavior. 4th ed. Reading, Mass.:
Addison-Wesley, 1992. This concise, thorough survey of animal behavior
theory and research employs hundreds of experimental studies to de-
scribe major aspects of the subject. Chapter 2, “The Development of Be-
havior,” discusses the roles of hormones in animal development and so-
cial behavior. Chapter 4, “Motivation,” is an extensive study of animal
drives and motivations as influenced by hormones, pheromones, and en-
vironmental stimuli.
Martini, Frederic H., E. F. Bartholomew, and K. Welch. The Human Body in
Health and Disease. Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 2000. This
college-level text outlines the structure and function of the endocrine sys-
tem and demonstrates its interrelationship with the nervous system and
its effects on behavior. Well-written and illustrated.
Nelson, Randy J. An Introduction to Behavioral Endocrinology. 2d ed. Sunder-
land, Mass.: Sinauer Associates, 2000. This text covers hormones and be-
havior in historical perspective, knowledge in cell and molecular biology
and behavior, present and future research in the field.
Hill, 2002. An introductory survey of biology for the beginning stu-
dent. It contains beautiful illustrations and photographs. Describes the
endocrine systems of human and mammals, the major hormones pro-
duced by each endocrine gland, and the effects of these hormones upon
the body.
400
Sherwood, Lauralee. Human Physiology: From Cells to Systems. 5th ed. Bel-
mont, Calif.: Thomson/Brooks/Cole, 2004. This college physiology text
outlines the functioning of the endocrine glands and the hormones that
they produce. Two chapters focus on endocrinology, highlighting the ef-
fects of hormones on behavior.
Wallace, Robert A., Gerald P. Sanders, and Robert J. Ferl. Biology: The Science
of Life. 4th ed. New York: HarperCollins, 1999. This introduction to biol-
ogy for the beginning student exhausts the subject, but it does so by pro-
viding a wealth of information, constructive diagrams, and beautiful pho-
tographs dealing with human hormones and their effects upon the body.
David Wason Hollar, Jr.; updated by Robin Kamienny Montvilo
See also: Emotions; Endocrine System; Nervous System; Stress.
401
Humanistic Trait Models
Gordon Allport
Fields of study: Humanistic-phenomenological models; personality
theory
Allport’s humanistic trait model explains how a person’s unique personal characteris-
tics provide a pattern and direction to personality. It reveals the limitations of psycho-
logical theories that focus only on general rules of human behavior and provides in-
sight into how to conduct in-depth study of individual dispositions.
Key concepts
• cardinal disposition
• central dispositions
• common traits
• functional autonomy
• idiographic or morphogenic study
• nomothetic study
• personal dispositions
• proprium
• secondary dispositions
The humanistic trait model of Gordon Allport (1897-1967) was based on his
profound belief in the uniqueness of every personality, as well as his convic-
tion that individuality is displayed through dominant personal characteris-
tics that provide continuity and direction in a person’s life. He saw personal-
ity as dynamic, growing, changing, and based on one’s perception of the
world. Like other humanists, Allport believed that people are essentially
proactive, or forward moving; they are motivated by the future and seek ten-
sion and change rather than sameness. In addition, each individual pos-
sesses a set of personal dispositions that define the person and provide a pat-
tern to behavior.
Allport’s approach is different from those of other trait theorists who
have typically sought to categorize personalities according to a basic set of
universal, essential characteristics. Allport referred to such characteristics as
common traits. Instead of focusing on common traits that allow for compar-
isons among many people, Allport believed that each person is defined by a
different set of characteristics. Based on his research, he estimated that
there are four thousand to five thousand traits and eighteen thousand trait
names.
Functional Autonomy and Personal Dispositions

Most personality theorists view adulthood as an extension of the basic mo-
tives present in childhood. Consistent with his belief that personality is
402
Humanistic Trait Models: Gordon Allport
always evolving, Allport believed that the motivations of adulthood are of-
ten independent of the motivations of childhood, and he referred to this
concept as functional autonomy. For example, a person who plays a musi-
cal instrument during childhood years because of parental pressure may
play the same instrument for relaxation or enjoyment as an adult. Although
not all motives are functionally autonomous, many adult activities repre-
sent a break from childhood and are based on varied and self-sustaining mo-
tives.
According to this perspective, personality is based on concrete human
motives that are represented by personal traits or dispositions. Human traits
are seen as guiding human behavior, but they must also account for wide
variability within a person’s conduct from situation to situation. As a result,
Allport distinguished between different types and levels of traits or disposi-
tions. Common traits represent those elements of personality that are useful
for comparing most people within a specific culture, but they cannot pro-
vide a complete profile of any individual person. In contrast, personal dispo-
sitions represent the true personality, are unique to the person, and repre-
sent subtle differences among persons.
Three kinds of personal dispositions exist: cardinal dispositions, central
dispositions, and secondary dispositions. When a person’s life is dominated
by a single, fundamental, outstanding characteristic, the quality is referred
to as a cardinal disposition. For example, Adolf Hitler’s cruelty and Ma-
hatma Ghandhi’s pacifism are examples of cardinal dispositions. Central
dispositions represent the five to ten important qualities of a person that
would typically be discussed and described in a thorough letter of recom-
mendation. Finally, secondary dispositions are characteristics that are more
numerous, less consistently displayed, and less important than central dis-
positions.
Three Aspects of the Proprium

Allport referred to the unifying core of personality, or those aspects of the
self that a person considers central to self-identity, as the proprium. During
the first three to four years of life, three aspects of the proprium emerge.
The sense of a bodily self involves awareness of body sensations. Self-identity
represents the child’s knowledge of an inner sameness or continuity over
time, and self-esteem reflects personal efforts to maintain pride and avoid
embarrassment. Self-extension emerges between the fourth and sixth year
of life; this refers to the child’s concept of that which is “mine,” and it forms
the foundation for later self-extensions such as career and love of country.
The self-image, which also emerges between ages four and six, represents an
awareness of personal goals and abilities as well as the “good” and “bad”
parts of the self. The ability to see the self as a rational, coping being
emerges between ages six and twelve and represents the ability to place
one’s inner needs within the context of outer reality. Propriate striving often
begins in adolescence and focuses on the person’s ability to form long-term
403
Psychology Basics
goals and purposes. Finally, the self as knower represents the subjective self
and one’s ability to reflect on aspects of the proprium.
Idiographic Research
From this humanistic trait framework, human personality can only be fully
understood through the examination of personal characteristics within a
single individual. The emphasis on individuality has significant implications
for the measurement of personality and for research methods in psychology.
Most psychological research deals with standardized measurements and
large numbers of people, and it attempts to make generalizations about
characteristics that people hold in common. Allport referred to this ap-
proach as nomothetic. He contrasted the study of groups and general laws
with idiographic research, or approaches for studying the single person.
Idiographic research, which is sometimes referred to as morphogenic re-
search, includes methods such as autobiographies, interviews, dreams, and
verbatim recordings.
One of Allport’s famous studies of the individual appears in Letters from
Jenny (1965), a description of an older woman’s personality that is based on
the analysis of approximately three hundred letters that she wrote to her son
and his wife. Through the use of personal structure analysis, statistical analy-
sis, and the reactions of various trained judges, Allport and his colleagues
identified eight clusters of characteristics, including the following: artistic,
self-centered, aggressive, and sentimental. Through revealing the central
dispositions of a single individual, this study provided increased insight
about all people. It also demonstrated that objective, scientific practices can
be applied to the study of one person at a time.
Personal Orientations
Allport preferred personality measures designed to examine the pattern of
characteristics that are important to a person and that allow for comparison
of the strengths of specific characteristics within the person rather than with
other persons. The Study of Values (3d ed., 1960), which was developed by
Allport, Philip Vernon, and Gardner Lindzey, measures a person’s prefer-
ence for the six value systems of theoretical, economic, social, political, aes-
thetic, and religious orientations. After rank ordering forty-five items, the
individual receives feedback about the relative importance of the six orien-
tations within himself or herself. Consistent with the emphasis on unique-
ness, the scale does not facilitate comparisons between people. Although
the language of this scale is somewhat outdated, it is still used for value clari-
fication and the exploration of career and lifestyle goals.
Allport’s research also focused on attitudes that are influenced by group
participation, such as religious values and prejudice. Through the study of
churchgoers’ attitudes, he distinguished between extrinsic religion, or a
conventional, self-serving approach, and intrinsic religion, which is based
on internalized beliefs and efforts to act upon religious beliefs. Allport and
404
his colleagues found that extrinsic churchgoers were more prejudiced than
intrinsic religious churchgoers; however, churchgoers who strongly en-
dorsed both extrinsic and intrinsic religion were even more prejudiced than
either extrinsic or intrinsic religious church attenders. Allport also exam-
ined cultural, family, historical, and situational factors that influence preju-
dice.
Amalgamation of Approaches
Allport provided theoretical and research alternatives at a time when a vari-
ety of competing approaches, including humanistic, psychoanalytic, and be-
havioral perspectives, were seeking preeminence in psychology. Allport
found many existing theories to be limiting, overly narrow, and inadequate
for describing the wide variations in human personality. As a result, he pro-
posed an eclectic approach to theory that combined the strengths of various
other perspectives. Instead of emphasizing a single approach, Allport
thought that personality can be both growth-oriented and proactive, as well
as reactive and based on instinctual processes. Through an eclectic ap-
proach, he hoped that the understanding of personality would become
more complete.
Allport was also concerned that many of the existing theories of his time,
especially psychoanalytic theories, virtually ignored the healthy personality.
In contrast to Sigmund Freud, Allport strongly emphasized conscious as-
pects of personality and believed that healthy adults are generally aware of
their motivations. Unlike Freud’s notion that people are motivated to re-
duce the tension of instinctual drives, he believed that people seek the kind
of tension that allows them to grow, develop goals, and act in innovative
ways.
Trait Approaches
Like humanistic theorists Carl Rogers and Abraham Maslow, Allport identi-
fied vital characteristics of mature persons. His list of the characteristics of
mature persons overlaps substantially with Maslow’s enumeration of the
qualities of self-actualizing persons and Rogers’s definition of the “person of
tomorrow.” Allport’s list includes extension of the sense of self (identifying
with events and persons outside oneself), emotional security, realistic per-
ception, insight and humor, and a unifying philosophy of life.
Allport developed his theory at a time when other trait approaches that
were based on nomothetic study were gaining prominence. Whereas All-
port emphasized individual uniqueness, Raymond Cattell identified twenty-
three source traits, or building blocks of personality, and Hans Eysenck
identified three primary dimensions of extroversion, neuroticism, and psy-
choticism. Within the nomothetic tradition, more recent researchers
have reexamined earlier nomothetic trait theories and have identified five
primary common dimensions of personality: surgency (active/dominant
persons versus passive/submissive persons), agreeableness (one’s warmth
405
Psychology Basics
or coldness), conscientiousness (one’s level of responsibility or undependa-

bility), emotional stability (unpredictability versus stability), and culture
(one’s intellectual understanding of the world). Allport would have found
these efforts to identify basic dimensions of personality to have limited use-
fulness for defining and understanding individual personality styles.
Recent criticisms of trait approaches that emphasize universal character-
istics of people indicate that these approaches underestimate the role of sit-
uations and human variability and change across different contexts. Fur-
thermore, those approaches that focus on general traits provide summaries
and demonstrate trends about behavior but do not provide explanations for
behavior.
The awareness that general trait approaches are inadequate for predict-
ing behavior across situations has led to a resurgence of interest in the types
of idiographic research methods proposed by Allport. Approaches to per-
sonality have increasingly acknowledged the complexity of human beings
and the reality that individuals are influenced by a wide array of features that
are often contradictory and inconsistent. Allport’s emphasis on the scien-
tific study of unique aspects of personality provided both the inspiration and
a general method for examining the singular, diverse variables that define
human beings.

Allport, Gordon W. “An Autobiography.” In A History of Psychology in Autobi-
ography, edited by Edwin Garrigues Boring and Gardner Lindzey. Vol. 5.
New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1967. Allport provides an interest-
ing account of his life, including an encounter with Sigmund Freud.
__________. Becoming: Basic Considerations for a Psychology of Personality. Re-
print. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1967. A short, straightfor-
ward, clear statement of Allport’s basic assumptions about personality.
The author attempts to provide the basic foundation for a complete per-
sonality theory and emphasizes the importance of both open-minded-
ness and eclecticism in the study of personality.
__________. Pattern and Growth in Personality. New York: Holt, Rinehart and
Winston, 1967. This textbook is the most complete account of Allport’s
personality theory. It includes extensive descriptions of Allport’s ap-
proach to personality and individuality, personality development, the
structure of the personality, the characteristics of the mature personality,
and methods of personality assessment.
Allport, Gordon W., Philip E. Vernon, and Gardner Lindzey. Study of Values.
3d ed. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1960. A scale that measures a person’s
preference for six value orientations: religious, theoretical, economic,
aesthetic, social, or political values. The personal ordering of these values
provides a framework for reflecting upon and understanding the values
that make up one’s philosophy of life. The language is outdated and
gender-biased, but the book represents one application of Allport’s work.
406
Evans, Richard I. Gordon Allport: The Man and His Ideas. New York: Praeger,
1981. This book is based on a series of dialogues with Allport that focus
on his unique contributions and his vision of the future of personality
psychology. Also includes a discussion and evaluation of Allport’s ideas by
three distinguished psychologists who studied under his direction.
Maddi, Salvatore R., and Paul T. Costa. Humanism in Personology: Allport,
Maslow, and Murray. Chicago: Aldine-Atherton, 1972. This volume com-
pares the work of Allport with the contributions of two other humanistic
personality theorists. Although the theories of these three differ substan-
tially, they share an emphasis on human uniqueness, a faith in human ca-
pabilities, and a view of people as proactive, complex, and oriented to-
ward the future.
Masterson, Jenny (Gove) [pseud.]. Letters from Jenny. Edited and interpreted
by Gordon W. Allport. New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1965. An ex-
ample of idiographic or morphogenic study of the personality. After
studying 301 letters from an older woman to her son and his wife, Allport
grouped her characteristics into eight clusters that correspond to the
number of central dispositions that he proposed make important ele-
ments of personality.
Peterson, Christopher. Personality. 2d ed. San Diego, Calif.: International
Thomson, 1992. This text on personality contains three chapters that
summarize, compare, and evaluate various trait approaches along the fol-
lowing dimensions: theory, research, and applications. Describes major
criticisms of trait approaches and discusses the practical implications of
trait theories.
Carolyn Zerbe Enns
See also: Psychoanalytic Psychology and Personality: Sigmund Freud.
407
Hunger
Field of study: Physical motives
The psychological bases of hunger play an important role in the external and internal
mediating forces that can affect and modify the physiological aspects of hunger.
Key concepts
• appetite
• bingeing
• deprivation
• eating disorders
• external cues
• homeostasis
• hypothalamus
• primary motives
• satiety
• set point
Primary motives are generated by innate biological needs that must be met
for survival. These motives include hunger, thirst, and sleep. Hunger has
been studied extensively, yet there is still uncertainty as to exactly how this
drive works. A large body of research about the physiological analysis of hun-
ger has led to the identification of important differences between physical
hunger and psychological hunger.
Physical hunger theories assume that the body’s physiological mecha-
nisms and systems produce hunger as a need and that when this need is satis-
fied, the hunger drive is, for the time being, reduced. Psychologists have de-
veloped models and theories of hunger by analyzing its boundaries and
restraint or regulation. The early findings on hunger regulation mecha-
nisms emphasized the biological state of the individual and the control of an
individual over the hunger drive. If a person experiences hunger, consump-
tion of food will continue until it is terminated by internal cues. This is re-
ferred to as regulation.
The individual learns to avoid hunger by reacting to the internal cues of
satiety or fullness. The satiety boundary is characterized by feelings of full-
ness ranging from satisfaction to uncomfortable bloating. The normal eater
learns to avoid transgression far or often into this latter zone. Beyond the re-
action to internal cues is a zone of indifference, in which the body is not sub-
ject to biological cues. Instead, hunger is influenced by social, cognitive, and
psychological cues. These cues may be external or internalized but do not
rely on satiety cues for restraint.
Eating past the point of satiety is referred to as counterregulation or,
more commonly, as binge eating or compulsive eating. Because the inhibi-
tors of hunger restraint are not physiological in this zone, the restraint and
408
Hunger
dietary boundaries are cognitively determined. The physical hunger mecha-

nisms may send signals, but quite ordinary ideas such as “being hungry” and
“not being hungry” must be interpreted or received by the individual. The
person must learn to distinguish between bodily sensations that indicate the
need for food and the feelings that accompany this need, such as anxiety,
boredom, loneliness, or depression.
Thus, there are both internal cues and external cues that define hunger
and lead an individual to know when to eat and how much to eat. External
cues as a motive for eating have been studied extensively, particularly in re-
search on obesity and eating disorders such as binge behavior and compul-
sive overeating. External cues include enticing smells, locations such as res-
taurants or other kinds of social settings, and the social environment—what
other people are doing. When external cues prevail, a person does not have
to be hungry in order to feel hungry.
Children’s Hunger
The awareness of hunger begins very early in life. Those infants who are fed
on demand, whose cries of hunger determine the times at which they are
fed, are taught soon after they can feed themselves that their eating must
conform to family rules about when, what, and how much to eat in order to
satisfy their hunger. Infants fed on a schedule learn even earlier to conform
to external constraints and regulations regarding hunger. Throughout life,
responding to hunger by feeding oneself is nourishing both physiologically
and psychologically. Beginning in infancy, the sequences of getting hungry
and being fed establish the foundations of the relationship between the
physiological need or drive and the psychological components of feelings
such as affiliation, interaction, calm, and security when hunger is satisfied.
In preschool and early school years, when children are integrating them-
selves into their social world, food acceptance and cultural practices are
learned. Prior to the peer group and school environment, the family and
media are usually the main vehicles of cultural socialization of the hunger
drive. According to social learning theory, these agents will play an impor-
tant role in the child’s learning to interpret his or her level of hunger and in
subsequent eating patterns, both directly and indirectly. The modeling be-
havior of children is also related to hunger learning.
Experiences of hunger and satiety play a central role in a person’s rela-
tionship to hunger awareness, eating, and food. Some dispositions that in-
fluence hunger and eating behavior are long-term (fairly stable and endur-
ing), while other habits and attitudes may fluctuate. There are numerous
theories about the relation between the hunger drive and other factors such
as genetic inheritance and activity level.
Hunger and the Brain

A strictly physiological analysis claims that an individual’s responses to hun-
ger are caused by the brain’s regulation of body weight. If the body goes be-
409
Psychology Basics
low its predetermined “set point,” internal hunger cues are initiated to sig-
nal the need for food consumption. External restraints, such as attempts to
live up to ideal cultural thinness standards, also affect behavior and may re-
sult in restrained eating in order to maintain a body weight below the body’s
defined set point.
The idea of a body set point is rooted in the work of physiologist Claude
Bernard (1813-1878), a pioneer in research based on the concept of homeo-
stasis, or system balance in the body. Homeostasis has played a fundamental
role in many subsequent investigations regarding the physiology of hunger
and the regulatory systems involved in hunger satisfaction. Inherent in the
set-point theory is the concept of motivation, meaning that an organism is
driven physiologically and behaviorally toward maintenance of homeostasis
and the body’s set point and will adapt to accommodate the systems involved
in maintenance.
In addition, there appear to be two anatomically and behaviorally distinct
centers located in the hypothalamus, one regulating hunger and the other
regulating satiety. The area of the hypothalamus responsible for stimulating
eating behavior is the lateral hypothalamus. The ventromedial hypothala-
mus is the area responsible for signaling the organism to stop eating. The
Image not available
Hunger is a physiological
response, but eating is a
learned behavior.
(CLEO Photography)
410
Hunger
lateral hypothalamus is responsible for establishing a set point for body

weight.
In comparing hunger and satiety sensation differences, increased hun-
ger and disturbed satiety appear to be two different and quite separate
mechanisms. Imbalance or dysfunction of either the hunger mechanism or
the satiety sensation can lead to obesity, overeating, binge eating, and other
eating disorders. It appears that the way hunger is experienced accounts, in
part, for its recognition. Whether hunger is experienced in context with
other drives or becomes a compulsive force that dominates all other drives
in life is a complex issue.
The prevalence of eating disorders and the multitude of variables associ-
ated with hunger drives and regulation have provided psychologists with an
opportunity to examine the ways in which hunger might take on different
meanings. To a person who is anorexic, for example, hunger may be a posi-
tive feeling—a state of being “high” and thus a goal to seek. To others, hun-
ger may produce feelings of anxiety, insecurity, or anger. In this case, a per-
son might eat before feeling hunger to prevent the feelings from arising.
People’s ability to experience hunger in different ways provides psycholo-
gists with two types of hunger, which are commonly referred to as hunger
and appetite.
Hunger and appetite are not the same. Actual physical need is the basis of
true hunger, while appetite can be triggered by thought, feeling, or sensa-
tion. Physical need can be separate from psychological need, although they
may feel the same to the person who is not conscious of the difference. Com-
pulsive eaters are often unable to recognize the difference between “real”
hunger and psychological hunger, or appetite. While psychological hunger
can be equally as motivating a need as stomach hunger, appetite (or mouth
hunger) is emotionally, cognitively, and psychologically based thus cannot
be fed in the same way. Stomach hunger can be satisfied by eating, whereas
“feeding” mouth hunger must involve other activities and behaviors, as food
does not ultimately seem to satisfy the mouth type of hunger.
The Cultural Context of Hunger

One approach to increasing understanding of hunger and its psychological
components is to examine hunger in its cultural context. In American cul-
ture, the experience of hunger is inextricably tied to weight, eating, body
image, self-concept, social definitions of fatness and thinness, and other fac-
tors which take the issue of hunger far beyond the physiological facts. Histo-
rian Hillel Schwartz has traced the American cultural preoccupation with
hunger, eating, and diet by examining the cultural fit between shared fic-
tions about the body and their psychological, social, and cultural conse-
quences. Hunger becomes a broader social issue when viewed in the context
of the culture’s history of obsession with dieting, weight control, and body
image. The personal experience of hunger is affected by the social and his-
torical context.
411
Psychology Basics
Eating disorders such as anorexia, bulimia, and compulsive overeating

provide evidence of the complex relationship between the physiological
and psychological components of hunger. Obesity has also been examined
using medical and psychological models. The etiology of hunger’s relation-
ship to eating disorders has provided insight, if not consensus, by investigat-
ing the roles of hereditary factors, social learning, family systems, and
multigenerational transmission in hunger as well as the socially learned eat-
ing patterns, food preferences, and cultural ideals that can mediate the hun-
ger drive. Body image, eating restraint, and eating attitudes have been as-
sessed by various methods. The focus of much of the research on hunger
beyond the early animal experiments has been eating disorders. The find-
ings confirm that hunger is more than a physiological need and is affected
by a multitude of variables.
Hunger Regulation
The desire to regulate hunger has resulted in a wide variety of approaches
and techniques, including professional diet centers, programs, and clinics;
self-help books and magazines; diet clubs and support groups; self-help
classes; and “diet doctors.” Many people have benefited from psychotherapy
in an effort to understand and control their hunger regulation mechanisms.
Group therapy is one of the most successful forms of psychotherapy for food
abusers. Types of group therapy vary greatly and include leaderless support
groups, nonprofessional self-help groups such as Overeaters Anonymous,
and groups led by professional therapists.
Advantages of group support for hunger regulation include the realiza-
tion that one is not alone. An often-heard expression in group therapy is “I
always thought I was the only person who ever felt this way.” Other advan-
tages include group support for risk taking, feedback from different per-
spectives, and a group laboratory for experimenting with new social behav-
iors. Witnessing others struggling to resolve life issues can provide powerful
motivation to change. Self-help and therapy groups also offer friendship
and acceptance. Creative arts therapies are other forms of psychotherapy
used by persons seeking to understand and control their hunger regula-
tion mechanisms. Creative therapy may involve art, music, dance, poetry,
dreams, and other creative processes. These are experiential activities, and
the process is sometimes nonverbal.
A more common experience for those who have faced the issue of hun-
ger regulation is dieting. Despite the high failure rate of diets and weight-
loss programs, the “diet mentality” is often associated with hunger regula-
tion. Robert Schwartz studied the elements of the diet mentality, which is
based on the assumption that being fat is bad and being thin is good.
Dieting often sets up a vicious cycle of failure, which deflates self-esteem,
thus contributing to shame and guilt, and leads to another diet. The diet
mentality is self-defeating. Another key element to the diet mentality is the
mechanism of self-deprivation that comes from not being allowed to in-
412
Hunger
dulge in certain foods and the accompanying social restrictions and isola-
tion that dieting creates. Dieting treats the symptom rather than the cause of
overeating.
Numerous approaches to hunger regulation share a condemnation of
the diet mentality. Overcoming overeating; understanding, controlling, and
recovering from addictive eating; and being “thin-within” are approaches
based on addressing hunger regulation from a psychological perspective
rather than a physiological one. These approaches share an emphasis on the
emotional and feeling components of hunger regulation. They encourage
the development of skills to differentiate between stomach hunger and
mind hunger—that is, between hunger and appetite—and thereby to learn
to recognize satiety as well as the reasons for hunger.
Behavior modification consists of a variety of techniques that attempt to
apply the findings and methods of experimental psychology to human be-
havior. Interest in applying behavioral modification to hunger regulation
developed as a result of the research on external cues and environmental
factors that control the food intake of individuals. By emphasizing specific
training in “stimulus control,” behavior modification helps the individual to
manage the environmental determinants of eating.
The first step in most behavior modification programs is to help the pa-
tient identify and monitor activities that are contributing to the specific be-
havior. In the case of an individual who overeats, this could involve identify-
ing such behaviors as frequent eating of sweets, late evening snacking,
eating huge meals, or eating in response to social demands. Because most
people have more than one stimulus for eating behavior, the individual then
observes situational stimuli: those that arise from the environment in which
eating usually takes place. Once the stimuli are identified, new behaviors
can be substituted—in effect, behavior can be modified.
Models of Hunger
Early scientific interest in hunger research was dominated by medical models,
which identified the physiological mechanisms and systems involved. One of
the earliest attempts to understand the sensation of hunger was an experi-
ment conducted in 1912, in which a subject swallowed a balloon and then in-
flated it in his stomach. His stomach contractions and subjective reports of
hunger feelings could then be simultaneously recorded. When the record-
ings were compared to the voluntary key presses that the subject made each
time he experienced the feeling of hunger, the researchers concluded that it
was the stomach movements that caused the sensation of hunger. It was later
found, however, that an empty stomach is relatively inactive and that the stom-
ach contractions experienced by the subject were an experimental artifact
caused by the mere presence of the balloon in the stomach.
Further evidence for the lack of connection between stomach stimuli and
feelings of hunger was provided in animal experiments which resulted in
differentiating two areas of the hypothalamus responsible for stimulating
413
Psychology Basics
eating behavior and signaling satiety—the “start eating” and “stop eating”
centers.
Psychologist Stanley Schachter and his colleagues began to explore the
psychological issues involved in hunger by emphasizing the external, non-
physiological factors involved. In a series of experiments in which normal-
weight and overweight individuals were provided with a variety of external
eating cues, Schachter found that overweight subjects were more attentive
to the passage of time in determining when to eat and were more excited by
the taste and sight of food than were normal-weight persons. More recently,
the growth of the field of social psychology has provided yet a different per-
spective on hunger, one that accounts for the situational and environment
factors which influence the physiological and psychological states. For ex-
ample, psychologists have examined extreme hunger and deprivation in
case studies from historical episodes such as war, concentration camps, and
famine in the light of the more recent interest in the identification and
treatment of eating disorders.
There does not appear to be a consistent or ongoing effort to develop an
interdisciplinary approach to the study of hunger. Because hunger is such a
complex drive, isolating the factors associated with it poses a challenge to
the standard research methodologies of psychology such as the case study,
experiment, observation, and survey. Each methodology has its shortcom-
ings, but together the methodologies have produced findings which clearly
demonstrate that hunger is a physiological drive embedded in a psychologi-
cal, social, and cultural context.
Viewing hunger as a multidimensional behavior has led to an awareness
of hunger and its implications in a broader context. Changing dysfunctional
attitudes, feelings, thoughts, and behaviors concerning hunger has not al-
ways been seen as a choice. Through continued psychological research into
the topic of hunger—and increasing individual and group participation in
efforts to understand, control, and change behaviors associated with hun-
ger—new insights continue to emerge that will no doubt cast new light on
this important and not yet completely understood topic.

Arenson, Gloria. A Substance Called Food. 2d ed. Boston: McGraw-Hill, 1989.
Presents a variety of perspectives on eating: the psychological, the physio-
logical, and the transpersonal. Particularly useful in providing self-help
advice and treatment modalities. Examines the compulsiveness of food
addiction and sees behavior modification as a means of addressing the
addictive behavior.
Battegay, Raymond. The Hunger Diseases. Northvale, N.J.: Jason Aronson,
1997. Addresses the emotional hunger that, the author contends, under-
lies all eating disorders, from anorexia to obesity.
Hirschmann, Jane R., and Carol H. Munter. When Women Stop Hating Their
Bodies: Freeing Yourself from Food and Weight Obsessions. New York: Fawcett,
414
Hunger
1997. A follow-up to the authors’ Overcoming Overeating (1988). Reviews

the psychological bases for compulsive eating and provides alternative
strategies to persons who have an addictive relationship with food. Pres-
ents arguments against dieting and proposes that self-acceptance, physi-
cal activity, and health are more appropriate long-term solutions to the
problem of overeating.
Nisbett, Richard E. “Hunger, Obesity, and the Ventromedial Hypothala-
mus.” Psychological Review 79, no. 6 (1972): 433-453. Based on research
which differentiated the two areas of the hypothalamus that involve hun-
ger: the “start eating” and “stop eating” mechanisms. Explains the idea of
“set point,” or the body mechanism which regulates homeostasis. This ar-
ticle is a classic in the field of hunger because it explains the physiological
location of hunger and the important role of the hypothalamus.
Schachter, Stanley, and Larry P. Gross. “Manipulated Time and Eating Be-
havior.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 10, no. 2 (1968): 98-106.
Schachter’s experiments provide the basis for attention to, and recogni-
tion of the importance of, external, nonphysiological factors affecting
hunger. This article was one of the first to address the psychological com-
ponents of hunger by examining the external triggers to eating.
Schwartz, Hillel. Never Satisfied: A Cultural History of Diets, Fantasies, and Fat.
New York: Free Press, 1986. Schwartz, a historian, looks at diets and eat-
ing from the perspective of American social and cultural history. Exam-
ines how “shared fictions” about the body fit with various reducing meth-
ods and fads in different eras.
Schwartz, Robert. Diets Don’t Work. 3d ed. Oakland, Calif.: Breakthru, 1996.
Practical “how-to” guide to dismantling the diet mentality. This book is a
good, basic, and sensible guide for taking stock of the self-defeating
weight-loss attitudes and behaviors prevalent in temporary diets versus
long-term attitudinal and behavior strategies for permanent weight con-
trol.
Tribole, Evelyn, and Elyse Resch. Intuitive Eating: A Recovery Book for the
Chronic Dieter. 5th ed. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1996. Advocates listen-
ing to authentic hunger cues and avoiding emotion-based overeating.
Robin Franck
See also: Drives; Eating Disorders; Thirst.
415
Identity Crises
Fields of study: Adolescence; adulthood
Identity crises are the internal and external conflicts faced by the adolescent/young
adult when choosing an occupation and coming to terms with a basic ideology. Devel-
opment of a personal identity is a central component of psychosocial maturity.
Key concepts
• identity
• identity confusion/diffusion
• identity status
• negative identity
• psychosocial maturity
• psychosocial moratorium
Identity crises are an integral phase in human development. According to

ego psychologist Erik Erikson (1902-1994), successful resolution of the
identity crisis is contingent on the earlier resolution of the crises associated
with infancy and childhood, such as trust, autonomy, initiative, and indus-
try. Further, the extent to which the conflict surrounding identity is resolved
will influence how the individual will cope with the crises of adulthood.
According to Erikson’s model of the human life cycle, an identity crisis is
one of the psychosocial conflicts faced by the adolescent. In Erikson’s
model, which was published in the 1960’s, each age period is defined by a
certain type of psychosocial crisis. Adolescence is the life stage during which
acquiring an identity presents a major conflict. Failure to resolve the con-
flict results in identity confusion/diffusion—that is, an inadequate sense of
self.
Identity implies an existential position, according to James Marcia, who
construes identity as a self-structure composed of one’s personal history, be-
lief system, and competencies. One’s perception of uniqueness is directly re-
lated to the development of this self-structure. A somewhat similar position
has been taken by Jane Kroger, who views the identity crisis as a problem of
self-definition. The resulting identity is a balance between self and others.
Erikson defines identity as the belief that one’s past experiences and iden-
tity will be confirmed in the future—as exemplified in the choice of a career.
Identity is a composite of one’s sexuality, physical makeup, vocation, and be-
lief system. Identity is the pulling together of who one is and who one can
become, which involves compositing one’s past, present, and future. It is a
synthesis of earlier identifications. Successfully resolving the identity crisis is
contingent on the interactions that the adolescent/young adult has with
others. Erikson contends that interacting with others provides the needed
feedback about who one is and who one ought to be. These interactions
with others enable the adolescent/young adult to gain a perspective of self
416
Identity Crises
that includes an evaluation of his or her physical and social self. Identity ac-
quisition is cognitive as well as social.
Conditions for Identity Crisis

From Erikson’s perspective, as discussed in a 1987 article by James Cote and
Charles Levine, four conditions are necessary for an identity crisis: Puberty
has been reached; the requisite cognitive development is present; physical
growth is nearing adult stature; and societal influences are guiding the per-
son toward an integration and resynthesis of identity. The dialectics of soci-
ety and personality, implicit in the last condition, are given the most atten-
tion by Erikson, according to Cote and Levine, because the other three
conditions are part of normative development. Developmental levels of the
individual and societal pressures combine to elicit an identity crisis, but
Cote and Levine note that timing of this crisis is contingent on factors such
as ethnicity, gender, socioeconomic status, and subculture, as well as person-
ality factors (for example, authoritarianism or neuroticism) and socializa-
tion practices. The severity of the identity crisis is determined by the extent
to which one’s identity portrayal is interfered with by the uncertainty inher-
ent in moving toward self-definition and unexpected events.
Psychological Moratorium
An integral part of the identity crisis is the psychological moratorium, a time
during which society permits the individual to work on crisis resolution.
During this moratorium, the adolescent/young adult has the opportunity to
examine societal roles, career possibilities, and values, free from the expec-
tation of commitments and long-term responsibilities. Although some indi-
viduals choose to remain in a moratorium indefinitely, Erikson contends
that there is an absolute end to the recognizable moratorium. At its comple-
tion, the adolescent/young adult should have attained the necessary re-
structuring of self and identifications so that he or she can find a place in so-
ciety which fits this identity.
Based on Erikson’s writings, Cote and Levine identify two types of institu-
tionalized moratoria: the technological moratorium, which is highly struc-
tured, and the humanistic moratorium, which is less highly structured. The
technological moratorium is the product of the educational system, which is
charged by society with socializing youth to fit in adult society. Individuals in
this moratorium option experience less difficulty in resolving the identity
crisis because they move into occupations and societal roles for which they
have been prepared with significantly less intrapsychic trauma in accepting
an ideology. The school takes an active role in easing this transition by pro-
viding vocational and academic counseling for students, facilitating sched-
uling so that students can gain work experience while enrolled in school,
and encouraging early decision making as to a future career.
The identity crisis for individuals in the humanistic moratorium is more
stressful and painful and of longer duration than for those in the technolog-
417
Psychology Basics
ical moratorium. The focal concern of the adolescent/young adult in the

humanistic moratorium is humanistic values, which are largely missing from
the technological moratorium. There is more variability in this concern for
humanistic values, which is reflected in the moratorium that is chosen and
the commitments that are made. These conditions elicit an alternation be-
tween progressive and regressive states, with the individual making commit-
ments at one time and disengaging at another. The character Holden Caul-
field in J. D. Salinger’s classic novel The Catcher in the Rye (1951) is an
example of this type of identity problem. More extreme identity confusion is
found among individuals in this moratorium. According to Cote and Le-
vine, social support is often lacking, which hinders formation of a stable
identity. Family and community support is especially important for these in-
dividuals. Yet these are the adolescents/young adults who, because their life-
style departs from the societal mold, are often ostracized and denied sup-
port. Individuals may promote a cause of some type. Those who choose a
humanistic moratorium are more likely to be intellectual, artistic, antiestab-
lishment, and ideologically nonconforming. After a time, some of these in-
dividuals accept technological values and roles.
Individuals whose identity seeking is not influenced by technological or
humanistic moratoria face a rather different situation. Some remain in a
constant state of flux, in which choices are avoided and commitments are
lacking. Others take on a negative identity by accepting a deviant lifestyle
and value system (for example, delinquency or gang membership). In this
instance, the negative elements of an identity outweigh the positive ele-
ments. This type of identity crisis resolution occurs in an environment which
precludes normative identity development (for example, excessively de-
manding parents, absence of an adequate role model).
Identity Status Paradigm

Erikson’s writings on identity crises have been responsible for an extensive
literature consisting of conceptual as well as empirical articles. Perhaps the
most widely used application is Marcia’s identity status paradigm, in which
he conceptualized and operationalized Erikson’s theory of identity develop-
ment in terms of several statuses which result from exploration and commit-
ment. By 1988, more than one hundred empirical studies had been gener-
ated from this paradigm, according to a review by Cote and Levine. The
identity status paradigm provides a methodological procedure for deter-
mining identity statuses based on resolution of an identity crisis and the
presence of commitments to an occupation and an ideology.
According to the Marcia paradigm, an ego identity can be one of several
statuses consisting of achievement, foreclosure, moratorium, or diffusion.
An achievement status indicates resolution of the identity crisis and firm
commitments to an occupation and an ideology. In a foreclosure status, one
has formed commitments but has not experienced a crisis. The moratorium
status denotes that an identity crisis is being experienced, and no commit-
418
Identity Crises
ments have been made. The diffusion status implies the absence of a crisis
and no commitments. Much of the research has focused on identifying the
personality characteristics associated with each of these statuses. Other stud-
ies have examined the interactional patterns as well as information-process-
ing and problem-solving strategies. Achievement and moratorium statuses
seek out, process, and evaluate information in their decision making. Fore-
closures have more rigid belief systems and conform to normative standards
held by significant others, while those in the diffusion status delay decision
making. Significant differences have been found among the statuses in
terms of their capacity for intimacy, with diffusions scoring lowest, followed
by foreclosures. Achievement and moratorium statuses have a greater capac-
ity for intimacy.
Parental Socialization and Female Identity

One area of research that continues to attract attention is parental socializa-
tion patterns associated with crisis resolution. The findings to date reveal
distinctive parental patterns associated with each status. Positive but some-
what ambivalent relationships between parents and the adolescent/young
adult are reported for achievement status. Moratorium-status adolescents/
young adults also seem to have ambivalent relationships with their parents,
but they are less conforming. Males in this status tend to experience diffi-
culty in separating from their mothers. Foreclosures view their parents as
highly accepting and encouraging. Parental pressure for conformity to fam-
ily values is very evident. Diffusion-status adolescents report much parental
rejection and detachment from parents, especially from the father. In gen-
eral, the data from family studies show that the same-sex parent is an impor-
tant figure in identity resolution.
An interest in female identity has arisen because different criteria have
been used to identify identity status based on the Marcia paradigm. Attitudes
toward premarital sexual relations are a major content area in status deter-
mination. The research in general shows that achievement and foreclosure
statuses are very similar in females, as are the moratorium and diffusion sta-
tuses. This pattern is not found for males. It has been argued by some that
the focal concerns of females, in addition to concerns with occupation and
ideology, involve interpersonal relationships more than do the concerns of
males. Therefore, in forming a self-structure, females may examine the out-
side world for self-evaluation and acceptance in addition to the internal ex-
amination of self which typically occurs in males. The effect of an external
focus on identity resolution in females is unknown, but this type of focus is
likely to prolong the identity crisis. Further, it is still necessary to determine
the areas in which choices and commitments are made for females.
Negative Identity
The concept of negative identity has been used frequently in clinical settings
to explain antisocial acts and delinquency in youth as well as gang-related
419
Psychology Basics
behavior. A 1988 study by Randall Jones and Barbara Hartman found that
the use of substances (for example, cigarettes, alcohol, and other drugs) was
higher and more likely in youths of identity-diffusion status. Erikson and
others have argued that troubled youths find that elements of a negative
identity provide them with a sense of some mastery over a situation for
which a positive approach has been continually denied them. In the exam-
ples cited, deviant behavior provided both this sense of mastery and an iden-
tity.
Role in Understanding Adolescents

The identity crisis is the major conflict faced by the adolescent. Erikson’s
theories about the identity crisis made a major contribution to the adoles-
cent literature. Marcia’s reconceptualization of ego identity facilitated iden-
tity research and clinical assessment by providing a methodological ap-
proach to identity development and the psychological concomitants of
identity. As a result, the study of identity and awareness of the psychological
impact on the individual become major research areas and provided a basis
for clinical intervention.
The concept of identity crises originated with Erikson, based on the clini-
cal experiences which he used to develop a theory of ego identity develop-
ment. Explication of this theory appeared in his writings during the 1950’s
and 1960’s. Erikson’s theory of the human life cycle places identity resolu-
tion as the major crisis faced by the adolescent. The success of this resolu-
tion is determined by the satisfactory resolution of crises in the stages pre-
ceding adolescence.
Identity formation is a major topic in most textbooks on adolescence,
and it is a focal concern of practitioners who treat adolescents with psycho-
logical adjustment problems. Until the appearance of Erikson’s writings, the
field of adolescence was mostly a discussion of physical and sexual develop-
ment. His focus on psychosocial development, especially the emergence of a
self-structure, increased immeasurably the understanding of adolescent de-
velopment and the problems faced by the adolescent growing up in Western
society. As Cote and Levine noted, identity is a multidimensional construct
consisting of sociological perspectives, specifically the social environment in
which the individual interacts, as well as psychological processes. Thus, a
supportive social environment is critical to crisis resolution. The absence of
this supportive environment has frequently been cited as an explanation for
identity problems and the acquisition of a negative identity.
Temporal Considerations
It is important to realize that identity has a temporal element as well as a life-
long duration. That is, identity as a personality characteristic undergoes
transformations throughout the life cycle. While crisis resolution may be
achieved during adolescence/young adulthood, this self-structure is not
permanent. Crises can reemerge during the life span. The midlife crises of
420
Identity Crises
middle adulthood, written about frequently in the popular press, are often
viewed as a manifestation of the earlier identity crisis experienced during
adolescence/young adulthood.
The outlook for identity crises is difficult to forecast. The psychological
moratorium will continue to be an important process. Given the constant
change in American society, the moratorium options available for youth
may be more restricted, or more ambiguous and less stable. This scenario is
more probable for humanistic moratoria as society moves toward more insti-
tutional structure in the form of schools taking on increased responsibility
for the socialization of children and youth. The provision of child care be-
fore and after school is one example of the school’s increased role. The ero-
sion which has occurred in family structure presents another problem for
identity crisis resolution.

Cote, James E., and Charles Levine. “A Critical Examination of the Ego
Identity Status Paradigm.” Developmental Review 8 (June, 1988): 147-184.
Critiques the Marcia identity-status paradigm and notes several areas of
divergence from Erikson’s conceptualization theory of identity. Ad-
vances the argument for an interdisciplinary approach to understanding
identity and identifies several questions about identity crises that need to
be considered.
__________. “A Formulation of Erikson’s Theory of Ego Identity Forma-
tion.” Developmental Review 7 (December, 1987): 209-218. A comprehen-
sive review of Erikson’s theory of ego identity and the role of psychologi-
cal moratoria in the resolution of identity crises. Discusses Erikson’s
concepts of value orientation stages and the ego-superego conflict over
personality control. Offers criticisms of Erikson’s work and suggests cau-
tions for the researcher.
Erikson, Erik Homburger. Childhood and Society. Reprint. New York: W. W.
Norton, 1993. The thirty-fifth anniversary edition. A presentation of case
histories based on Erikson’s clinical experiences as well as a discussion of
Erikson’s life-cycle model of human development. One section of the
book is devoted to an examination of youth and identity. Clinical studies
are used to illustrate the problems youth face in identity resolution.
__________. Identity, Youth, and Crisis. Reprint. New York: W. W. Norton,
1994. A theoretical discussion of ego identity formation and identity con-
fusion, with special attention given to issues such as womanhood or race
and identity. Erikson relies heavily on his vast clinical experiences to illus-
trate the concepts that he discusses. The life cycle as it applies to identity
is examined from an epigenetic perspective.
Kroger, Jane. Identity in Adolescence. 2d ed. New York: Routledge, 1996. A pre-
sentation of identity development as conceptualized by Erikson and oth-
ers. Each approach is criticized, and the empirical findings generated by
the approach are summarized. The first chapter of the book is devoted to
421
Psychology Basics
an overview of identity from a developmental and sociocultural perspec-

tive. The final chapter presents an integration of what is known about
identity.
Marcia, James E. “Identity in Adolescence.” In Handbooks of Adolescent Psychol-
ogy, edited by Joseph Adelson. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1980. A dis-
cussion of the identity statuses developed by Marcia, based on a paradigm
derived from Erikson’s conceptualization of ego identity. Reviews the re-
search literature on personality characteristics, patterns of interaction,
developmental studies, identity in women, and other directions in iden-
tity research. Ends with a discussion of a general ego-developmental ap-
proach to identity.
Joseph C. LaVoie
See also: Adolescence: Cognitive Skills; Development; Ego Psychology: Erik

Erikson; Gender-Identity Formation; Psychoanalytic Psychology; Self.
422
Imprinting
Fields of study: Biological influences on learning; endocrine system
Imprinting is an endogenous, or inborn, animal behavior by which young mammals
and birds learn specific, visible physical patterns to associate with important concepts
such as the identification of one’s mother, navigation routes, and danger. The phe-
nomenon, which relies primarily upon visual cues and hormonal scents, is of high
survival value for the species possessing it.
Key concepts
• conditioning
• critical period
• endogenous behavior
• ethology
• exogenous behavior
• imprinting
• pheromone
• plasticity
• visual cues
• vocal cues
Imprinting is an important type of behavior by which an animal learns spe-

cific concepts and identifies certain objects or individuals that are essential
for survival. Imprinting events almost always occur very early in the life of an
animal, during critical periods or time frames when the animal is most sensi-
tive to environmental cues and influences. The phenomenon occurs in a va-
riety of species, but it is most pronounced in the homeothermic (warm-
blooded) and socially oriented higher vertebrate species, especially mam-
mals and birds.
Imprinting is learned behavior. Most learned behavior falls within the do-
main of exogenous behavior, or behavior that an animal obtains by its ex-
periences with fellow conspecifics (members of the same species) and the
environment. Imprinting, however, is predominantly, if not exclusively, an
endogenous behavior, which is a behavior that is genetically encoded within
the individual. An individual is born with the capacity to imprint. The ani-
mal’s cellular biochemistry and physiology will determine when in its devel-
opment it will imprint. The only environmental influence of any conse-
quence in imprinting is the object of the imprint during the critical period.
Ethologists, scientists who study animal behavior, debate the extent of en-
dogenous and exogenous influences upon animal behavior. Most behaviors
involve a combination of both, although one type may be more pronounced
than the other.
The capacity for an animal to imprint is genetically determined and,
therefore, is inherited. This type of behavior is to the animal’s advantage for
423
Psychology Basics
critical situations that must be correctly handled the first time they occur.
Such behaviors include the identification of one’s parents (especially one’s
mother), the ability to navigate, the ability to identify danger, and even the
tendency to perform the language of one’s own species. Imprinting behav-
iors generally are of high survival value and hence must be programmed
into the individual via the genes. Biological research has failed to identify
many of the genes that are responsible for imprinting behaviors, although
the hormonal basis of imprinting is well understood. Most imprinting stud-
ies have focused upon the environmental signals and developmental state of
the individual during the occurrence of imprinting.
Maternal Imprinting
These studies have involved mammals and birds, warm-blooded species that
have high social bonding, which seems to be a prerequisite for imprinting.
The most famous imprinting studies were performed by the animal behav-
iorists and Nobel laureates Konrad Lorenz (1903-1989) and Nikolaas Tin-
bergen (1907-1988). They and their many colleagues detailed analyses of
imprinting in a variety of species, in particular waterfowl such as geese and
ducks. The maternal imprinting behavior of the newborn gosling or duck-
ling upon the first moving object that it sees is the most striking example of
imprinting behavior.
The maternal imprint is the means by which a newborn identifies its
mother and the mother identifies its young. In birds, the newborn chick fol-
lows the first moving object that it sees, an object that should be its mother.
The critical imprinting period is within a few hours after hatching. The
chick visually will lock on its moving mother and follow it wherever it goes
until the chick reaches adulthood. The act of imprinting not only allows for
the identification of one’s parents but also serves as a trigger for all subse-
quent social interactions with members of one’s own species. As has been es-
tablished in numerous experiments, a newborn gosling that first sees a fe-
male duck will imprint on the duck and follow it endlessly. Upon reaching
adulthood, the grown goose, which has been raised in the social environ-
ment of ducks, will attempt to behave as a duck, even to the point of mating.
Newborn goslings, ducklings, and chicks can easily imprint on humans.
In mammals, imprinting relies not only visual cues (specific visible physi-
cal objects or patterns that an animal learns to associate with certain con-
cepts) but also on physical contact and smell. Newborn infants imprint
upon their mothers, and vice versa, by direct contact, sight, and smell dur-
ing the critical period, which usually occurs within twenty hours following
birth. The newborn and its mother must come into direct contact with each
other’s skin and become familiarized with each other’s smell. The latter
phenomenon involves the release of special hormones called pheromones
from each individual’s body. Pheromones trigger a biochemical response in
the body of the recipient individual, in this case leading to a locked identifi-
cation pattern for the other involved individual. If direct contact between
424
Imprinting
Konrad Lorenz. (The

Nobel Foundation)
mother and infant is not maintained during the critical imprinting period,
then the mother may reject the infant because she is unfamiliar with its
scent. In such a case, the infant’s life would be in jeopardy unless it were
claimed by a substitute mother. Even in this situation, the failure to imprint
would trigger subsequent psychological trauma in the infant, possibly lead-
ing to aberrant social behavior in later life.
Bird Migration and Danger Recognition

Although maternal imprinting in mammal and bird species represents the
best-documented studies of imprinting behavior, imprinting may be in-
volved in other types of learned behavior. In migratory bird species, etholo-
gists have attempted to explain how bird populations navigate from their
summer nesting sites to their wintering sites and back every year without er-
ror. Different species manage to navigate in different fashions. The indigo
bunting, however, navigates via the patterns of stars in the sky at night. In-
digo bunting chicks imprint upon the celestial star patterns for their sum-
425
Psychology Basics
mer nesting site during a specific critical period, a fact that was determined
by the rearrangement of planetarium stars for chicks by research scientists.
Further research studies on birds also implicate imprinting in danger rec-
ognition and identification of one’s species-specific call or song. Young
birds of many species identify predatory birds (for example, hawks, falcons,
and owls) by the outline of the predator’s body during flight or attack and by
special markings on the predator’s body. Experiments also have demon-
strated that unhatched birds can hear their mother’s call or song; birds may
imprint on their own species’ call or song before they hatch. These studies
reiterate the fact that imprinting is associated with a critical period during
early development in which survival-related behaviors must become firmly
established.
Human Imprinting
Imprinting is of considerable interest to psychologists because of its role in
the learning process for humans. Humans imprint in much the same fash-
ion as other mammals. The extended lifetime, long childhood, and great
capacity for learning and intelligence make imprinting in humans an im-
portant area of study. Active research on imprinting is continually being
conducted with humans, primates, marine mammals (such as dolphins,
whales, and seals), and many other mammals as well as with a large variety of
bird species. Comparisons among the behaviors of these many species yield
considerable similarities in the mechanisms of imprinting. These similari-
ties underscore the importance of imprinting events in the life, survival, and
socialization of the individual.
With humans, maternal imprinting occurs much as with other mammals.
The infant and its mother must be in direct contact during the hours follow-
ing birth. During this critical period, there is an exchange of pheromones
between mother and infant, an exchange that, to a large extent, will bond
the two. Such bonding immediately following birth can occur between in-
fant and father in the same manner. Many psychologists stress the impor-
tance of both parents being present at the time of a child’s delivery and mak-
ing contact with the child during the critical hours of the first day following
birth. Familiarization is important not only for the child but for the parents
as well because all three are imprinting upon one another.
Failure of maternal or paternal imprinting during the critical period fol-
lowing birth can have drastic consequences in humans. The necessary, and
poorly understood, biochemical changes that occur in the bodies of a child
and parent during the critical period will not occur if there is no direct con-
tact and, therefore, no transfer of imprinting pheromones. Consequently,
familiarization and acceptance between the involved individuals may not oc-
cur, even if intense contact is maintained after the end of the critical period.
The psychological impact upon the child and upon the parents may be pro-
found, perhaps not immediately, but in later years. Studies on this problem
are extremely limited because of the difficulty of tracing cause-and-effect re-
426
Imprinting
lationships over many years when many behaviors are involved. There is
some evidence, however, which indicates that failure to imprint may be asso-
ciated with such things as learning disabilities, child-parent conflicts, and
abnormal adolescent behavior. Nevertheless, other cases of imprinting fail-
ure seem to have no effect, as can be seen in tens of thousands of adopted
children. The success or failure of maternal imprinting in humans is a sub-
ject of considerable importance in terms of how maternal imprinting affects
human behavior and social interactions in later life.
Different human cultures maintain distinct methods of child rearing. In
some cultures, children are raised by family servants or relatives from birth
onward, not by the actual mother. Some cultures wrap infants very tightly so
that they can barely move; other cultures are more permissive. Child and ad-
olescent psychology focuses attention upon early life experiences that could
have great influence upon later social behavior. The success or failure of im-
printing, along with other early childhood experiences, may be a factor in
later social behaviors such as competitiveness, interaction with individuals
of the opposite sex, mating, and maintenance of a stable family structure.
Even criminal behavior and psychological abnormalities may be traceable to
such early childhood events.
Experiments
Imprinting studies conducted with mammal and bird species are much eas-
ier because the researcher has the freedom to conduct controlled experi-
ments that test many different variables, thereby identifying the factors that
influence an individual animal’s ability to imprint. For bird species, a fa-
mous experiment is the moving ball experiment. A newly hatched chick is
isolated in a chamber within which a suspended ball revolves around the
center of the chamber. The researcher can test not only movement as an im-
printing trigger but also other variables, such as critical imprinting time af-
ter hatching, color as an imprinting factor, and variations in the shape of the
ball as imprinting factors. Other experiments involve switching eggs be-
tween different species (for example, placing a duck egg among geese
eggs).
For mammals, imprinting has been observed in many species, such as hu-
mans, chimpanzees, gorillas, dolphins, elephant seals, wolves, and cattle. In
most of these species, the failure of a mother to come into contact with its
newborn almost always results in rejection of the child. In species such as
elephant seals, smell is the primary means by which a mother identifies its
pups. Maternal imprinting is of critical importance in a mammalian child’s
subsequent social development. Replacement of a newborn monkey’s natu-
ral mother with a “doll” substitute leads to irreparable damage; the infant is
socially and sexually repressed in its later life encounters with other mon-
keys. These and other studies establish imprinting as a required learning be-
havior for the successful survival and socialization of all birds and nonhu-
man mammals.
427
Psychology Basics
Biology and Behavior

Animal behaviorists and psychologists attempt to identify the key factors
that are responsible for imprinting in mammalian and avian species. Nu-
merous factors, including vocal cues (specific sounds, frequency, and lan-
guage that an animal learns to associate with certain concepts) and visual
cues probably are involved, although the strongest two factors appear to be
direct skin contact and the exchange of pheromones that are detectable by
smell. The maternal imprinting behavior is the most intensively studied im-
printing phenomenon, though imprinting appears to occur in diverse be-
haviors such as mating, migratory navigation, and certain forms of commu-
nication.
Imprinting attracts the interest of psychologists because it occurs at criti-
cal periods in an individual’s life; because subsequent developmental, so-
cial, and behavioral events hinge upon what happens during the imprinting
event; and because imprinting occurs at the genetic or biochemical level.
Biochemically, imprinting relies upon the production and release of phero-
mones, molecules that have a specific structure and that can be manufac-
tured in a laboratory. The identification and mass production of these
pheromones could possibly produce treatments for some behavioral abnor-
malities.
As an endogenous (instinctive) form of learning, imprinting relies upon
the highly complex nervous and endocrine systems of birds and mammals.
It also appears limited to social behavior, a major characteristic of these spe-
cies. The complex nervous systems involve a highly developed brain, vocal
communication, well-developed eyes, and a keen sense of smell. The endo-
crine systems of these species produce a variety of hormones, including the
pheromones that are involved in imprinting, mating, and territoriality. Un-
derstanding the nervous and endocrine regulation of behavior at all levels is
of major interest to biological and psychological researchers. Such studies
may prove to be fruitful in the discovery of the origin and nature of animal
consciousness.
Imprinting may be contrasted with exogenous forms of learning. These
other learning types include conditioning, in which individuals learn by re-
peated exposure to a stimulus, by association of the concept stimulus with
apparently unrelated phenomena and objects, or by a system of reward and
punishment administered by parents. Other exogenous learning forms in-
clude habituation (getting used to something) and trial and error. All
learned behaviors are a combination of endogenous and exogenous factors.

Beck, William S., Karel F. Liem, and George Gaylord Simpson. Life: An Intro-
duction to Biology. 3d ed. New York: HarperCollins, 1991. Introduction to
biology for the beginning student. Contains a clear text, many strong dia-
grams and illustrations, and beautiful photographs. Contains a thorough
discussion of animal behavior, famous experiments, and various types of
428
Imprinting
animal learning, including imprinting, and describes the studies of Kon-

rad Lorenz and others.
Klopfer, Peter H., and Jack P. Hailman. An Introduction to Animal Behavior:
Ethology’s First Century. 2d ed. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1974.
An excellent and well-organized introduction to the history of animal be-
havior research. Presents major themes and models and cites many im-
portant studies. Two chapters discuss instinctive and learned aspects of
behavioral development.
Manning, Aubrey, and Marian Stamp Dawking. An Introduction to Animal
Behavior. 5th ed. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1998. Concise,
detailed, and thorough presentation of animal behavior research. En-
compasses all major behavioral theories and supporting experiments. In-
cludes a good discussion of imprinting studies, particularly with refer-
ence to maternal imprinting, and describes the biological bases behind
imprinting and other behaviors.
Hill, 2002. A strong presentation of all aspects of biology for the begin-
ning student. Includes excellent diagrams and illustrations. Summarizes
the major theories and classic experiments of animal behavior research,
including imprinting studies.
Wallace, Robert A., Gerald P. Sanders, and Robert J. Ferl. Biology: The Science
of Life. 3d ed. New York: HarperCollins, 1991. An outstanding book for
beginning students that describes all major concepts in biology with great
clarity, using numerous examples, good illustrations, and beautiful pho-
tographs. Discusses behavioral research, including studies of maternal
imprinting.
Wilson, Edward Osborne. Sociobiology: The New Synthesis. Cambridge, Mass.:
The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2000. A comprehensive
study of sociobiology, a perspective which maintains that animal behavior
is a driving force in animal species evolution. The author, a prominent
entomologist, is a leading proponent of this controversial theory, which
he defends with hundreds of case studies. Describes the biological basis
of behavior during all stages of animal development.
David Wason Hollar, Jr.
See also: Hormones and Behavior; Instinct Theory; Learning; Reflexes.
429
Individual Psychology
Alfred Adler
Fields of study: Personality theory; psychodynamic and neoanalytic
models
Individual psychology is the personality theory that was developed by Adler after he
broke from Freudian psychoanalytical ideas. Adler emphasized the importance of
childhood inferiority feelings and stressed psychosocial rather than psychosexual devel-
opment.
Key concepts
• compensation
• inferiority
• masculine protest
• private logic
• social interest
• style of life
Individual psychology is the name of the school of personality theory and

psychotherapy developed by Alfred Adler (1870-1937), a Viennese general-
practice physician turned psychiatrist. The term “individual” has a dual im-
plication: It implies uniqueness (each personality exists in a person whose
distinctiveness must be appreciated); also, the personality is an indivisible
unit that cannot be broken down into separate traits, drives, or habits which
could be analyzed as if they had an existence apart from the whole.
The essence of a person’s uniqueness is his or her style of life, a unified
system which provides the principles that guide everyday behavior and gives
the individual a perspective with which to perceive the self and the world.
The style of life is fairly stable after about age six, and it represents the indi-
vidual’s attempt to explain and cope with the great problem of human exis-
tence: the feeling of inferiority.
Role of Inferiority
According to Adler, all people develop a feeling of inferiority. First of all,
they are born children in an adult world and realize that they have smaller
and weaker bodies, less knowledge, and virtually no privileges. Then people
start to compare themselves and realize that there are other people their
own age who are better athletes, better scholars, more popular, more artisti-
cally talented, wealthier, more socially privileged, more physically attractive,
or simply luckier. If one allows the perception of one’s own self-worth to be
influenced by such subjective comparisons, then one’s self-esteem will be
lowered by an inferiority complex.
430
Individual Psychology: Alfred Adler
Adler believed that because one’s style of life is largely determined early
in life, certain childhood conditions make individuals more vulnerable to
feelings of inferiority. For example, children born into poverty or into eth-
nic groups subjected to prejudice may develop a heightened sense of inferi-
ority. Those children with real disabilities (learning or physical disabilities,
for example) would also be more susceptible to devaluing their own worth,
especially when others are excessively critical or mocking.
Role of Early Family Life

Adler looked inside the family for the most powerful influences on a child’s
developing style of life. Parents who treat a child harshly (through physical,
verbal, or sexual abuse) would certainly foster feelings of inferiority in that
child. Similarly, parents who neglect or abandon their children contribute
to the problem. (Adler believed that such children, instead of directing
their rage outward against such parents, turn it inward and say, “There must
be something wrong with me, or they would not treat me this way.”) Surpris-
ingly, Adler also believed that those parents who pamper their children frus-
trate the development of positive self-esteem, for such youngsters conclude
that they must be very weak and ineffectual in order to require such con-
stant protection and service. When such pampered children go out into the
larger world and are not the recipients of constant attention and favors,
their previous training has not prepared them for this; they rapidly develop
inferior feelings.
The impact of the family on the formulation of one’s style of life also in-
cludes the influence of siblings. Adler was the first to note that a child’s birth
order contributes to personality. Oldest children tend to be more serious
and success-oriented, because they spend more time with their parents and
identify more closely with them. When the younger children come along,
the oldest child naturally falls into a leadership role. Youngest children are
more likely to have greater social skills and be creative and rebellious. Re-
gardless of birth order, intense sibling rivalries and comparisons can easily
damage the esteem of children.
Individual Interpretation of Choice

Adler was not fatalistic in discussing the possible impact on style of life of
these congenital and environmental forces; he held that it is neither hered-
ity nor environment which determines personality but rather the way that
individuals interpret heredity and environment. These two things furnish
only the building blocks out of which the individual fashions a work of art:
the style of life. People have (and make) choices, and this determines their
own development; some people, however, have been trained by life to make
better choices than others.
All individuals have the capacity to compensate for feelings of inferiority.
Many great athletes were frail children and worked hard to develop their
physical strength and skills. Some great painters overcame weak eyesight;
431
Psychology Basics
great musicians have overcome poor hearing. Given proper encourage-

ment, people are capable of great accomplishments.
Development of Social Interest

The healthy, normal course of development is for individuals to overcome
their feelings of inferiority and develop social interest. This involves a feel-
ing of community, or humanistic identification, and a concern with the well-
being of others, not only one’s own private feelings. Social interest is re-
flected in and reinforced by cooperative and constructive interactions with
others. It starts in childhood, when the youngster has nurturing and encour-
aging contacts with parents, teachers, and peers.
Later, the three main pillars of social interest are friends, family, and ca-
reer. Having friends can help overcome inferiority, because it allows one to
be important in the eyes of someone else. Friends share their problems, so
one does not feel like the only person who has self-doubt and frustration.
Starting one’s own family reduces inferiority feeling in much the same way.
One feels loved by spouse and children, and one is very important to them.
Having an occupation allows one to develop a sense of mastery and accom-
plishment and provides some service to others or to society at large. There-
fore, those people who have difficulty establishing and maintaining friend-
ships, succeeding as a spouse or parent, or finding a fulfilling career will
have less opportunity to develop a healthy social interest and will have a
greater susceptibility to lingering feelings of inferiority.
Private Logic
The alternatives to developing social interest as a way of escaping from feel-
ings of inferiority are either to wallow in them or to explain them away with
private logic. Private logic is an individual’s techniques for coping with the
feeling of inferiority by unconsciously redefining himself or herself in a way
not compatible with social interest. Such individuals retreat from mean-
ingful interpersonal relationships and challenging work because it might
threaten their precariously balanced self-esteem. Private logic convinces
these individuals to seek a sham sense of superiority or notoriety in some
way that lacks social interest.
One such approach in private logic is what Adler termed masculine pro-
test (because Western patriarchal culture has encouraged such behavior in
males and discouraged it in females). The formula is to be rebellious, defi-
ant, even violent. Underlying all sadism, for example, is an attempt to deny
weakness. The gangster wants more than money, the rapist more than sex:
They need a feeling of power in order to cover up an unresolved inferiority
feeling.
Use in Child Development Studies

Adler’s theory, like Sigmund Freud’s psychoanalysis and B. F. Skinner’s radi-
cal behaviorism, is a flexible and powerful tool for understanding and guid-
432
ing human behavior. The first and foremost applications of individual psy-
chology have been in the areas of child rearing, education, and guidance.
Because the first six years of life are formative, the contact that children have
during this time with parents, teachers, siblings, and peers will influence
that child’s later decisions in the direction of social interest or private logic.
Adlerians recommend that parents and teachers be firm, fair, and, above all,
encouraging. One should tell children that they can overcome their disabili-
ties and praise every progress toward accomplishment and social interest.
One should avoid excessive punishments, for this will only convince chil-
dren that others are against them and that they must withdraw into private
logic.
After World War I, the new Social Democratic government of Austria gave
Adler the task of developing a system of youth guidance clinics throughout
the nation. Each child age six to fourteen was screened, then counseled, if
necessary. In the 1920’s, the rates of crime and mental disorders among
young people declined dramatically.
Use in Elder Studies

A second example of the applicability of Adler’s theory occurs at the other
end of the life cycle: old age. Late life is a period in which the incidence of
mental disorders, especially depression, increases. This can be understood
in terms of diminished opportunity to sustain social interest and increased
sources of inferiority feeling.
Recall that social interest has three pillars: career, friends, and family. Tra-
ditionally, one retires from one’s career at about age sixty-five. Elders who
do not develop satisfying new activities (especially activities which involve a
sense of accomplishment and contribution to others) adjust poorly to retire-
ment and tend to become depressed. Old friends die or move into retire-
ment communities. Sometimes it is harder to see and talk with old friends
because of the difficulty of driving or using public transportation as one
ages, or because one or one’s friends become hard of hearing or experience
a stroke that impairs speech. By far the greatest interpersonal loss in later
life is the loss of a spouse. When adult children move away in pursuit of their
own lives, this may also give an elder the perception of being abandoned.
Conditions that can rekindle old feelings of inferiority abound in later
life. Real physical inferiorities arise. The average elder reports at least two of
the following chronic conditions: impaired vision, impaired hearing, a
heart condition, stroke, or arthritis. The United States is a youth- and body-
oriented culture that worships physical attractiveness, not wrinkles and fat.
Some elders, especially those who have had the burdens of long-term illness,
feel inferior because of their reduced financial resources.
Use in Studying Prejudice

A third area of application is social psychology, especially the study of preju-
dice. Gordon Allport suggested that those who exhibit racial or religious
433
Psychology Basics
prejudice are typically people who feel inferior themselves: They are trying
to feel better about themselves by feeling superior to someone else. Typi-
cally, prejudice against African Americans has been greatest among whites
of low socioeconomic status. Prejudice against new immigrants has been
greatest among the more poorly skilled domestic workers. Another example
of prejudice would be social class distinctions. The middle class feels infe-
rior (in terms of wealth and privilege) to the upper class. Therefore, the
middle class responds by using its private logic to demean the justification of
wealth: “The rich are rich because their ancestors were robber barons or be-
cause they themselves were junk bond traders in the 1980’s.” The middle
class feels superior to the lower class, however, and again uses private logic to
justify and legitimize that class distinction: “The poor are poor because they
are lazy and irresponsible.” In order to solidify its own identity as hardwork-
ing and responsible, the middle class develops a perception of the poor that
is more derogatory than an objective analysis would permit.
The most telling application of the theory of individual psychology to
prejudice occurred in the first part of the twentieth century in Germany.
The rise of Nazi anti-Semitism can be associated with the humiliating Ger-
man defeat in World War I and with the deplorable conditions brought
about by hyperinflation and depression. Adolf Hitler first blamed the Jews
for the “November treason” which brought about the defeat of the German
army. (This private logic allowed the German people to believe that their de-
feated army would have achieved an all-out victory at the front had it not
been for the Jewish traitors back in Berlin.) All the problems of capitalism
and social inequality were laid at the feet of Jewish financiers, and every fear
of rabble-rousing Communists was associated with Jewish radicals. Because
everything bad, weak, cowardly, or exploitive was labeled “Jewish,” non-
Jewish Germans could believe that they themselves were everything good.
The result of the institutionalization of this private logic in the Third Reich
led to one of the most blatant examples of masculine protest that human-
kind has witnessed: World War II and the Holocaust.
Use in Interpersonal Relations

A fourth application is associated with business management and sales.
Management applies interpersonal relations to subordinates; sales applies
interpersonal relations to prospective customers. Adler’s formula for effec-
tive interpersonal relations is simple: Do not make the other person feel in-
ferior. Treat workers with respect. Act as if they are intelligent, competent,
wise, and motivated. Give subordinates the opportunity and the encourage-
ment to do a good job, so that they can nurture their own social interest by
having a feeling of accomplishment and contribution. Mary Kay Ash, the
cosmetics magnate, said that she treated each of her employees and distribu-
tors as if each were wearing a sign saying “make me feel important.” A simi-
lar strategy should apply to customers.
434
Freud’s Influence
The idea of the inferiority complex bears some similarity to the writings of
many previous thinkers. Nineteenth century French psychologist Pierre
Janet came closest by developing a theory of perceived insufficiency as a
root of all neurosis. American psychologist William James spoke of an innate
craving to be appreciated. Adler’s emphasis on the individual’s capacity for
compensation (a defense mechanism for overcoming feelings of inferiority
by trying harder to excel) and on masculine protest has parallels in the writ-
ings of philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche.
The optimistic, simplified, psychosocial approach of Alfred Adler can
only be understood as a reaction to the pessimistic, esoteric, psychosexual
approach of Sigmund Freud. Adler was a respected general practitioner in
Vienna. He heard his first lecture on psychoanalysis in 1899 and was fasci-
nated, although he never regarded himself as a student or disciple of Freud.
He was invited to join the Vienna Psychoanalytic Society, and did so in 1902,
but he was never psychoanalyzed himself. By the end of the decade, he had
become president of the society and editor of its journal. As Adler’s own the-
ories developed, and as he voiced them within the psychoanalytic associa-
tion, Freud became increasingly defensive.
Adler came to criticize several underpinnings of psychoanalytic theory.
For example, he suggested that the Oedipus complex was merely the reac-
tion of a pampered child, not a universal complex. Adler saw dysfunctional
sexual attitudes and practices as a symptom of the underlying neurosis, not
as its underlying cause. When Adler would not recant his heresy, the Vienna
Psychoanalytic Society was split into a Freudian majority and an Adlerian mi-
nority. For a brief period, the Adlerians retained the term “psychoanalysis,”
only later defining their school as individual psychology.
Freud’s influence on Adler can be seen in the emphasis on the impor-
tance of early childhood and on the ideas that the motives that underlie
neurosis are outside conscious awareness (private logic) and that it is only
through insight into these motives that cure can be attained. It is largely in
Adler’s reaction against Freud, however, that Adler truly defined himself.
He saw Freud as offering a mechanistic system in which individuals merely
react according to instincts and their early childhood environment; Adler
believed that individuals have choices about their futures. He saw Freud as
emphasizing universal themes that are rigidly repeated in each patient;
Adler believed that people fashion their unique styles of life. Adler saw
Freud as being focused on the intrapsychic; Adler himself emphasized the
interpersonal, social field.
While Freud’s personality theory has been the best remembered, Adler’s
has been the most rediscovered. In the 1940’s, holistic theorists such as Kurt
Lewin and Kurt Goldstein reiterated Adler’s emphasis on the individual’s
subjective and comprehensive approach to perceptions. In the 1960’s, hu-
manistic theorists such as Abraham Maslow and Carl Rogers rediscovered
Adler’s emphasis on individuals overcoming the conditions of their child-
435
Psychology Basics
hood and striving toward a self-actualization and potential to love. In the

1980’s, cognitive theorists such as Albert Ellis, Aaron Beck, and Martin E. P.
Seligman emphasized how individuals perceive and understand their situa-
tion as the central element underlying psychopathology.
Strengths and Weaknesses

An evaluation of individual psychology must necessarily include some enu-
meration of its weaknesses as well as its strengths. The positives are obvious:
The theory is easy to comprehend, optimistic about human nature, and ap-
plicable to the understanding of a wide variety of issues. The weaknesses
would be the other side of those very strengths. If a theory is so easy to com-
prehend, is it not then simplistic or merely a reformulation of common
sense? This may explain why so many other theorists “rediscovered” Adler’s
ideas throughout the twentieth century. If a theory is so optimistic about hu-
man potential, can it present a balanced view of human nature? If a theory is
flexible and broad enough as to be able to explain so much, can it be precise
enough to explain anything with any depth? Although everything in individ-
ual psychology fits together as a unified whole, it is not always clear what the
lines of reasoning are. Does excessive inferiority feeling preclude the formu-
lation of social interest, or does social interest assuage inferiority feeling?
Does inferiority feeling engender private logic, or does private logic sustain
inferiority feeling? At different times, Adler and Adlerians seem to argue
both sides of these questions. The Achilles heel of individual psychology
(and of psychoanalysis) is prediction. If a given child is in a situation that
heightens feelings of inferiority, will that child overcompensate effectively
and develop social interest as an adult, or will private logic take over? If it
does, will it be in the form of self-brooding or masculine protest?
Although the fuzziness of Adlerian concepts will preclude individual psy-
chology from being a major force in academic psychology, it is safe to pre-
dict that future theorists will again rediscover many of Alfred Adler’s con-
cepts.

Adler, Alfred. The Practice and Theory of Individual Psychology. New York: Rout-
ledge, 1999. One in Routledge’s International Library of Psychology se-
ries, reprinting classic, milestone works on psychology. Adler’s own intro-
duction to his work.
Bottome, Phyllis. Alfred Adler: A Biography. New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons,
1939. This classic biography was written only two years after Adler’s
death. It gives much insight into the man and his theory, but the book is a
bit too laudatory.
Dreikurs, Rudolf. Fundamentals of Adlerian Psychology. 1950. Reprint. Chi-
cago: Alfred Adler Institute, 1989. The author was an Adlerian disciple
who became the leader of the Adlerian movement in the United States af-
ter World War II. His simple style and straightforward advice are in keep-
436
ing with the style of Adler himself. Dreikurs’s expertise was in the area of
child development.
Ganz, Madelaine. The Psychology of Alfred Adler and the Development of the Child.
New York: Routledge, 1999. Another in Routledge’s International Li-
brary of Psychology series. A well-organized introduction to Adler’s theo-
ries.
Mozak, Harold, and Michael Maniacci. A Primer of Adlerian Psychology: The
Analytic-Behavioral-Cognitive-Psychology of Alfred Adler. New York: Brunner/
Mazel, 1999. An introduction aimed at students, with summary and re-
view questions at the end of each chapter.
Sweeney, Thomas. Adlerian Counseling: A Practitioner’s Approach. 4th ed. Phila-
delphia: Taylor & Francis, 1998. Provides a practical overview of Adler’s
individual psychology. Written for practicing mental health profession-
als.
T. L. Brink
See also: Cognitive Psychology; Ego Psychology: Erik Erikson; Psychoanalytic

Psychology; Psychoanalytic Psychology and Personality: Sigmund Freud.
437
Industrial/Organizational
Psychology
Fields of study: Group processes; motivation theory; social perception
and cognition
Industrial/organizational psychology applies psychological research methods and the-

ories to issues of importance in work organizations. From its beginnings as psychology
applied to a few personnel topics, it has expanded to deal with almost all aspects of
work, changing as they have.
Key concepts
• experimentation
• fairness in work settings
• field research
• industrial psychology
• organizational psychology
• scientific method
Industrial/organizational psychology (often shortened to I/O psychology)

is a somewhat deceptive title for the field. Even when industrial psychology
alone was used to label it, practitioners were involved with issues and activi-
ties far beyond solving industrial problems—for example, designing proce-
dures for selecting salespeople, advertising methods, and reducing acci-
dents on public transportation. “Organizational” suggests the application of
knowledge to organizations, but the intended meaning is closer to “the
study of forces that influence how people and their activities at work are or-
ganized.”
In colleges and universities, I/O psychology is a long-recognized disci-
pline. Graduate programs leading to the M.A. and, more commonly, Ph.D.
degrees in this field are most typically offered within psychology depart-
ments, sometimes in collaboration with departments of business; occasion-
ally they are offered by business departments alone. In most cases, students
working toward graduate degrees in I/O psychology first study a wide range
of psychological topics, then study in even greater detail those that make up
the I/O specialty. The study of research methods, statistical tools for evaluat-
ing findings, motivation, personality, and so on forms a base from which psy-
chological testing, interviewing, job analysis, and performance evaluation
are studied in depth.
Evolution of Study
Psychologists were certainly not the first to study work settings and suggest
changes, or even the first to apply the scientific method to the enterprise.
For example, Frederick Winslow Taylor and Frank Gilbreth were industrial
438
Industrial/Organizational Psychology
engineers who considered workers not too different from cogs in the ma-
chines also involved in industry. Their “time and motion” studies sought to
discover how workers could most efficiently carry out their parts of the enter-
prise. Although their conclusions are often now cited as examples of inhu-
mane manipulation of workers for companies’ benefits, Taylor and Gilbreth
envisioned that both workers and employers were to gain from increases in
efficiency. Not surprisingly, most of what industrial engineering studied was
appropriated by industrial psychology and remains part of I/O psychol-
ogy—usually under the designations “job design” and “human factors engi-
neering” in the United States, or the designation “ergonomics” elsewhere.
Early psychologists had an advantage over the others studying and offer-
ing advice about work. They were popularly identified as people experts,
and for the many problems thought to be based on human characteristics or
limitations, their expertise was acknowledged, even while it was very modest.
The advantage of being expected to make valuable contributions was put to
good use, and within the first two decades of the twentieth century, indus-
trial psychology became a recognized discipline with the ability to deliver
most of what was expected of it.
Ironically, wars materially aided the early development of industrial and
organizational psychology. World War I provided psychologists unprece-
dented opportunities to try intelligence testing on a very large scale and to
develop and implement a very large personnel program. Robert Yerkes di-
rected the intelligence testing of more than one million men between 1917
and 1919, and Walter Dill Scott and Walter Van Dyke Bingham interviewed
and classified more than three million men before the war ended.
Testing, interviewing, and classification were also part of industrial psy-
chologists’ efforts during World War II, and many other lines of research
and application were also pursued. Human factors engineering, which em-
phasized machine design tailored to the people who would use the device,
was greatly advanced by the necessity that people be able to control aircraft
and other sophisticated weapons.
Following each war, some of the psychologists who had successfully
worked together chose to continue to do so. Major consulting firms grew
out of their associations and remain a source of employment for many I/O
psychologists.
Methods of Research
Industrial/organizational psychology borrowed much from many other ar-
eas of psychology during its growth and has retained the strong research ori-
entation common to them, along with many of the research methods each
has developed and many of the findings that each has generated. Bringing
psychological methods to work settings where experts from many other dis-
ciplines are studying some of the same problems results in conflicts, but it
also produces a richness of information beyond the scope of any one of the
disciplines.
439
Psychology Basics
In most cases, the most feasible approach to data collection for I/O psy-
chologists is field research, an approach in which evidence is gathered in a
“natural” setting, such as the workplace. (By contrast, laboratory research
involves an artificial, contrived setting.) Systematic observation of ongoing
work can often give a psychologist needed information without greatly dis-
turbing the workers involved. Generally, they will be told that data are being
gathered, but when the known presence of an observer likely would change
what is being studied, unobtrusive methods might be used. Information
from hidden cameras, or observations from researchers pretending to be
workers and actually engaging in whatever must be done, can be used when
justified.
Again studying within the actual work setting, I/O psychologists may
sometimes take advantage of natural experiments, situations in which a
change not deliberately introduced may be studied for its effect on some im-
portant outcome. If, for example, very extreme, unseasonable temperatures
resulted in uncontrollably high, or low, temperatures in an office setting, a
psychologist could assess the effects on employee discomfort, absenteeism,
or productivity.
Still studying within the actual work setting, an I/O psychologist may ar-
range a quasi-experiment, a situation in which the researcher changes some
factor to assess its effect while having only partial control over other factors
that might influence that change. For example, the psychologist might
study the effects of different work schedules by assigning one schedule to
one department of a company, a second schedule to a second department,
and a third schedule to a third department. The departments, the people,
and the differences in the work itself would prevent the strategy from being
a true experiment, but it still could produce some useful data.
An experiment, as psychology and other sciences define it, is difficult to
arrange within work settings, but it may be worth the effort to evaluate infor-
mation gathered by other methods. In the simplest form of experiment, the
researcher randomly assigns the people studied into two groups and, while
holding constant all other factors that might influence the experiment’s
outcome, presents some condition (known as an independent variable) to
one group of subjects (the experimental group) and withholds it from an-
other (the control group). Finally, the researcher measures the outcome
(the dependent variable) for both groups.
Carrying out a true experiment almost always requires taking the people
involved away from their typical activities into a setting obviously designed
for study (usually called the laboratory, even though it may bear little resem-
blance to a laboratory of, say, a chemist). The need to establish a new, artifi-
cial setting and the need to pull workers away from their work to gather in-
formation are both troublesome, as is the risk that what is learned in the
laboratory setting may not hold true back in the natural work setting.
Correlational methods, borrowed from psychometrics, complement the
observational and experimental techniques just described. Correlation is a
440
mathematical technique for comparing the similarity of two sets of data (lit-
erally, to determine their co-relation). An important example of the I/O
psychologist’s seeking information on relationships is found in the process
of hiring-test validation, answering the question of the extent to which test
scores and eventual work performance are correlated. To establish validity, a
researcher must demonstrate a substantial relationship between scores and
performance, evidence that the test is measuring what is intended.
Applications in the Workplace

Industrial/organizational psychology, as the term implies, focuses on two
broad areas; Linda Jewell and Marc Siegall, in their Contemporary Industrial/
Organizational Psychology (3d ed., 1998), demonstrate this by their arrange-
ment of topics. Industrial topics include testing; job analysis and evaluation;
recruitment, selection, and placement of applicants; employee training and
socialization; evaluation of employee job performance; job design; working
conditions; health and safety; and motivation. Organizational topics include
a company’s social system and communication, groups within organiza-
tions, leadership, and organizational change and development. Topics of
overlap of the two areas include absenteeism, turnover, job commitment,
job satisfaction, employee development, and quality of work life.
Testing in I/O psychology most often is done to assess peoples’ aptitudes
or abilities as a basis for making selection, placement, or promotion deci-
sions about them. It may also be used for other purposes—for example, to
judge the quality of training programs. The tests used range from ones of
general aptitude (IQ, or intelligence quotient, tests) through tests of spe-
cific aptitudes, interests, and personality, although use of IQ and personality
tests remains controversial. Aptitude for success in academically related ac-
tivity (as might be related to one’s IQ) is often of only modest importance in
work settings, but the folk wisdom “the best person is the most intelligent
person” can lead to giving IQ tests routinely to applicants. Personality is a
troublesome concept within psychology. Tests of it can be useful to clini-
cians working with mental health issues but are rarely useful as bases for em-
ployment-related decisions. When outcomes from personality testing are
specific enough to be useful—for example, when they reveal serious person-
ality problems—the same information is usually obtainable from reviews of
work history or from interviews.
Along with other procedures related to making decisions about people in
work settings, testing is often targeted as being unfair to some groups—for
example, African Americans or women. If the use of a particular test results
in decision making that even suggests unfair discrimination, companies
must have available solid evidence that this is not the case, if they choose to
continue using the test.
Job analysis determines what tasks must be carried out in a job. It serves as
the major basis for deciding what skills successful job applicants must have
or what training to provide newly hired workers. The evaluation of job per-
441
Psychology Basics
formances of individual employees must be based on what they should be

doing, revealed by job analysis. Dismissal, retention, promotion, and wage
increases may all be related to job analysis information. It is also a basis for
job evaluation, the determining of what is appropriate pay for the job, al-
though evaluation often must also be based on the availability of applicants,
average wages in a geographic area, and other factors.
Recruiting, selecting, and placing refer to sequential steps in filling posi-
tions. Although some companies can let prospective employees come to
them, many prefer actively to seek applicants. Recruiting may involve little
more than announcing that a position is open or as much as sending trained
representatives to find promising people and encourage them to apply for
work. At least two considerations make vigorous recruiting attractive. First, it
is often possible for companies to reduce training costs greatly by finding ap-
plicants who are already proficient. Second, when minority-group employ-
ees are needed to achieve fair balance in an organization, recruiting can of-
ten focus on members of ethnic minorities or women.
Although training may be unnecessary if a company is able to hire al-
ready-skilled people, training is generally advantageous after hiring and pe-
riodically over a worker’s tenure. Promotion may be based on success in
training, or training may follow promotion based on other considerations.
Although “training” suggests the development or enhancement of job skills,
it often also includes socialization, the bringing of new employees into the
“family” of the company and the teaching of values, goals, and expectations
that extend beyond carrying out a specific work assignment. Job design,
working conditions, health and safety, and motivation are usually given sep-
arate chapters in texts, but often in work settings they must be considered as
a set. For example, if a job, as designed, forces or even encourages workers
to put their health or safety at risk, their working conditions are unsatisfac-
tory, and when they recognize the nature of the situation, their motivation is
likely to be impaired.
Legal and Ethical Requirements

When industrial psychologists of the early twentieth century recommended
hiring or promotion, designed training, or carried out any other of their re-
sponsibilities, they had only to satisfy their employers’ demands. Since the
late 1960’s, I/O psychologists have also had to satisfy legal and ethical re-
quirements pertaining to a host of problem areas such as racism, sexism, age
discrimination, and discrimination against the handicapped. More than
good intentions are necessary here. The psychologists must work to balance
the societal demands for fairness in work settings (the basing of decisions
about workers’ hiring, salary, promotion, and so on entirely on work-rele-
vant considerations and not on race, sex, age, or other personal characteris-
tics) and the practical interests of employers, sometimes having to endure
criticism for even the most ingenious of solutions.
For example, if an employer finds the company must increase its number
442
of Latino workers, vigorous recruiting is an excellent first step, yet it may

prove expensive enough to aggravate the employer. If recruiting is not suc-
cessful because would-be applicants doubt the employer’s sincerity, both
they and the employer will be unhappy. If recruiting is successful in generat-
ing interest, but many interested individuals are unqualified, providing
them special training could be a reasonable solution. Applicants might feel
it degrading, however, to be required to undergo more training than others
before them, or the employer might balk at the extra cost involved.
The first industrial psychologists needed little more than solid training in
their discipline to achieve success. Their successors need, beyond training
in a discipline that has enlarged enormously, the talents of diplomats.

Anderson, Neil, Deniz S. Ones, and Handan Kepir Sinangil, eds. Handbook of
Industrial, Work, and Organization Psychology. 2 vols. Thousand Oaks, Calif.:
Sage, 2002. Volume 1 focuses on industrial psychology theories, tech-
niques, and methods. Volume 2 offers specific case studies in topics such
as motivation, leadership, organizational justice, and organizational de-
velopment and change.
Hilgard, Ernest Ropiequet. Psychology in America: A Historical Survey. San
Diego, Calif.: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1987. Chapter 19, “Industrial
and Organizational Psychology,” is a definitive review of about eighty
years of the field’s advancement from a promising application of the new
“scientific psychology” to a major subdiscipline of modern psychology.
The subject is also covered in some of Hilgard’s other chapters (for exam-
ple, those on intelligence, on motivation, and on social psychology).
Jewell, Linda N., and Marc Siegall. Contemporary Industrial/Organizational
Psychology. 3d ed. Belmont, Calif.: Wadsworth, 1998. A text for an intro-
ductory college course offering excellent coverage of the discipline’s top-
ics. Written for students majoring in business as much as for those major-
ing in psychology. A book that almost anyone can understand.
Rogelberg, Steven, ed. Blackwell Handbook of Research Methods in Industrial
and Organizational Psychology. New York: Blackwell, 2002. A comprehen-
sive overview of the field, useful to beginners and experts alike. Addresses
both practical and theoretical issues of industrial psychology.
Rosenzweig, Mark R., and Lyman W. Porter, eds. Annual Review of Psychology.
Stanford, Calif.: Annual Reviews. Most volumes of this highly respected
series contain a chapter or two on I/O psychology, indexed under
“Personnel-Organizational Psychology.” Each volume also contains a chap-
ter title index for at least the previous decade, making location of particu-
lar topics reasonably easy.
See also: Motivation.
443
Instinct Theory
Fields of study: Biological influences on learning; motivation theory
Until behaviorism, which rejected instincts, became the dominant theoretical model for
psychology during the early decades of the twentieth century, instinct theory was often
used to explain both animal and human motivation. As behaviorism faded, aspects of
instinct theory returned to psychology—modernized, but still recognizable as parts of
the oldest theory of motivation.
Key concepts
• behaviorism
• instinct
• motivation
• reflex
• scientific method
• tropism
When instinct theory was incorporated into the new scientific psychology of
the late nineteenth century, it was already centuries old. In its earliest form,
instinct theory specified that a creature’s essential nature was already estab-
lished at birth and that its actions would largely be directed by that nature. A
modern restatement of this notion would be that, at birth, creatures are al-
ready programmed and that they must operate according to their programs.
Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution through natural selection, first pub-
lished in 1859, led to great controversy in the late nineteenth and early twen-
tieth centuries. It also fostered speculation that, if humans were evolved
from earlier forms and were therefore more closely related to other animals
than had once been believed, humans might have instincts—inherited be-
haviors—as other animals were observed to have. William McDougall was
one of the main early instinct theorists; he suggested a list of human in-
stincts in 1908 that included such varied behaviors as repulsion, curiosity,
self-abasement, and gregariousness. Many researchers came up with their
own lists of human instincts; by the 1920’s, more than two thousand had
been suggested.
A computer program can be printed out and studied, but an instinct in
the original sense cannot so easily be made explicit. At best, it can be in-
ferred from the behavior of an animal or person after other explanations
for that behavior have been discounted. At worst, it is simply assumed from
observing behavior. That a person has, for example, an instinct of argumen-
tativeness could be assumed from the person’s arguing; arguing is then “ex-
plained” by declaring that it comes from an instinct of argumentativeness.
Such circular reasoning is unacceptable in scientific analyses, but it is very
common in some early scientific (and many modern, popular) discussions
of instinct.
444
Instinct Theory
Variations in Theory
As is often the case with ideas that have long been believed by both scientists
and the public, instinct theory has separated into several theories. The earli-
est form was accepted by Aristotle, the ancient Greek philosopher and scien-
tist. He wrote in his Politics that “a social instinct is implanted in all men by
nature” and stated that “a man would be thought a coward if he had no more
courage than a courageous woman, and a woman would be thought loqua-
cious if she imposed no more restraint on her conversation than the good
man.” The first comment declares an inherent quality of people; the sec-
ond, inherent qualities of men and women. Very likely, Aristotle’s beliefs
were based on observation of people around him—a good beginning but
not a sufficient basis for making factual comments about people in general.
Aristotle’s views were those of a scientist of his day. Centuries later, a scien-
tist would not hold such views, but a layperson very well might. Over the
many centuries since Aristotle expressed his views on instinct theory, “popu-
lar” versions of it have been more influential than the cautious versions of-
fered by later scientists.
Historic Misinterpretations
Modern science reaches conclusions based, to the greatest extent possible,
on evidence gathered and interpreted along lines suggested by theories.
Traditional instinct theory is especially weak in suggesting such lines; usu-
ally it put early psychologists in the position of trying to support the idea
that instinct had caused a behavior by demonstrating that nothing else had
caused it. Rather than supporting one possibility, they were attempting to
deny dozens of others. Even worse, they were forcing thought into an
“either-or” pattern rather than allowing for the possibility that a behavior
may be based on inherited influences interacting with learned ones.
For example, to try to evaluate the possibility that people are instinctively
afraid of snakes, one could begin by finding a number of people afraid of
snakes, followed by an attempt to discount all the ways in which those indi-
viduals might have learned their fear—that they had never been harmed by
a snake, never been startled, never been told that snakes are dangerous, and
so on. The task is all but impossible, almost guaranteeing that a researcher
will conclude that there are several ways that the fear could have been
learned, so there is no need for an instinct explanation. The fact that people
who fear snakes can learn not to fear them can be offered as further evi-
dence that they had learned their original fear—not a particularly compel-
ling argument.
When behaviorism became the predominant theoretical stance of psy-
chology in the 1920’s, the problems with instinct as an explanation of moti-
vation were “resolved” simply by sidestepping them. Instincts were dis-
carded as unscientific, and other concepts—such as needs, drives, and
motives—were substituted for them. Psychology’s dropping of the term “in-
stinct” from its jargon did not eliminate, either for lower animals or for peo-
445
Psychology Basics
ple, the behaviors it had originally labeled. Dropping the term did, however,
separate even further the popular views of instinct from the scientific ones.
Reemergence of “Human Nature” Research

Instinct theory’s purpose in psychology’s infancy was the same as it had once
been in the distant past: to explain motivation of a variety of species, from
the simplest creatures up through humans. Unfortunately, it had also served
other purposes in the past, purposes which often proved unwelcome to early
behavioral scientists. To declare people superior to other animals, or men
superior to women, or almost any target group better or worse than another
was not a goal of psychology.
Worse than the heritage of centuries of misuse of the concept of instinct,
however, was the accumulation of evidence that instincts (as originally de-
fined, as completely unlearned behavior) were limited to simple creatures
and were virtually nonexistent in people. Psychology and related sciences
virtually eliminated instinct as a motivational concept for decades, yet they
could not avoid bringing back similar notions. The term “instinct” was gone,
but what it tried to explain was not. For example, social psychologists, work-
ing in the 1940’s to find alternatives to the belief that aggression is instinc-
tive in humans, proposed that frustration (goal blocking) is a major cause.
When pressed to explain why frustration led to aggression, many indicated
that this is simply part of human nature. Some years later, it was demon-
strated that the presence of some sort of weapon during a frustrating experi-
ence enhanced the likelihood of aggression, apparently through a “trigger-
ing effect.” Instinct as a concept was not invoked, but these ideas came very
close.
Even closer was the work of another group of scientists, ethologists, in their
explanations of some animal behaviors. Evaluating what might be thought a
good example of instinct in its earliest definition, a duckling following its
mother, they demonstrated that experience with a moving object is necessary.
In other words, learning (but learning limited to a very brief period in the
duckling’s development) led to the behavior. Many other seemingly strong
examples of instinct were demonstrated to be a consequence of some inner
predisposition interacting with environmental circumstances. A new, useful
rethinking of the ancient instinct concept had begun.
Instinctive Influences
A 1961 article by Keller and Marian Breland suggested that instinct should
still be a part of psychology, despite its period of disgrace. In training per-
forming animals, the scientists witnessed a phenomenon they termed “in-
stinctive drift.” (It is interesting to note that although other terms, such as
“species-specific behavior,” were at that time preferred to “instinct,” the
Brelands stated their preference for the original label.) Instinctive drift re-
fers to the tendency of a creature’s trained behavior to move in the direction
of inherited predispositions.
446
Instinct Theory
The Brelands tried to teach pigs to place coins in a piggy bank; they
found that although the pigs could easily be taught to pick up coins and run
toward the bank, they could not be stopped from repeatedly dropping and
rooting at them. Raccoons could be taught to drop coins in a container but
could not be stopped from “dipping” the coins in and rubbing them to-
gether, a drift toward the instinctive washing of food. Several other species
presented similar problems to their would-be trainers, all related to what the
Brelands willingly called instinct.
Preparedness is another example of an instinct/learning relationship.
Through conditioning, any creature can be taught to associate some previ-
ously neutral stimuli with a behavior. Dogs in Ivan Pavlov’s laboratory at the
beginning of the twentieth century readily learned to salivate at the sound
of a bell, a signal that food would appear immediately. While some stimuli
can easily serve as signals for a particular species, others cannot. It seems
clear that animals are prepared by nature for some sorts of learning but not
others. Rats can readily be trained to press a lever (a bar in a Skinner box) to
obtain food, and pigeons can readily be trained to peck at something to do
so, but there are some behaviors that they simply cannot learn to serve that
purpose.
Conditioned taste aversion is yet another example of an instinctive influ-
ence that has been well documented by modern psychology. In people and
other animals, nausea following the taste of food very consistently leads to
that taste becoming aversive. The taste/nausea combination is specific; elec-
tric shock following a taste does not cause the taste to become aversive, nor
does a visual stimulus followed by nausea cause the sight to become aversive.
Researchers theorize that the ability to learn to detect and avoid tainted
food has survival value, so it has become instinctive.
Limitations and Misuse of Theory

In popular use, belief in instincts has confused and hurt people more than
it has enlightened or helped them. Instinct theory often imposes a rigid
either-or form on people’s thinking about human motivation. That is, peo-
ple are encouraged by the notion of instinct to wonder if some behavior—
aggression, for example—is either inherent in people or learned from expe-
rience.
Once one’s thoughts are cast into such a mold, one is less likely to con-
sider the strong likelihood that a behavior has multiple bases, which may be
different from one person to the next. Instead of looking for the many possi-
ble reasons for human aggression—some related to inherent qualities and
some related to learned qualities—one looks for a single cause. Often, in-
tently focusing on one possibility to the exclusion of all others blinds people
to the very fact that they are doing so. Searching for “the” answer, they fail to
recognize that their very method of searching has locked their thinking
onto a counterproductive track.
Instinct theory has been invoked to grant humans special status above
447
Psychology Basics
that of other animals. Generally, this argument states that humans can rea-
son and rationally control their actions, while lower animals are guided
solely by instincts. At best, this argument has been used to claim that hu-
mans are especially loved by their god. At worst, the idea that lower animals
are supposedly guided only by instinct was used by philosopher René Des-
cartes to claim that animals are essentially automatons, incapable of actu-
ally feeling pain, and that therefore they could be vivisected without anes-
thesia.
Instinct theory has also been used to support the claim that some people
are more worthy than other people. Those with fewer “base instincts,” or
even those who by their rationality have overcome them, are supposedly su-
perior. Acceptance of such ideas has led to very real errors of judgment and
considerable human suffering. For example, over many centuries, across
much of the world, it was believed that women, simply by virtue of being fe-
male, were not capable of sufficiently clear thinking to justify providing
them with a formal education, allowing them to own property, or letting
them hold elected office or vote. Anthropologist Margaret Mead, in her
1942 book And Keep Your Powder Dry: An Anthropologist Looks at America, re-
ports reversal of the claim that women inherently lack some important qual-
ity. Young women in her classes, when told the then-prevailing view that peo-
ple had no instincts and therefore that they had no maternal instinct
became very upset, according to Mead, believing that they lacked some-
thing essential. Many minority racial or ethnic groups have suffered in simi-
lar fashion from claims that, by their unalterable nature, they are incapable
of behaving at levels comparable to those in the majority.
Instinct theory has been used to suggest the absolute inevitability of many
undesirable behaviors, sometimes as a way of excusing them. The ideas that
philandering is part of a man’s nature or that gossiping is part of a woman’s
are patently foolish uses of the concept of instinct.

Birney, Robert Charles, and Richard C. Teevan. Instinct: An Enduring Problem
in Psychology. Princeton, N.J.: Van Nostrand, 1961. A collection of read-
ings intended for college students. Contains fourteen articles, ranging
from William James’s 1887 discussion of instinct to Frank Beach’s 1955
“The Descent of Instinct,” in which Beach traces the idea of instinct from
the time of the ancient Greeks up to the 1950’s and concludes that “the
instinct concept has survived in almost complete absence of empirical
validation.”
Breland, Keller, and Marian Breland. “The Misbehavior of Organisms.”
American Psychologist 16 (November, 1961): 681-684. In the process of
training performing animals, the Brelands were forced to contend with
inherited behaviors of their pupils. This article alerted a generation of
psychologists to the possibility that instinct had been inappropriately
eliminated from their thinking. The writing is clear and amusing, and the
448
Instinct Theory
article should be fairly easy to locate; most college and university libraries
will have the journal.
Cofer, Charles Norval, and M. H. Appley. Motivation: Theory and Research.
New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1964. Long regarded as a classic on the
topic of motivation, this book includes (in chapter 2, “Motivation in His-
torical Perspective”) thirty-two pages of material that traces instinct
through the centuries. Chapter 3, “The Concept of Instinct: Ethological
Position,” discusses ways the once discredited concept was returning to
psychology in the early 1960’s.
Hilgard, Ernest Ropiequet. Psychology in America: A Historical Survey. San
Diego, Calif.: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1987. The material Hilgard
covers is often complex, but his clear organization and writing make it ac-
cessible to most readers. Material related to instinct in several chapters
(for example, those on motivation, comparative psychology, and social
psychology) can help a reader gain further background on instinct’s
place in psychology.
Mead, Margaret. And Keep Your Powder Dry: An Anthropologist Looks at America.
1942. Reprint. New York: Berghahn Books, 2000. The classic by Mead on
Western contemporary cultures.
Watson, John Broadus. Behaviorism. 1924. Reprint. New Brunswick, N.J.:
Transaction, 1998. The fifth chapter of Watson’s popular presentation of
the new psychology he was sponsoring (“Are There Any Human In-
stincts?”) nicely illustrates how behaviorism handled instinct. This chap-
ter contains Watson’s famous declaration, “Give me a dozen healthy in-
fants, well-formed, and my own specified world to bring them up in and
I’ll guarantee to take any one at random and train him to become any
type of specialist I might select. . . . ” Watson’s writing is still charming, but
his position is today mainly a curiosity.
Weiten, Wayne. Psychology: Themes and Variations. 6th ed. Belmont, Calif.:
Thomson/Wadsworth, 2004. Introductory psychology texts all have some
coverage of instinct’s return to psychology and, more important, de-
scribe how several other concepts have been introduced to deal with top-
ics with which instinct was once inappropriately linked. Weiten’s text is
one of the best: easy and interesting to read, yet strong in its coverage of
scientific psychology.
See also: Aggression; Behaviorism; Conditioning; Drives; Imprinting; Learning;

Motivation; Reflexes.
449
Intelligence
Fields of study: General issues in intelligence; intelligence assessment
Intelligence is a hypothetical concept, rather than a tangible entity, that is used by psy-
chologists and other scientists to explain differences in the quality and adaptive value
of the behavior of humans and, to some extent, animals. Its meaning and the theoreti-
cal models used to explore it are as varied as the field of psychology itself.
Key concepts
• cognitive psychology
• correlation
• factor
• factor analysis
• heritability
The idea that human beings differ in their capacity to adapt to their envi-
ronments, to learn from experience, to exercise various skills, and to suc-
ceed at various endeavors has existed since ancient times. Intelligence is the
attribute most often singled out as responsible for successful adaptations.
Up to the end of the nineteenth century, notions about what constitutes in-
telligence and how differences in intelligence arise were mostly speculative.
In the late nineteenth century, several trends converged to bring about an
event that would change the way in which intelligence was seen and dramati-
cally influence the way it would be studied. That event, which occurred in
1905, was the publication of the first useful instrument for measuring intelli-
gence, the Binet-Simon scale, which was developed in France by Alfred
Binet and Théodore Simon.
Although the development of intelligence tests was a great technological
accomplishment, it occurred, in a sense, somewhat prematurely, before
much scientific attention had been paid to the concept of intelligence. This
circumstance tied the issue of defining intelligence and a large part of the
research into its nature and origins to the limitations of the tests that had
been devised. In fact, the working definition of intelligence that many psy-
chologists have used either explicitly or implicitly in their scientific and ap-
plied pursuits is the one expressed by Edwin Boring in 1923, which holds
that intelligence is whatever intelligence tests measure. Most psychologists
realize that this definition is redundant and inadequate in that it errone-
ously implies that the tests are perfectly accurate and able to capture all that
is meant by the concept. Nevertheless, psychologists and others have pro-
ceeded to use the tests as if the definition were true, mainly because of a
scarcity of viable alternatives.
The general public has also been led astray by the existence of “intelli-
gence” tests and the frequent misuse of their results. Many people have
come to think of the intelligence quotient, or IQ, not as a simple score
450
Intelligence
achieved on a particular test, which it is, but as a complete and stable mea-
sure of intellectual capacity, which it most definitely is not. Such misconcep-
tions have led to an understandable resistance toward and resentment of in-
telligence tests.
Changing Definitions
Boring’s semifacetious definition of intelligence may be the best known and
most criticized one, but it is only one among many that have been offered.
Most experts in the field have defined the concept at least once in their ca-
reers. Two of the most frequently cited and influential definitions are the
ones provided by Alfred Binet himself and by David Wechsler, author of a se-
ries of “second-generation” individual intelligence tests that overtook the
Binet scales in terms of the frequency with which they are used. Binet be-
lieved that the essential activities of intelligence are to judge well, to compre-
hend well, and to reason well. He stated that intelligent thought is character-
ized by direction, knowing what to do and how to do it; by adaptation, the
capacity to monitor one’s strategies for attaining a desired end; and by criti-
cism, the power to evaluate and control one’s behavior. In 1975, almost sixty-
five years after Binet’s death, Wechsler defined intelligence, not dissimilarly,
as the global capacity of the individual to act purposefully, to think ratio-
nally, and to deal effectively with the environment.
In addition to the testing experts (psychometricians), developmental,
learning, and cognitive psychologists, among others, are also vitally inter-
ested in the concept of intelligence. Specialists in each of these subfields
emphasize different aspects of it in their definitions and research.
Representative definitions were sampled in 1921, when the Journal of Edu-
cational Psychology published the views of fourteen leading investigators, and
again in 1986, when Robert Sternberg and Douglas Detterman collected the
opinions of twenty-four experts in a book titled What Is Intelligence? Contempo-
rary Viewpoints on Its Nature and Definition. Most of the experts sampled in
1921 offered definitions that equated intelligence with one or more specific
abilities. For example, Lewis Terman equated it with abstract thinking, which
is the ability to elaborate concepts and to use language and other symbols.
Others proposed definitions that emphasized the ability to adapt or learn.
Some definitions centered on knowledge and cognitive components only,
whereas others included nonintellectual qualities, such as perseverance.
In comparison, Sternberg’s and Detterman’s 1986 survey of definitions,
which is even more wide ranging, is accompanied by an organizational
framework consisting of fifty-five categories or combinations of categories
under which the twenty-four definitions can be classified. Some theorists
view intelligence from a biological perspective and emphasize differences
across species or the role of the central nervous system. Some stress cogni-
tive aspects of mental functioning, while others focus on the role of motiva-
tion and goals. Still others, such as Anne Anastasi, choose to look upon intel-
ligence as a quality that is inherent in behavior rather than in the individual.
451
Psychology Basics
Another major perspective highlights the role of the environment, in terms

of demands and values, in defining what constitutes intelligent behavior.
Throughout the 1986 survey, one can find definitions that straddle two or
more categories.
A review of the 1921 and 1986 surveys shows that the definitions pro-
posed have become considerably more sophisticated and suggests that, as
the field of psychology has expanded, the views of experts on intelligence
may have grown farther apart. The reader of the 1986 work is left with the
clear impression that intelligence is such a multifaceted concept that no sin-
gle quality can define it and no single task or series of tasks can capture it
completely. Moreover, it is clear that in order to unravel the qualities that
produce intelligent behavior, one must look not only at individuals and
their skills but also at the requirements of the systems in which people find
themselves. In other words, intelligence cannot be defined in a vacuum.
New intelligence research focuses on different ways to measure intelli-
gence and on paradigms for improving or training intellectual abilities and
skills. Measurement paradigms allow researchers to understand ongoing
processing abilities. Some intelligence researchers include measures of in-
tellectual style and motivation in their models.
Factor Analysis
The lack of a universally accepted definition has not deterred continuous
theorizing and research on the concept of intelligence. The central issue
that has dominated theoretical models of intelligence is the question of
whether it is a single, global ability or a collection of specialized abilities.
This debate, started in England by Charles Spearman, is based on research
that uses the correlations among various measures of abilities and, in partic-
ular, the method of factor analysis, which was also pioneered by Spearman.
As early as 1904, Spearman, having examined the patterns of correlation co-
efficients among tests of sensory discrimination and estimates of intelli-
gence, proposed that all mental functions are the result of a single general
factor, which he later designated g.
Spearman equated g with the ability to grasp and apply relations. He also
allowed for the fact that most tasks require unique abilities, and he named
those s, or specific, factors. According to Spearman, to the extent that per-
formance on tasks was positively correlated, the correlation was attributable
to the presence of g, whereas the presence of specific factors tended to lower
the correlation between measures of performance on different tasks.
By 1927, Spearman had modified his theory to allow for the existence of
an intermediate class of factors, known as group factors, which were neither
as universal as g nor as narrow as the s factors. Group factors were seen as ac-
counting for the fact that certain types of activities, such as tasks involving
the use of numbers or the element of speed, correlate more highly with one
another than they do with tasks that do not have such elements in common.
Factor-analytic research has undergone explosive growth and extensive
452
Intelligence
variations and refinements in both England and the United States since the
1920’s. In the United States, work in this field was influenced greatly by Tru-
man Kelley, whose 1928 book Crossroads in the Mind of Man presented a
method for isolating group factors, and L. L. Thurstone, who by further
elaboration of factor-analytic procedures identified a set of about twelve fac-
tors that he designated as the “primary mental abilities.” Seven of these were
repeatedly found in a number of investigations, using samples of people at
different age levels, that were carried out by both Thurstone and others.
These group factors or primary mental abilities are verbal comprehension,
word fluency, speed and accuracy of arithmetic computation, spatial visual-
ization, associative memory, perceptual speed, and general reasoning.
Organizational Models
As the search for distinct intellectual factors progressed, their number mul-
tiplied, and so did the number of models devised to organize them. One
type of scheme, used by Cyril Burt, Philip Vernon, and others, is a hierarchi-
cal arrangement of factors. In these models, Spearman’s g factor is placed at
the top of a pyramid, and the specific factors are placed at the bottom. In be-
tween, there are one or more levels of group factors selected in terms of
their breadth and arranged according to their interrelationships with the
more general factors above them and the more specific factors below them.
In Vernon’s scheme, for example, the ability to change a tire might be
classified as a specific factor at the base of the pyramid, located underneath
an intermediate group factor labeled mechanical information, which in
turn would be under one of the two major group factors identified by
Vernon as the main subdivisions under g —namely, the practical-mechanical
factor. The hierarchical scheme for organizing mental abilities is a useful de-
vice that is endorsed by many psychologists on both sides of the Atlantic
Ocean. It recognizes that very few tasks are so simple as to require a single
skill for successful performance, that many intellectual functions have some
common elements, and that some abilities play a more pivotal role than oth-
ers in the performance of culturally valued activities.
Another well-known scheme for organizing intellectual traits is the
structure-of-intellect (SOI) model developed by J. P. Guilford. Although the
SOI is grounded in extensive factor-analytic research conducted by Guilford
throughout the 1940’s and 1950’s, the model goes beyond factor analysis
and is perhaps the most ambitious attempt to classify systematically all the
possible functions of the human intellect. The SOI classifies intellectual
traits along three dimensions—namely, five types of operations, four types
of contents, and six types of productions, for a total of 120 categories
(5 × 4 × 6). Intellectual operations consist of what a person actually does (for
example, evaluating or remembering something), the contents are the
types of materials or information on which the operations are performed
(for example, symbols, such as letters or numbers), and the products are the
form in which the contents are processed (for example, units or relations).
453
Psychology Basics
Not all the 120 categories in Guilford’s complex model have been used, but
enough factors have been identified to account for about 100 of them, and
some have proved very useful in labeling and understanding the skills that
tests measure. Furthermore, Guilford’s model has served to call attention to
some dimensions of intellectual activity, such as creativity and interpersonal
skills, that had been neglected previously.
Competence and Self-Management

Modern theorists in the area of intelligence have tried to avoid the reliance
on factor analysis and existing tests that have limited traditional research
and have tried different approaches to the subject. For example, Howard
Gardner, in his 1983 book Frames of Mind: The Theory of Multiple Intelligences,
starts with the premises that the essence of intelligence is competence and
that there are several distinct areas in which human beings can demonstrate
competence. Based on a wide-ranging review of evidence from many scien-
tific fields and sources, Gardner designated seven areas of competence as
separate and relatively independent “intelligences.” In his 1993 work Multi-
ple Intelligences, Gardner revised his theory to include an eighth type of intel-
ligence. This set of attributes is comprised of verbal, mathematical, spatial,
bodily/kinesthetic, musical, interpersonal, intrapersonal, and naturalist
skills.
Another theory is the one proposed by Robert Sternberg in his 1985
book Beyond IQ: A Triarchic Theory of Human Intelligence. Sternberg defines in-
telligence, broadly, as mental self-management and stresses the “real-world,”
in addition to the academic, aspects of the concept. He believes that intelli-
gent behavior consists of purposively adapting to, selecting, and shaping
one’s environment and that both culture and personality play significant
roles in such behavior. Sternberg posits that differences in IQ scores reflect
differences in individuals’ stages of developing the expertise measured by
the particular IQ test, rather than attributing these scores to differences in
intelligence, ability, or aptitude. Sternberg’s model has five key elements:
metacognitive skills, learning skills, thinking skills, knowledge, and motiva-
tion. The elements all influence one another. In this work, Sternberg claims
that measurements derived from ability and achievement tests are not dif-
ferent in kind; only in the point at which the measurements are being make.
Intelligence and Environment

Theories of intelligence are still grappling with the issues of defining its na-
ture and composition. Generally, newer theories do not represent radical
departures from the past. They do, however, emphasize examining intelli-
gence in relation to the variety of environments in which people actually live
rather than to only academic or laboratory environments. Moreover, many
investigators, especially those in cognitive psychology, are more interested
in breaking down and replicating the steps involved in information process-
ing and problem solving than they are in enumerating factors or settling on
454
Intelligence
a single definition of intelligence. These trends hold the promise of moving

the work in the field in the direction of devising new ways to teach people to
understand, evaluate, and deal with their environments more intelligently
instead of simply measuring how well they do on intelligence tests. In their
1998 article “Teaching Triarchically Improves School Achievement,” Stern-
berg and his colleagues note that teaching or training interventions can be
linked directly to components of intelligence. Motivation also plays a role.
In their 2000 article “Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivation,” Richard Ryan and
Edward Deci provide a review of modern thinking about intrinsic and ex-
trinsic motivation. The authors suggest that the use of motivational strate-
gies should promote student self-determination.
The most heated of all the debates about intelligence is the one regard-
ing its determinants, often described as the “nature-nurture” controversy.
The “nature” side of the debate was spearheaded by Francis Galton, a nine-
teenth century English scientist who had become convinced that intelli-
gence was a hereditary trait. Galton’s followers tried to show, through stud-
ies comparing identical and nonidentical twins raised together and raised
apart and by comparisons of people related to each other in varying de-
grees, that genetic endowment plays a far larger role than the environment
in determining intelligence. Attempts to quantify an index of heritability for
intelligence through such studies abound, and the estimates derived from
them vary widely. On the “nurture” side of the debate, massive quantities of
data have been gathered in an effort to show that the environment, includ-
ing factors such as prenatal care, social-class membership, exposure to cer-
tain facilitative experiences, and educational opportunities of all sorts, has
the more crucial role in determining a person’s level of intellectual func-
tioning.
Many critics, such as Anastasi (in a widely cited 1958 article entitled “He-
redity, Environment, and the Question ‘How?’”) have pointed out the futil-
ity of debating how much each factor contributes to intelligence. Anastasi
and others argue that behavior is a function of the interaction between he-
redity and the total experiential history of individuals and that, from the
moment of conception, the two are inextricably tied. Moreover, they point
out that, even if intelligence were shown to be primarily determined by he-
redity, environmental influences could still modify its expression at any
point. Most psychologists now accept this “interactionist” position and have
moved on to explore how intelligence develops and how specific genetic
and environmental factors affect it.

Fancher, Raymond E. The Intelligence Men: Makers of the IQ Controversy. New
York: W. W. Norton, 1985. Presents the history of the various debates on
intelligence in a highly readable fashion. The lives and ideas of the pio-
neers in the field, such as Alfred Binet and Francis Galton, are described
in some detail.
455
Psychology Basics
Gardner, Howard. Frames of Mind: The Theory of Multiple Intelligences. 2d ed.

New York: Basic Books, 1993. Gardner’s description of the talents he des-
ignates as “intelligences” and explanation of the reasons for his selections
provide a fascinating introduction to many of the most intriguing aspects
of the field, including the extremes of prodigies and prodigious savants.
__________. Multiple Intelligences: Theory into Practice. New York: Basic Books,
1993. Gardner’s update of his original theory of multiple intelligences
adds an eighth intelligence to the set.
Guilford, Joy Paul. The Nature of Human Intelligence. New York: McGraw-Hill,
1967. Guilford describes the foundation of his theory of the structure of
the intellect and in the process reviews the history of research into and
theorizing about intelligence. This volume is an important contribution
to the field.
Ryan, R. M., and E. L. Deci. “Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivation.” Contempo-
rary Educational Psychology 25 (2000): 54-67. Reviews contemporary think-
ing on the subject.
Sternberg, Robert J. Successful Intelligence. New York: Plume, 1997. A book
aimed at the layperson, describing Sternberg’s theory of triarchic intelli-
gence and its practical applications.
__________. The Triarchic Mind: A New Theory of Human Intelligence. New York:
Penguin Books, 1989. Sternberg reviews and criticizes the limitations of
traditional views of intelligence and presents his own variations on that
theme. The book is addressed to a general audience and contains intel-
lectual exercises aimed at enhancing the reader’s performance on cogni-
tive tests.
Sternberg, Robert J., Torff, B., and E. L. Grigorenko. “Teaching Triarchi-
cally Improves School Achievement.” Journal of Educational Psychology 90
(1998): 374-384. A review of practical application of Sternberg’s theory of
triarchic intelligence.
Vernon, Philip Ewart. Intelligence: Heredity and Environment. San Francisco:
W. H. Freeman, 1979. Presents a thorough and thoughtful review of re-
search on both sides of the “nature-nurture” debate on the development
of intelligence. The issue of racial differences in intelligence is also dis-
cussed at length.
Susana P. Urbina; updated by Ronna F. Dillon
See also: Cognitive Psychology; Creativity and Intelligence; Giftedness; In-

telligence Tests; Logic and Reasoning; Mental Retardation; Race and Intelli-
gence.
456
Intelligence Tests
Fields of study: Ability tests; intelligence assessment
Individual intelligence tests are used by psychologists to evaluate a person’s cur-

rent cognitive ability and prior knowledge. The intelligence testing movement has a
long history, including the development of numerous group and individual tests to
measure one aspect of a person’s overall intelligence, which frequently changes over
time.
Key concepts
• age norm
• cognition
• intelligence
• intelligence quotient (IQ)
• mentally gifted
• mentally handicapped
• percentile
• performance tests
• sensorimotor tests
• verbal tests
Although means for measuring mental ability date as far back as 2000 b.c.e.,
when the ancient Chinese administered oral tests to determine a candi-
date’s fitness for carrying out the tasks of civil administration, the modern
intelligence test has its origins in the nineteenth century, when Jean-
Étienne-Dominique Esquirol drew a clear distinction between mentally
deranged people (“lunatics”) and mentally retarded people (“idiots”). Es-
quirol believed that it was necessary to devise a means of gauging “normal”
intelligence so that deviations from an agreed-upon norm could be ascer-
tained, and he pointed out that intellectual ability exists on a continuum ex-
tending from idiocy to genius. His work coincided with studies in Europe
and the United States that were designed to develop a concept of “intelli-
gence” and to fashion a means of testing this capacity. Work done by Sir
Francis Galton in the United Kingdom on hereditary genius, by James
McKeen Cattell in the United States on individual differences in behavior,
and by Hermann Ebbinghaus in Germany on tests of memory, computa-
tion, and sentence completion culminated in the 1905 Binet-Simon scale,
created by Alfred Binet and Théodore Simon. It was the first practical index
of intelligence measurement as a function of individual differences. This
test was based on the idea that simple sensory functions, which had formed
the core of earlier tests, are not true indicators of intelligence and that
higher mental processes had to be included.
457
Psychology Basics
The Binet Tests

Binet, a psychologist and educator, founded the first French psychological
laboratory. He was a pioneer in the study of individual differences in abili-
ties and introduced intelligence tests that were quickly accepted and widely
used in Europe and the United States. His work stemmed from a commis-
sion from the minister of education in Paris, who gave him the task of devis-
ing a way to distinguish between idiocy and lunacy, as Esquirol had defined
them, and normal intelligence, so that handicapped students could be
given special instruction. Binet and Simon used many items that had been
developed by earlier examiners; the key advances they made were to rank
items in order of difficulty and to register results in terms of age-based cog-
nitive development. Their scale reflected the idea that intelligence was a
combination of faculties—judgment, practical sense, and initiative—and
contained measures related to memory, reasoning ability, numerical facility,
and object comparison.
Binet and Simon’s work demonstrated the feasibility of mental measure-
ment, assessing intelligence for the first time in general terms rather than
measuring its component parts. Binet revised the test in 1908, and another
revision was published in 1911, the year of his death. Advances in his basic de-
sign led to the development of tests that could be used for all children (not
only those considered mentally limited) in assessing their “mental quotient,”
a ratio adapted by Lewis Terman of Stanford University. It was obtained by
dividing mental age (as determined through scores on a test) by chronologi-
cal age. Terman renamed it the intelligence quotient (IQ), and his 1916 ver-
sion of the Binet-Simon scale became known as the Stanford-Binet test, the
most common intelligence test administered in the United States during
the twentieth century. It was revised and updated in 1937, 1960, 1972, and
1986, when a point-scale format was introduced for the first time.
The Wechsler Tests

Binet’s test depended on an age scale; that is, the questions which were an-
swered correctly by a majority of ten-year-old children were assigned to the
ten-year age level of intelligence. A more sophisticated version of the test de-
vised by Robert Yerkes depended on a point scale for scoring; this format
was fully developed by David Wechsler. While the Binet-Terman method
used different tests for different age groups, Wechsler worked toward a test
to measure the same aspect of behavior at every age level. The goal of his test
was to measure intelligence in a holistic (encompassing the larger whole of
personality) fashion that did not depend on the verbal skills that the Stan-
ford-Binet tests required. Wechsler thought of intelligence as a multifaceted
complex of skills, the total of an effective intellectual process; he wanted his
test to show the way intelligent people behaved as a consequence of an
awareness of the results of their actions. He thought that those actions
would be more rational, worthwhile (in terms of social values), and mean-
ingful than those of less intelligent people.
458
Intelligence Tests
Wechsler’s first test (the Wechsler-Bellevue Intelligence Scale) was pub-

lished in 1939, and it awarded points for each answer depending on the
level of sophistication of the response. The test consisted of six verbal sub-
jects (information, comprehension, arithmetic, similarities, vocabulary, and
digit span) and five performance subtests (picture completion, picture ar-
rangement, block design, object assemblies, and digit symbols). The divi-
sion into verbal and performance skills permitted the calculation of three
intelligent quotients: a verbal IQ based on the sum of the verbal tests, corre-
lated with norms of age, a performance IQ based on the sum of perfor-
mance tests, and a full-scale IQ derived from the sum of all the answers. The
test was standardized on a sample of adults, and it could be used to test indi-
viduals who had linguistic or sensorimotor handicaps. The pattern of scores
on the separate tests could also be used to diagnose learning disability or, in
some situations, clinical disorder or dysfunction.
The original test was limited by the sample used for standardization, but
the 1955 Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS) provided a basis for test-
ing adults from the ages of sixteen to seventy-five. Further revision in the
standard scale (including the WAIS-R, 1981) updated the test to coincide
with changes in cultural experience. In addition, a Wechsler Intelligence
Scale for Children (WISC) was designed to cover ages five to fifteen in 1949
and was revised (WISC-R) in 1974 to cover ages six to sixteen. In 1991, an-
other revision (WISC-III) was introduced. Subsequent modifications also
led to a test suitable for preschool children, the Wechsler Preschool and Pri-
mary Scales of Intelligence (WPPSI) of 1967, which covered ages four to six
and a half and included mazes, animal figures, and geometric designs. This
test was revised in 1981 (WPPSI-R) to extend its range over three years to
seven years, three months. Further adjustments have also been made to ac-
count for a candidate’s sociocultural background in a test called the System
of Multicultural Pluralistic Assessment (SOMPA, 1977).
Recent definitions of intelligence have resulted in further development
of testing instruments. Raymond Cattell’s proposal that intelligence could
be divided into two types—fluid (or forming) and crystallized (fixed)—led
to a test that used figure classification, figure analysis, and letter and num-
ber series to assess the essential nonverbal, relatively culture-free aspects of
fluid intelligence; it used vocabulary definition, abstract word analogies,
and general information to determine the skills that depend on exposure to
cultural processes inherent in crystallized intelligence. Other theories, such
as Jean Piaget’s idea that intelligence is a form of individual adaptation and
accommodation to an environment, led to the development of a test which
measures mental organization at successive ages.
Uses of Intelligence Assessment

There was a tendency at various times during the twentieth century to re-
gard intelligence assessment as an answer to questions of placement and
classification in almost every area of human experience. The most effective
459
Psychology Basics
and scientifically valid uses of tests, however, have been in predicting perfor-
mance in scholastic endeavor, in revealing disguised or latent ability to assist
in career counseling, in determining the most appropriate developmental
programs for handicapped or mentally handicapped individuals, in locating
specific strengths and weaknesses in an individual, in measuring specific
changes associated with special programs and forms of therapy, and in com-
paring a child’s mental ability with that of other children observed in a simi-
lar situation to establish a profile of cognitive skills.
One of the most widespread and effective uses of intelligence tests is the
determination of possible problems in a child’s course of basic education.
As reported by Lewis Aiken in Assessment of Intellectual Functioning (1987), a
typical case involved an eight-year-old boy with a suspected learning disabil-
ity. He was given the WISC-R test in 1985, and his full-scale IQ was figured to
be 116, placing him in the high average classification. This provided an as-
sessment of general intelligence and scholastic aptitude. His verbal IQ was
127, placing him in the ninety-seventh percentile, indicative of exceptional
verbal comprehension. This suggested that he could reason very well, learn
verbal material quickly, and process verbal information effectively. His per-
formance IQ of 98 placed him in the average category, but the magnitude of
the difference between his verbal and performance IQs is very unusual in
children of his age. It pointed to a need for additional interpretive analysis
as well as further study to reveal the reasons behind the discrepancy. Close
scrutiny of the test results showed that low scores on the arithmetic, digit
span, and coding subtests might indicate a short attention or memory span,
poor concentration, or a lack of facility in handling numbers. While no ab-
solute conclusions could be drawn at this point, the results of the test could
be used in conjunction with other procedures, observation, and back-
ground information to determine an appropriate course of action.
Intelligence and Guidance

Another common use of an intelligence test is to help an examinee deter-
mine specific areas of ability or aptitude which might be useful in selecting a
career route. As reported in Aiken, a college senior was given the Otis-
Lennon School Ability Test (O-LSAT, Advanced Form R) just before her
twenty-second birthday. She planned to enroll in a program in a graduate
business school and work toward an M.B.A. degree. The O-LSAT is designed
to gauge general mental ability, and it includes classification, analogy, and
omnibus (a variety of items to measure different aspects of mental function-
ing) elements. The omnibus includes verbal comprehension, quantitative
reasoning, and the ability to follow directions.
The examinee was able to complete the test in thirty-five minutes and
used the remaining allotted time to check her answers. Her raw score (num-
ber of items answered correctly) was 64 (out of 80), her school ability index
was 116—which approximated her IQ—and her percentile rank among
candidates in the 18-plus range was 84. These scores were in the average
460
Intelligence Tests
range for college seniors, indicating an overall intellectual ability that could
be classified as “high average” in terms of the general population. Of the six-
teen items answered incorrectly, a superficial analysis pointed toward some
difficulty with nonverbal reasoning, but no conclusions could be reached
without further examination in this area. There was no significant pattern of
errors otherwise, and the random distribution offered no additional guide
to areas of weakness. The initial conclusion that was drawn from the test was
that a career in business was appropriate and that with hard work and the
full application of her intellectual abilities, she would be able to earn an
M.B.A. at a reputable university.
A particularly important application of intelligence assessment is the
identification and guidance of a child with advanced intellectual abilities. In
a case reported in Jerome M. Sattler’s Assessment of Children (1988), a three-
year-old boy was tested repeatedly from that age until his sixth birthday. This
procedure required the implementation of the Stanford-Binet Form L-M,
the WPPSI, and the Peabody Individual Achievement Test (PIAT) for grade
equivalents. The Stanford-Binet scores were 127 (at age three), 152, 152,
and 159+ (with a linear extrapolation to 163). During his first test he was
anxious and did not give long verbal responses, but the range of his scores
indicated a very superior classification. He did not cooperate with the exam-
iner on the WPPSI vocabulary and animal subtests (the examiner believed
that he was not interested), but his performance at age four placed him in
the superior range. On the PIAT, he was consistently above average, earning
a grade equivalent above 4.0 at the age of six, with a grade equivalent of 7.4
(his highest score) in mathematics; the average grade equivalent for age six
is 1.0.
As Sattler points out, the case illustrates “a number of important princi-
ples related to testing and assessment.” In the largest sense, it illustrates the
way different tests measuring general intelligence may yield different results
(although all pointed toward superior mental development). The same test
may also yield different scores at different age levels. The child’s motivation
(among other factors) may also play an important part in his results. More
specifically, because the boy showed more interest in reading at age three
and mathematics at age six, the test could not be considered a useful predic-
tor of later interest, although an interest in solving perceptual-logical prob-
lems remained consistent throughout. Finally, because the parents had kept
a detailed record of the boy’s early development in a baby book, the rich his-
tory recorded there was corroborated by the test results which reaffirmed
their initial suspicions that the boy was unusually gifted. During his first year
in school, he tended to play alone and had frequent minor tantrums which
affected his performance in school subjects. When he became accustomed
to the social process of school life, however, he was able to demonstrate the
ability that his parents had observed at home and that the initial tests vali-
dated.
461
Psychology Basics
Definitions of Intelligence
While intelligence tests of some sort appeared in human history as early as
the Old Testament book of Judges (7:3-7, 12:6), which indicates that early
Jewish society used questions and observations in personnel selection, the
intelligence test as it is known today can be traced to Renaissance Europe. In
1575, the Spanish physician Juan Huarte wrote Examen de Ingenios, a treatise
concerning individual differences in mental ability with suggestions for ap-
propriate tests. His work, and that of other investigators and theorists, was
the result of the rise of a middle class with aspirations to productive employ-
ment. Previously, the aristocracy had controlled everything, and fitness for a
position was determined by lineage. Once this monarchical rule began to
break down, other means were necessary for determining who was fit for a
particular occupation and what might be the most productive use of a per-
son’s abilities. When it became apparent that royal blood was no guarantee
of competence, judgment, or mental acuity, the entire question of the ori-
gins of intelligence began to occupy members of the scientific community.
For a time, the philosophy of empiricism led scientists toward the idea that
the mind itself was formed by mental association among sense impressions,
and sensorimotor tests were particularly prominent. As the results of these
tests failed to correlate with demonstrations of mental ability (such as marks
in school), however, other means were sought to measure and define intelli-
gence. The interest in intelligence testing in the nineteenth century was an
important aspect of the development of psychology as a separate scientific
discipline, and the twin paths of psychometric (that is, the quantitative as-
sessment of an individual’s attributes or traits) and statistical analysis on one
hand and philosophical conjecture concerning the shape and operation of
the mind on the other were joined in experimentation concerning methods
of assessing intelligence.
From their first applications in France as a diagnostic instrument, intelli-
gence tests have been used to help psychologists, educators, and other pro-
fessionals plan courses of action to aid individuals suffering from some men-
tal limitation or obstacle. This role has been expanded to cover the full
range of human intellectual ability and to isolate many individual aspects of
intelligence in myriad forms. The profusion of tests has both complicated
and deepened an understanding of how the mind functions, and the contin-
uing proposition of theories of intelligence through the twentieth century
resulted in an increasingly sophisticated battery of tests designed to assess
and register each new theory.
Modern Testing
In addition, technological developments, particularly the growing use of
computers, permit a wider use of flexible testing in which the decision about
what item or task to present next depends on the previous answer. Computers
are also useful in “number crunching,” so that such basic components of a
test system as norms, derived scores, and reliability and validity coefficients
462
Intelligence Tests
(the basic statistical material behind the calculation of scores) can be assem-
bled more quickly and efficiently. Computers also make it possible to adminis-
ter tests at multiple sites simultaneously when an individual examiner’s pres-
ence is not necessary. Nevertheless, the human capacity for judgment and
analysis in the interpretation of results remain crucial to test procedures.
Intelligence testing is likely to continue as a primary means of predicting
educational or vocational performance, but tests designed to measure the
mind in terms of its ability to process information by shifting strategies in re-
sponse to a changing environment are likely to become more prevalent. The
proliferation of more detailed, separate sets of norms for different groups
(age, sex, ethnic origin, and so on) is likely to continue. Also, the relation-
ship between intelligence per se and behavioral attitudes that seem to re-
semble aptitude rather than personality measures is part of the heredity-
environment controversy that will continue. Finally, advances in studies on
the neurophysiological bases of intelligence will be reflected in tests respon-
sive to a growing understanding of the biochemical aspects of cognition. As
an operating principle, though, professionals in the field will have to be
guided by a continuing awareness that intelligence testing is only one aspect
of understanding a person’s total behavior and that the limitations involved
in the measuring process must be understood to avoid incorrect or inappro-
priate diagnoses that might prove harmful to an individual.
Howard Gardner postulated a theory of intelligence which focuses on a
symbol system approach that combines both factor analytic and information
processing methodology. He included seven dimensions of intelligence: ver-
bal and linguistic, mathematical and logical, visual and spatial, body and
kinesthetic, musical and rhythmical, interpersonal, intrapersonal, and envi-
ronmental. The concept of types of intelligence is not new. L. L. Thurstone
developed a test of eight scales named the Primary Mental Abilities test. Ed-
ward L. Thorndike identified several types of intelligence: abstract, social,
and practical. Sternberg used informational processing and cognitive the-
ory in his model of intelligence and identified three different types of infor-
mation processing components: metacomponents, performance compo-
nents, and knowledge acquisition components. He saw metacomponents as
the higher-order control processes used to oversee the planning, monitor-
ing, and evaluation of task performance.

Gardner, Howard. Multiple Intelligences: The Theory in Practice. New York: Ba-
sic Books, 1993. Gardner discusses his theory of multiple intelligences,
which takes into consideration the psychological, biological, and cultural
dimensions of cognition.
Goldstein, Gerald, and Michael Hersen, eds. Handbook of Psychological Assess-
ment. 3d ed. New York: Pergamon, 2000. There are a series of chapters on
assessment of intelligence as well as on psychometric foundations of test-
ing.
463
Psychology Basics
Jensen, Arthur. The “G” Factor: The Science of Mental Ability. Westport, Conn.:
Praeger, 1998. The author discusses the structure of intelligence.
Kampaus, Randy W. Clinical Assessment of Child and Adolescent Intelligence. 2d
ed. Boston: Allyn & Bacon, 2001. A good overview of intelligence tests
used with children and adolescents.
Sternberg, Robert J., ed. Handbook of Intelligence. New York: Cambridge Uni-
versity Press, 2000. The writers discuss the history and theory of intelli-
gence, the development of intelligence, and the biology of intelligence.
Leon Lewis and James R. Deni; updated by Robert J. Drummond
See also: Intelligence; Race and Intelligence; Survey Research: Question-

naires and Interviews.
464
Language
Type of psychology: Cognition; language
Language is a system of arbitrary symbols that can be combined in conventionalized
ways to express ideas, thoughts, and feelings. Various theories and models have been
constructed to study, describe, and explain language acquisition, language process-
ing, and its relation to thought and cognition.
Key concepts
• displacement
• grammar
• language faculty
• linguistic relativity
• morphology
• phonology
• pragmatics
• semantics
• syntax
• universal grammar
Language is a system of arbitrary symbols that can be combined in conven-

tionalized ways to express ideas, thoughts, and feelings. Language has been
typically seen as uniquely human, separating the human species from other
animals. Language enables people of all cultures to survive as a group and
preserve their culture. The fundamental features of human language make
it extremely effective and very economical. Language uses its arbitrary sym-
bols to refer to physical things or nonphysical ideas; to a single item or a
whole category; to a fixed state or to a changing process; to existent reality
or to nonexistent fiction; to truths or to lies.
Language is systematic and rule-governed. Its four component subsys-
tems are phonology, semantics, grammar, and pragmatics. The phonologi-
cal system uses phonemes (the smallest speech sound units capable of differ-
entiating meanings) as its building blocks to form syllables and words
through phonemic rules. For example, /m/ and /n/ are two different pho-
nemes because they differentiate meaning as in /mTt/ (meat) versus /nTt/
(neat), and “meat” has three phonemes of /m/, /T/, and /t/ placed in a
“lawful” order in English to form one syllable. The semantic system makes
language meaningful. It has two levels: Lexical semantics refers to the word
meaning, and grammatical semantics to the meaning derived from the com-
binations of morphemes (the smallest meaning units) into words and sen-
tences. “Beds,” for example, has two morphemes, “bed” as a free morpheme
means “a piece of furniture for reclining or sleeping,” and “s” as a bound
morpheme means “more than one.”
The grammatical system includes morphology and syntax. Morphology
465
Psychology Basics
specifies rules to form words (for example, prefixes, suffixes, grammatical

morphemes such as “-ed,” and rules to form compound words such as
“blackboard”). Syntax deals with rules for word order in sentences (such as,
“I speak English,” but not “I English speak”). Furthermore, the syntax of
human language has four core elements, summarized in 1999 by Edward
Kako as discrete combinatorics (each word retains its general meaning even
when combined with other words), category-based rules (phrases are built
around word categories), argument structure (the arguments or the partici-
pants involved in an event, labeled by verbs, are assigned to syntactic posi-
tions in a sentence), and closed-class vocabulary (the grammatical func-
tional words, such as “the,” “on,” or “and,” are usually not open to addition
of new words).
The fourth subsystem in human language is the pragmatic system. It in-
volves rules to guide culture-based, appropriate use of language in commu-
nication. For example, people choose different styles (speech registers) that
they deem appropriate when they talk to their spouses versus their children.
Other examples include the use of contextual information, inferring the
speaker’s illocutionary intent (intended meaning), polite expressions, con-
versational rules, and referential communication skills (to speak clearly and
to ask clarification questions if the message is not clear).
Language is creative, generative, and productive. With a limited number
of symbols and rules, any language user is able to produce and understand
an unlimited number of novel utterances. Language has the characteristic
of displacement; that is, it is able to refer to or describe not only items and
events here and now but also items and events in other times and places.
Language Acquisition and Development

Views on language acquisition and development are diverse. Some tend to
believe that language development follows one universal path, shows quali-
tatively different, stagelike shifts, proceeds as an independent language fac-
ulty, and is propelled by innate factors. Others tend to believe in options for
different paths, continuous changes through learning, and cognitive pre-
requisites for language development.
universal pathway in language development. Stage theories usu-
ally suggest a universal path (an invariant sequence of stages) for language
development. A typical child anywhere in the world starts with cooing (play-
ing with the vowel sounds) at two to three months of age, changes into bab-
bling (consonant-vowel combinations) at four to six months, begins to use
gestures at nine to ten months, and produces first words by the first birthday.
First word combinations, known as telegraphic speech (content word com-
binations with functional elements left out, such as “Mommy cookie!”) nor-
mally appear when children are between 1.5 and 2.5 years. Meanwhile, rapid
addition of new words results in a vocabulary spurt. Grammatical rules are
being figured out, as seen in young children’s application of regular gram-
matical rules to irregular exceptions (called overregularization, as in “I
466
Language
hurted my finger”). Later on, formal education promotes further vocabu-

lary growth, sentence complexity, and subtle usages. Language ability con-
tinues to improve in early adulthood, then remains stable. It generally will
not decline until a person reaches the late sixties.
different pathways in language development. Although the uni-
versal pattern appears true in some respects, not all children acquire lan-
guage in the same way. Analyses of young children’s early words have led
psychologists to an appreciation of children’s different approaches to lan-
guage. In her 1995 book Individual Differences in Language Development, Ce-
cilia Shore analyzed the different pathways of two general styles (sometimes
termed analytic versus holistic) in the four major language component ar-
eas.
In early phonological development, holistic babies seem to attend to
prosody or intonation. They tend to be willing to take risks to try a variety of
sound chunks, thus producing larger speech units in sentencelike intona-
tion but with blurred sounds. Analytic babies are phonemic-oriented, pay-
ing attention to distinct speech sounds. Their articulation is clearer.
In semantic development, children differ not only in their vocabulary
size but also in the type of words they acquire. According to Katherine Nel-
son (cited in Shore’s work), who divided children’s language acquisition
styles into referential versus expressive types, the majority of the referential
babies’ first words were object labels (“ball,” “cat”) whereas many in the ex-
pressive children’s vocabulary were personal-social frozen phrases (“Don’t
do dat”). In Shore’s opinion, the referential babies are attracted to the refer-
ential function of nouns and take in the semantic concept of object names;
the expressive children attend more to the personal-social aspect of lan-
guage and acquire relational words, pronouns, and undifferentiated com-
municative formulaic utterances.
Early grammatical development shows similar patterns. The analytical
children are more likely to adopt the nominal approach and use telegraphic
grammar to combine content words but ignore the grammatical inflections
(such as the plural “-s”). The holistic children have a tendency to take the
pronominal approach and use pivot-open grammar to have a small number
of words fill in the frame slots (for instance, the structure of “allgone [ . . . ]”
generates “allgone shoe,” “allgone cookie,” and so on). The units of lan-
guage acquisition might be different for different children.
In the area of pragmatic development, children may differ in their un-
derstanding of the primary function of language. Nelson has argued that
the referential children may appreciate the informative function of lan-
guage and the expressive children may attend to the interpersonal function
of language. The former are generally more object-oriented, are declara-
tive, and display low variety in speech acts, whereas the latter are more per-
son-oriented, are imperative, and display high variety in speech acts.
Convenient as it is to discuss individual differences in terms of the two
general language acquisition styles (analytic versus holistic), it does not
467
Psychology Basics
mean that the two are necessarily mutually exclusive—children actually use
both strategies, although they might use them to different extents at differ-
ent times and change reliance patterns over time.
Theories of Language Development

With an emphasis on language performance (actual language use in differ-
ent situations) rather than language competence (knowledge of language
rules and structure), learning theories contend that children learn their
verbal behavior (a term suggested by the behaviorist B. F. Skinner in 1957 to
replace the vague word of “language”) primarily through conditioning and
imitation, not maturation. Classical conditioning allows the child to make
associations between verbal stimuli, internal responses, and situational con-
texts to understand a word’s meaning. It also enables the child to compre-
hend a word’s connotative meaning—whether it is associated with pleasant
or unpleasant feelings. Operant conditioning shapes the child’s speech
through selective reinforcement and punishment. Adults’ verbal behaviors
serve as the environmental stimuli to elicit the child’s verbal responses, as
models for the child to imitate, and as the shaping agent (through imitating
their children’s well-formed speech and recasting or expanding their ill-
formed speech).
Nevertheless, learning theories have difficulty explaining many phenom-
ena in language development. Imitation cannot account for children’s cre-
ative yet logical sayings, such as calling a gardener “plantman,” because
there are no such models in adult language. Shaping also falls short of an ad-
equate explanation, because adults do not always correct their children’s
mistakes, especially grammatical ones. Sometimes they even mimic their
children’s cute mistakes. Furthermore, residential homes are not highly
controlled laboratories—the stimulus-response-consequence contingencies
are far from perfect.
the nativist perspective. The nativist perspective, turning to innate
mechanisms for language development, has the following underlying as-
sumptions: language is a human-species-specific capacity; language is “un-
learnable,” because it is impossible for a naïve and immature child to figure
out such a complex linguistic system from an imperfect, not very consistent,
highly opaque, and frequently ambiguous language environment; and
there is a common structural core in all human languages. In 1965, linguist
Noam Chomsky posited an innate language-acquisition device (LAD), with
the “universal grammar” residing in it, to explain children’s rapid acquisi-
tion of any language and even multiple languages. LAD is assumed to be a
part of the brain, specialized for processing language. Universal grammar is
the innate knowledge of the grammatical system of principles and rules ex-
pressing the essence of all human languages. Its transformational genera-
tive grammar consists of rules to convert the deep structure (grammatical
classes and their relationships) to surface structure (the actual sentences
said) in the case of production, or vice versa in the case of comprehension.
468
Language
Equipped with this biological endowment, children need only minimal lan-
guage exposure to trigger the LAD, and their innate knowledge of the uni-
versal grammar will enable them to extract the rules for the specific lan-
guage(s) to which they are exposed.
Evidence for the nativist perspective can be discussed at two levels: the
linguistic level (language rules and structure) and the biological level. At
the linguistic level, people are sensitive to grammatical rules and linguistic
structural elements. For example, sentences in the active voice are pro-
cessed more quickly than sentences in the passive voice, because the former
type is closer to the deep structure and needs fewer transformation steps
than the latter type. “Click insertion” studies (which insert a “click” at differ-
ent places in a sentence) and “interrupted tape” studies (which interrupt a
tape with recorded messages at different points) have shown a consistent
bias for people to recall the click or interruption position as being at linguis-
tic constituent boundaries, such as the end of a clause. After a sentence has
been processed, what remains in memory is the meaning or the gist of the
sentence, not its word-for-word surface structure, suggesting the transfor-
mation from the surface structure to the deep structure. Around the world,
the structure of creolized languages (invented languages), including the
sign languages invented by deaf children who have not been exposed to any
language, is similar and resembles early child language. Young children’s
early language data have also rendered support. In phonology, habituation
studies show that newborns can distinguish between phonemes such as /p/
and /b/. Most amazingly, they perceive variations of a sound as the same if
they come from the same phoneme but different if they cross the boundary
into a different phoneme (categorical speech perception). In semantics, ba-
bies seem to know that object labels refer to whole objects and that a new
word must mean the name of a new object. If the new word is related to an
old object whose name the child already knows, the word must mean either
a part or a property of that object (the mutual exclusivity hypothesis). In the
domain of grammar, Dan Isaac Slobin’s 1985 cross-cultural data have shown
that young children pay particular attention to the ends of words and use
subject-object word order, probably as a function of their innate operating
principles. By semantic bootstrapping, young children know that object
names are nouns and that action words are verbs. By syntactic bootstrap-
ping, they understand a word’s grammatical class membership according to
its position in a sentence. Even young children’s mistaken overregulariza-
tion of grammatical rules to exceptions demonstrates their success in rule
extraction, as such mistaken behavior is not modeled by adults.
the neural storehouse. At the biological level, human babies seem to
be prepared for language: They prefer the human voice to other sounds and
the human face to other figures. Some aspects of the language developmen-
tal sequence appear to be universal—even deaf children start to coo and
babble at about the same ages as hearing children, despite of their lack of
language input, and later develop sign combinations that are very similar to
469
Psychology Basics
telegraphic speech. Children’s language environment is indeed quite cha-

otic, yet it takes them only four to five years to speak their mother tongue
like an adult without systematic, overt teaching. Furthermore, a critical or
sensitive period seems to exist for language acquisition. Young children are
able to pick up any language or a second language effortlessly, with no ac-
cent or grammatical mistakes. After puberty, people generally have to exert
great efforts to learn another language, and their pronunciation as well as
grammar typically suffers. Reinforced language teaching in postcritical
years was not successful in the cases of “Victor” (a boy who had been de-
serted in the wild) and “Genie” (a girl who had been confined in a base-
ment). Edward Kako’s 1999 study, a careful analysis of the linguistic behav-
ior of a parrot, two dolphins, and a bonobo, led him to conclude that no
nonhuman animals, including the language-trained ones, show all of the
properties of human language in their communication, although he re-
spectfully acknowledges all the achievements in animal language training.
Language is unique to human beings.
Although the neural storehouse for the universal grammar has not been
pinpointed yet, cognitive neuroscience has delivered some supportive evi-
dence. Infants’ brains respond asymmetrically to language sounds versus
nonlanguage sounds. Event-related potentials (ERPs) have indicated local-
ized brain regions for different word categories in native English speakers.
Research suggests possible specific brain structures that had registered a de-
tailed index for nouns. Brain studies have confirmed the left hemisphere’s
language specialization relative to the right hemisphere, even among very
young infants. Broca’s area and Wernicke’s area are housed in the left hemi-
sphere. Damage to Broca’s area results in Broca’s aphasia, with a conse-
quence of producing grammatically defective, halting, telegramlike speech.
When Wernicke’s area is damaged, speech fluency and grammatical struc-
ture are spared but semantics is impaired. This linguistic lateralization pat-
tern and the linguistic consequences of brain injuries are also true of nor-
mal and aphasic American Sign Language users.
However, the nativist perspective is not immune to criticism. The univer-
sal grammar cannot adequately explain the grammatical diversity in all hu-
man languages. The growth spurts in brain development do not correspond
to language development in a synchronized manner. The importance of so-
cial interaction, contextual factors, and formal education for knowledge
and pragmatic usage of complex rules, subtle expressions, speech acts and
styles has been neglected in nativist theories.
Dissatisfied with this nature-nurture dichotomy, interactionist theories
try to bring the two together. They recognize the reciprocal influences, facil-
itating or constraining, dependent or modifying, among multiple factors
from the biological, cognitive, linguistic, and social domains. For instance,
the typical prenatal and postnatal mother-tongue environment will eventu-
ally wean the infants’ initial ability to differentiate the speech sounds of any
language and, at the same time, sharpen their sensitivity to their native lan-
470
Language
guage. Deaf children’s babbling does not develop into words as does that of
hearing children. Babies deprived of the opportunity of social interaction,
as seen in the cases of “Victor” and “Genie,” will not automatically develop a
proper language. It is in the dynamic child-environment system that a child
acquires language.
Language and Cognition

cognitive development and language acquisition. Cognitive the-
orists generally believe that language is contingent on cognitive develop-
ment. The referential power in the arbitrary symbols assumes the cognitive
prerequisite of understanding the concepts they signify. As a cognitive
interactionist, Jean Piaget believed that action-based interaction with the
world gave rise to the formation of object concepts, separation of self from
the external world, and mental representation of reality by mental images,
signs, and symbols (language). Language reflects the degree of cognitive
maturity. For example, young children’s immature egocentric thought (un-
able to understand others’ perspectives) is revealed in their egocentric
speech (talking to self)—children seem to show no realization of the need
to connect with others’ comments or to ascertain whether one is being un-
derstood. Older children’s cognitive achievements of logical thinking and
perspective-taking lead to the disappearance of egocentric speech and their
use of socialized speech for genuine social interaction. Although language
as a verbal tool facilitates children’s interaction with the world, it is the inter-
action that contributes to cognitive development. Piaget gave credit to lan-
guage only in the later development of abstract reasoning by adolescents.
In L. S. Vygotsky’s social-functional interactionist view, language and cog-
nition develop independently at first, as a result of their different origins in
the course of evolution. Infants use practical/instrumental intelligence (in-
telligence without speech) such as smiling, gazing, grasping, or reaching, to
act upon or respond to the social world. Meanwhile, the infants’ cries and
vocalizations, though they do not initially have true communicative intent
(speech without thinking), function well in bringing about adults’ re-
sponses. Adults attribute meaning to infants’ vocalizations and thus include
the babies in the active communicative system, fostering joint attention and
intersubjectivity (understanding each other’s intention). Such social inter-
actions help the infants eventually complete the transition from noninten-
tional to intentional behavior and to discover the referential power of sym-
bols, thus moving on to verbal thinking and later to meaningful speech.
Externalized speech (egocentric speech) is a means for the child to monitor
and guide his or her own thoughts and problem-solving actions. This
externalized functional “conversation with oneself” (egocentric speech)
does not disappear but is internalized over time and becomes inner speech,
a tool for private thinking. Thus, in Vygotsky’s theory, language first devel-
ops independently of cognition, then intersects with cognition and contrib-
utes significantly to cognitive development thereafter. Language develop-
471
Psychology Basics
DSM-IV-TR Criteria for Language Disorders

Expressive Language Disorder (DSM code 315.31)
Scores from standardized measures of expressive language development
substantially below those from standardized measures of nonverbal intellec-
tual capacity and receptive language development
May be manifested by the following:
• markedly limited vocabulary
• errors in tense
• difficulty recalling words
• difficulty producing sentences with developmentally appropriate length
or complexity
Expressive language difficulties interfere with academic or occupational
achievement or with social communication
Criteria for Mixed Receptive-Expressive Language Disorder or a pervasive de-
velopmental disorder are not met
If mental retardation, speech-motor or sensory deficit, or environmental
deprivation is present, language difficulties exceed those usually associated
with these problems
Mixed Receptive-Expressive Language Disorder (DSM code 315.32)
Scores from a battery of standardized measures of receptive and expressive
language development substantially below those from standardized measures
of nonverbal intellectual capacity
Symptoms include those for Expressive Language Disorder as well as diffi-
culty understanding words, sentences, or specific types of words (such as spa-
tial terms)
Receptive and expressive language difficulties interfere significantly with
academic or occupational achievement or with social communication
Criteria for a pervasive developmental disorder are not met
deprivation is present, language difficulties exceed those usually associated
with these problems
ment proceeds from a global, social functional use (externalized speech) to

a mature, internalized mastery (inner speech), opposite to what Piaget sug-
gested.
linguistic relativity. Linguistic relativity refers to the notion that the
symbolic structure and use of a language will shape its users’ way of thinking.
The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, also known as linguistic determinism, is a
strong version. According to anthropologist John Lucy, writing in 1997, all
the variations of linguistic relativity, weak or strong, share the assumption
472
Language
that “certain properties of a given language have consequences for patterns

of thought about reality. . . . Language embodies an interpretation of reality and
language can influence thought about that reality.” Many researchers have
tested these claims. Lera Boroditsky, for example, in a 2001 study examined
the relationship between spatial terms used to talk about time and the way
Mandarin Chinese speakers (using vertical spatial metaphors) and English
speakers (using horizontal spatial metaphors) think about time. The find-
ings suggested that abstract conceptions, such as time, might indeed be sub-
ject to the influence from specific languages. On the other hand, the influ-
ence between language and thought might be more likely bidirectional
than unidirectional. Many examples from the Civil Rights movement or the
women’s movement, such as the thought of equality and bias-free linguistic
expressions, can be cited to illustrate the reciprocal relationships between
the two.
language faculty as a module. There are debates over whether lan-
guage is a separate faculty or a part of general cognition. Traditional learn-
ing theories are firm in the belief that language is a learned verbal behavior
shaped by the environment. In other words, language is not unique in its
own right. By contrast, nativist theorists insist on language being an inde-
pendent, innate faculty. Chomsky even advocates that, being one of the
clearest and most important separate modules in the individual brain, lan-
guage should be viewed internally from the individual and therefore be
called internal language or “i-language,” distinct from “e-language” or the
external and social use of language. Nativists also insist on language being
unique to humans, because even higher-order apes, though they have intel-
ligence (such as tool using, problem solving, insights) and live a social life,
do not possess a true language.
The view of language as an independent faculty has received support
from works in cognitive neuroscience, speech-processing studies, data asso-
ciated with aphasia (language impairment due to brain damage), and
unique case studies. Specific word and grammatical categories seem to be
registered in localized regions of the brain. Some empirical studies have
suggested that lexical access and word-meaning activation appear to be au-
tonomic (modular). As noted, Broca’s aphasia and Wernicke’s aphasia dis-
play different language deficit symptoms. In 1991, Jeni Yamada reported the
case of Laura, a retarded woman with an IQ score of just 41 when she was in
her twenties. Her level of cognitive problem-solving skill was comparable to
that of a preschooler, yet she was able to produce a variety of grammatically
sophisticated sentences, such as “He was saying that I lost my battery pow-
ered watch that I loved; I just loved that watch.” Interestingly, Laura’s nor-
mal development in phonology, vocabulary, and grammar did not protect
her from impairment in pragmatics. In responding to the question, “How
do you earn your money?,” Laura answered, “Well, we were taking a walk, my
mom, and there was this giant, like, my mother threw a stick.” It seems that
some components of language, such as vocabulary and grammar, may func-
473
Psychology Basics
tion in a somewhat autonomic manner, whereas other parts, such as prag-

matics, require some general cognitive capabilities and social learning expe-
riences.
Cognitive psychologists hold that language is not a separate module but a
facet of general cognition. They caution people against hasty acceptance of
brain localization as evidence for a language faculty. Arshavir Blackwell and
Elizabeth Bates (1995) have suggested an alternative explanation for the
agrammaticality in Broca’s aphasia: Grammatical deficits might be the result
of a global cognitive resource diminution, rather than just the damaged
Broca’s area. In 1994, Michael Maratsos and Laura Matheny criticized the
inadequate explanatory power of the language-as-a-faculty theory pertain-
ing to the following phenomena: comprehension difficulties in Broca’s
aphasia in addition to grammatical impairment; semantically related word
substitutions in Wernicke’s aphasia; the brain’s plasticity or elasticity (the
flexibility of other parts of the brain adapting to pick up some of the func-
tions of the damaged parts); and the practical inseparability of phonology,
semantics, syntax, and pragmatics from one another.
Some information-processing models, such as connectionist models,
have provided another way to discuss language, not in the traditional terms
of symbols, rules, or cognitive capacity but in terms of the strengths of the
connections in the neural network. Using computer modeling, J. L. McClel-
land explains that knowledge is stored in the weights of the parameter con-
nections, which connect the hidden layers of units to the input units that
process task-related information and the output units that generate re-
sponses (performance). Just like neurons at work, parallel-distributed pro-
cessing, or many simultaneous operations by the computer processor, will
result in self-regulated strength adjustments of the connections. Over exten-
sive trials, the “learner” will go through an initial error period (the self-
adjusting, learning period), but the incremental, continual change in the
connection weights will give rise to stagelike progressions. Eventually, the
machine gives rulelike performance, even if the initial input was random,
without the rules having ever been programmed into the system. These arti-
ficial neural networks have successfully demonstrated developmental
changes or stages in language acquisition (similar to children’s), such as
learning the past tense of English verbs. As a product of the neural net-
work’s experience-driven adjustment of its connection weights, language
does not need cognitive prerequisites, or a specific language faculty in the
architecture (the brain). Although emphasizing learning, these models
are not to prove the tabula rasa (blank slate) assumption of traditional be-
haviorism, either, because even small variations in the initial artificial brain
structure can make qualitative differences in language acquisition. The in-
teraction between the neural structure and environment (input cues and
feedback patterns) is further elaborated in dynamic systems models. For ex-
ample, Paul van Geert’s dynamic system, proposed in 1991, is an ecosystem
with heuristic principles modeled after the biological system in general and
474
Language
the evolutionary system in particular. The system space consists of multiple

growers or “species” (such as vocabulary and grammatical rules) in interre-
lated connections. Developmental outcome depends on the changes of the
components in their mutual dependency as well as competition for the lim-
ited internal and external resources available to them.
Conclusion
As Thomas M. Holtgraves said in 2002, “It is hard to think of a topic that has
been of interest to more academic disciplines than language.” Language
can be analyzed at its pure, abstract, and symbolic structural level, but it
should also be studied at biological, psychological, and social levels in inter-
connected dynamic systems. Continued endeavors in interdisciplinary in-
vestigations using multiple approaches will surely lead to further under-
standing of language.

Blackwell, Arshavir, and Elizabeth Bates. “Inducing Agrammatic Profiles in
Normals: Evidence for the Selective Vulnerability of Morphology Under
Cognitive Resource Limitation.” Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience 7, no. 2
(1995): 228-257. Raises caution about the interpretation of agrammatic
aphasia as evidence for a grammar module and proposes global resource
diminution as an alternative explanation.
Boroditsky, Lera. “Does Language Shape Thought? Mandarin and English
Speakers’ Conceptions of Time.” Cognitive Psychology 43, no. 1 (2001): 1-22.
Three empirical studies to test the Whorfian hypothesis of language’s
ability to shape speakers’ abstract conceptions.
Chomsky, Noam. Aspects of the Theory of Syntax. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press,
1965. Explains the innate universal grammar and how the transforma-
tional grammar works to map the deep structures to surface structures.
__________. “Language from an Internalist Perspective.” In The Future of the
Cognitive Revolution, edited by David Johnson and Christina E. Erneling.
New York: Oxford University Press, 1997. Explains why the author insists
on language being modular.
Daniels, Harry, ed. An Introduction to Vygotsky. New York: Routledge, 1996. A
collection of articles about Soviet psychologist L. S. Vygotsky’s theoretical
position on thought and speech.
Gleason, Jean Berko, and Nan E. Bernstein, eds. Psycholinguistics. 2d ed. Fort
Worth, Tex.: Harcourt Brace College Publishers, 1998. Contributors
discuss language users’ knowledge, the biological bases of human com-
municative behavior, speech perception and production, word meaning,
sentence and discourse processing, language acquisition, reading com-
prehension, and bilingualism.
Holtgraves, Thomas M. Language as Social Action: Social Psychology and Lan-
guage Use. Mahwah, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum, 2002. An interdisciplinary
review of the literature that treats language as social action, most relevant
475
Psychology Basics
to the areas of social psychology, cognitive psychology, and communica-

tion.
Kako, Edward. “Elements of Syntax in the Systems of Three Language-
Trained Animals.” Animal Learning & Behavior 27, no. 1 (1999): 1-14. A
systematic analysis of the language performance of a parrot, two dol-
phins, and a bonobo against four criteria of syntax.
Lloyd, Peter, and Charles Fernyhough, eds. Lev Vygotsky: Critical Assessments,
Volume II: Thought and Language. New York: Routledge, 1999. Vygotsky’s
views on thought and language (verbal self-regulation, private speech,
and play) are introduced, contrasted to Piagetian views, and tested in
studies.
Lucy, John A. “Linguistic Relativity.” Annual Review of Anthropology 26 (1997):
291-312. A review of the history of the linguistic relativity hypothesis and
various approaches to testing the hypothesis.
McClelland, J. L. “A Connectionist Perspective on Knowledge and Develop-
ment.” In New Approaches to Process Modeling, edited by Tony Simon and
Graeme S. Halford. Hillsdale, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum, 1995. Discusses
the applicability of a connectionist approach to the rulelike progression
of behavior.
Matatsos, Michael, and Laura Matheny. “Language Specificity and Elasticity:
Brain and Clinical Syndrome Studies.” Annual Review of Psychology 45
(1994): 487-516. A review of module theories of language and alternative
explanations based on clinical studies involving language speakers and
signers.
Piaget, Jean. The Language and Thought of the Child. Translated by Marjorie
and Ruth Gabain. Reprint. New York: Routledge, 2002. Explains the qual-
itative differences in children’s egocentric speech and socialized speech
and their relationship to thought, with child language data.
Shore, Cecilia M. Individual Differences in Language Development. Vol. 7 in Indi-
vidual Differences and Development, edited by Robert Plomin. Thousand
Oaks, Calif.: Sage, 1995. Discusses the individual differences in phono-
logical, lexical, grammatical, and pragmatic development of young chil-
dren aged one to three years.
Van Geert, Paul. “A Dynamic Systems Model of Cognitive and Language
Growth.” Psychological Review 98, no. 1 (1991): 3-53. A dynamic system
model analogized to the evolutional system explains how the compo-
nents in cognitive and language systems mutually support or compete for
limited internal and external resources for growth.
Yamada, Jeni E. A Case for the Modularity of Language. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT
Press, 1991. A case report of Laura, whose vocabulary and grammar
seemed to have developed independently of her rather low cognitive abil-
ities.
Ling-Yi Zhou
See also: Brain Structure; Speech Disorders.

476
Learned Helplessness
Fields of study: Cognitive learning; critical issues in stress; problem
solving
The concept of learned helplessness, first observed in laboratory animals, has been ap-
plied to humans in various situations; in particular, it has been applied to depression.
The idea holds that feelings of helplessness are often learned from previous experience;
therefore, it should also be possible to unlearn them.
Key concepts
• attribution
• helplessness
• learning
• personality
• self-concept
The concept of learned helplessness originated with experiments per-

formed on laboratory dogs by psychologist Martin E. P. Seligman and his
colleagues. Seligman noticed that a group of dogs in a learning experiment
were not attempting to escape when they were subjected to an electric
shock. Intrigued, he set up further experiments using two groups of dogs.
One group was first given electric shocks from which they could not escape.
Then, even when they were given shocks in a situation where they could
avoid them, most of the dogs did not attempt to escape. By comparison, an-
other group, which had not first been given inescapable shocks, had no
trouble jumping to avoid the shocks. Seligman also observed that, even after
the experiment, the dogs that had first received the unavoidable shocks
seemed to be abnormally inactive and had reduced appetites.
After considerable research on the topic, Seligman and others correlated
this “learned” helplessness and depression. It seemed to Seligman that
when humans, or other animals, feel unable to extricate themselves from a
highly stressful situation, they perceive the idea of relief to be hopeless and
they give up. The belief that they cannot affect the outcome of events no
matter what force they exert on their environment seems to create an atti-
tude of defeat. Actual failure eventually follows, thereby reinforcing that be-
lief. It seems that the reality of the situation is not the crucial factor: What
matters is the perception that the situation is hopeless.
Attributional Style Questionnaire

As research continued, however, Seligman discovered that exposure to un-
controllable negative situations did not always lead to helplessness and de-
pression. Moreover, the results yielded no explanation of the loss of self-
esteem frequently seen in depressed persons. To refine their ability to pre-
477
Psychology Basics
dict helpless attitudes and behavior, Seligman and his colleagues developed
a measuring mechanism called the attributional style questionnaire. It in-
volves twelve hypothetical events, six bad and six good.
Subjects involved in testing are told to imagine themselves in the situa-
tions and to determine what they believe would be the major cause of the sit-
uation if it were to happen to them. After subjects complete the test, their
performance is rated according to stability versus instability, globality versus
specificity, and externality versus internality. An example of stable, global,
internal perceptions would be a feeling of stupidity for one’s failure; an un-
stable, specific, and external perception might consider luck to be the cause
of the same situation. The questionnaire has been used by some industries
and corporations to identify people who may not be appropriate for certain
positions requiring assertiveness and a well-developed ability to handle
stress. The same questionnaire has also been used to identify individuals
who may be at high risk for developing psychosomatic disorders so that early
intervention can be implemented.
Perhaps the primary significance of learned helplessness is its model of
how a person’s perception of a life event can influence the person’s behav-
ior—and can therefore affect his or her life and possibly the lives of others.
Seligman believes that the way people perceive and explain the things that
happen to them may be more important than what actually happens. These
perceptions can have serious implications for a person’s mental and physi-
cal health.
Perceptions of Helplessness
The human mind is so complex, and the cognitive process so unknown, that
perception is one of the most confusing frontiers facing social scientists.
Why do people perceive situations as they do—often as events far different
from the ones that actually transpired? If a person is convinced that an event
occurred the way he or she remembers it, then it becomes that person’s real-
ity. It will be stored that way and may be retrieved that way in the future—
perhaps blocking opportunities for positive growth and change because the
memory is based on an inaccurate perception.
If children are taught that they are “stupid” because they cannot under-
stand what is expected of them, for example, then they may eventually stop
attempting to understand: They have learned that their response (trying to
understand) and the situation’s outcome are independent of each other. If
such helpless feelings are reinforced, the individuals may develop an expec-
tation that no matter what they do, it will be futile. They will then develop a
new feeling—helplessness—which can be generalized to a new situation
and can interfere with the future. Various studies have indeed shown that
many people have been “taught” that, no matter what their response, the
outcome will be the same—failure—so there is no reason to bother to do
anything.
478
Role in Victimization
One example of this can be demonstrated in the area of victimized women
and children. Halfway houses and safe houses are established in an attempt
to both protect and retrain battered women and children. Efforts are made
to teach them how to change their perceptions and give them new feel-
ings of potency and control. The goal is to teach them that they can have
an effect on their environment and have the power to administer success-
ful positive change. For many women, assertiveness training, martial arts
classes, and seminars on how to make a strong positive statement with their
self-presentation (such as their choice of clothes) become matters of sur-
vival.
Children, however, are in a much more vulnerable situation, as they must
depend on adults in order to survive. For most children in the world, help-
lessness is a reality in many situations: They do not, in fact, have much con-
trol over what happens to them, regardless of the response they exhibit.
Adults, whether they are parents, educators, church leaders, or older sib-
lings, have the responsibility of being positive role models to help children
shape their perceptions of the world. If children are allowed to express their
feelings, and if their comments are listened to and considered, they can see
that they do have some power over their environment and can break pat-
terns of learned helplessness.
A therapist has described “Susan,” a client who as a youngster had lived
with the belief that if she argued or asserted her needs with her parents they
would leave her. She became the “perfect” child, never arguing or seeming
to be ungrateful; in the past, if she had, her parents would often get into a
fight and one would temporarily leave. Susan’s perception was that if she as-
serted her needs, she was abandoned; if she then begged the parent who re-
mained to tell the absent parent that she was sorry and would never do it
again, that parent would return. In reality, her parents did not communicate
well and were using their child as an excuse to get angry and leave. The pur-
pose was to punish the other adult, not to hurt the child.
When Susan became an adult, she became involved with a man who mis-
treated her, both physically and emotionally, but always begged forgiveness
after the fact. She always forgave him, believing that she had done some-
thing wrong to deserve his harsh treatment in the first place. At her first ses-
sion with a therapist, she was reluctant to be there, having been referred by a
women’s shelter. She missed her second session because she had returned
to her lover, who had found her at the shelter. Eventually, after a cycle of re-
turns to the shelter, the therapist, and her lover, Susan was able to break free
and begin the healing process, one day at a time. She told the therapist re-
peatedly that she believed that no matter what she did, the outcome would
always be the same—she would rather be with the man who abused her but
paid attention to her than be alone. After two difficult years of concentrat-
ing on a new perception of herself and her environment, she began to expe-
rience actual power in the form of positive effectiveness on her life. She be-
479
Psychology Basics
came able to see old patterns before they took control and to replace them
with new perceptions.
Another example of the power that perceptions of helplessness can have
concerns a man (“John”) who, as a young boy, was very attached to his father
and used to throw tantrums when his father had to leave for work. John’s
mother would drag him to the kitchen and hold his head under the cold
water faucet to stop his screaming; it worked. The child grew up with an im-
potent rage toward his mother, however, and disappointment in his father
for not protecting him. He grew up believing that, no matter how he made
his desires known, his feelings would be drowned, as they had been many
years before. As a teenager, John grew increasingly violent, eventually get-
ting into trouble; he did not realize that his family was dysfunctional and did
not have the necessary skills to get better.
John was never able to believe in himself, even though—on raw rage and
little confidence—he triumphed over his pain and terror to achieve an ad-
vanced education and black belt in the martial arts. He even developed a ca-
reer teaching others how to gain power in their lives and how to help nur-
ture the spirit of children. Yet after all this, he still does not have much
confidence in his abilities. He is also still terrified of water, although he
forces himself to swim.
Mind-Body Relationship
Research has provided validity for the suspected link between how a per-
son perceives and influences his or her environment and that person’s to-
tal health and effectiveness. There has been evidence that the mind and
body are inseparable, that one influences the other even to the point of
breakdown or healing. Leslie Kamen, Judith Rodin, and Seligman have
corroborated the idea that how a person explains life situations (a per-
son’s explanatory style) seems to be related to immune system function-
ing. Blood samples were taken from a group of older persons who had
been interviewed about life changes, stress, and health changes. Those
whose interviews revealed a pessimistic or depressive explanatory style had
a larger percentage of suppressor cells in their blood. Considering the idea
that suppressor cells are believed to undermine the body’s ability to fight
tumor growth, these discoveries suggest a link between learned helpless-
ness (as revealed by attitude and explanatory style) and susceptibility to dis-
eases.
Studies have also been conducted to determine whether learned help-
lessness and explanatory style can predict illness. Results, though inconclu-
sive, suggest that a person’s attitude and perception of life events do influ-
ence physical health some twenty to thirty years later and can therefore be a
valuable predictor and a tool for prevention. Particularly if an illness is just
beginning, a person’s psychological state may be crucial to healing.
480
New Research Directions

The concepts of helplessness and hopelessness versus control over life situa-
tions are as old as humankind. The specific theory of learned helplessness,
however, originated with the experiments conducted by the University of
Pennsylvania in the mid-1960’s by Seligman, Steven F. Maier, and J. Bruce
Overmier. The idea that helplessness could be learned has opened the door
to many exciting new approaches to disorders formerly considered person-
ality or biologically oriented, such as psychosomatic disorders, victimization
by gender, depression, and impaired job effectiveness.
The idea that people actually do have an effect on their environment is of
tremendous importance to those suffering from depression. Most such peo-
ple mention a general feeling of hopelessness, which makes the journey out
of this state seem overwhelming; the feeling implies that one is powerless
over one’s reactions and behavior. Research-based evidence has shown that
people do have the power to influence their perceptions of their environ-
ment and, therefore, change their reactions to it.
If the research on perception and learned helplessness is accurate, a logi-
cal next step is to find out how explanatory style originates and how it can be
changed. Some suspected influences are how a child’s first major trauma is
handled, how teachers present information to be learned (as well as teach-
ers’ attitudes toward life events), and parental influence. Perhaps the most
promising aspect of the research on learned helplessness is the idea that
what is learned can be unlearned; therefore, humans really do have choices
as to their destiny and quality of life. Considerable importance falls upon
those who have a direct influence on children, because it is they who will
shape the attitudes of the future.

Applebee, Arthur N. The Child’s Concept of Story, Ages Two to Seventeen. Re-
print. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1989. An innovative ap-
proach and eight thought-provoking chapters give this book an edge on
some of the classics in this field. The author examines the use of language
and how perceptions can be influenced by it. Demonstrates an adult’s
and child’s sense of story as well as the responses of adolescents. The au-
thor shows how perceptions are easily manipulated by skillful use of
phrasing. There are three appendices: a collection of analysis and data,
elements of response, and a thorough supplementary table.
Bammer, Kurt, and Benjamin H. Newberry, eds. Stress and Cancer. Toronto:
Hogrefe, 1981. This edited group of independently written chapters
presents thirteen different perspectives from a variety of professionals
working in the field of cancer and stress. Well written; achieves its goal
without imposing editorial constraints. Perception of events is empha-
sized as a major determinant of healing. Excellent resources.
Coopersmith, Stanley. The Antecedents of Self Esteem. 1967. Reprint. Palo Alto,
Calif.: Consulting Psychologists Press, 1981. Emphasizes the importance
481
Psychology Basics
of limits and boundaries of permissible behavior in the development of

self-esteem. Discusses the mirror-image idea of humans emulating society
as it develops through the parent/child relationship. There are four very
helpful measuring devices in the appendix.
Peterson, Christopher, Steven F. Maier, and Martin E. P. Seligman. Learned
Helplessness: A Theory for the Age of Personal Control. New York: Oxford Uni-
versity Press, 1995. Summarizes the theory and application of the theory
of learned helplessness, focusing on personal control as a tool for over-
coming the condition.
Seligman, Martin E. P. Helplessness: On Depression, Development, and Death.
1975. Reprint. New York: W. H. Freeman, 1992. This easily read and un-
derstood book was written by the master researcher in the field of learned
helplessness. Covers such areas as anxiety and unpredictability, educa-
tion’s role in emotional development, experimental studies, and how
perception influences everyday life. Excellent references. Highly recom-
mended for anyone interested in the topic.
Frederic Wynn
See also: Conditioning; Depression; Learning.
482
Learning
Type of psychology: Biological bases of behavior; learning; motivation
Fields of study: Biological influences on learning; instrumental
conditioning; Pavlovian conditioning; problem solving
Learning refers to a change in behavior as a result of experience. Learning is studied
in a variety of species in an attempt to uncover basic principles. There are two major
types of learning: classical (Pavlovian) conditioning and operant (instrumental)
conditioning. Exposure to uncontrollable aversive events can have detrimental effects
on learning. Consequences can be successfully used to develop a variety of behaviors, in-
cluding even random, unpredictable performance. Learning produces lasting changes
in the nervous system.
Key concepts
• classical conditioning
• contingency
• law of effect
• learned helplessness
• shaping
Learning has been of central interest to psychologists since the emergence

of the field in the late 1800’s. Learning refers to changes in behavior that re-
sult from experiences. The term “behavior” includes all actions of an organ-
ism, both those that are directly observable, such as typing at a keyboard,
and those that are unobservable, such as thinking about how to solve a prob-
lem. Psychologists studying learning work with a variety of species, including
humans, rodents, and birds. Nonhuman species are studied for a variety of
reasons. First, scientists are interested in fundamental principles of learning
that have cross-species generality. Second, the degree of experimental con-
trol that can be obtained with nonhumans is much higher than with hu-
mans. These controlled conditions make it more likely that any effect that is
found results from the experimental manipulations, rather than some un-
controlled variable. Third, studying the learning of nonhumans can be
helpful to animals. For example, a scientist might need to know the best way
to raise an endangered giant condor to maximize its chances of survival
when introduced to the wild.
There are two major types of learning. Classical conditioning (also called
Pavlovian conditioning, after Russian physiologist Ivan Pavlov) involves
transfer of control of reflexes to new environmental stimuli. For example, a
glaucoma test at an optometrist’s office used to involve a puff of air being de-
livered into the patient’s eyes, which elicited blinking. After this experience,
putting one’s head into the machine would elicit blinking; the glaucoma-
testing machine would elicit the reflex of blinking, before the air puff was
delivered.
483
Psychology Basics
Operant conditioning, also called instrumental conditioning, involves

the regulation of nonreflexive behavior by its consequences. American psy-
chologist Edward Thorndike was a pioneer in the study of operant condi-
tioning, publishing his work about cats escaping from puzzle boxes in 1898.
Thorndike observed that over successive trials, movements that released a
latch, allowing the animal to get out of the box and get some food, became
more frequent. Movements not resulting in escape became less frequent.
Thorndike called this the Law of Effect: responses followed by satisfaction
would be strengthened, while responses followed by discomfort would be
weakened. The study of operant conditioning was greatly extended by
American behaviorist B. F. Skinner, starting in the 1930’s.
Beginning in the 1960’s, American psychologists Martin Seligman, Ste-
ven Maier, J. Bruce Overmier, and their colleagues discovered that the con-
trollability of events has a large impact on future learning. Dogs exposed to
inescapable electric shock became passive and failed to learn to escape
shock in later situations in which escape was possible. Seligman and col-
leagues called this phenomenon “learned helplessness” because the dogs
had learned that escape was not possible and gave up. The laboratory phe-
nomenon of learned helplessness has been applied to the understanding
and treatment of human depression and related conditions.
In the 1970’s, some psychologists thought the use of rewards (such as
praise or tangible items) was harmful to motivation, interest, and creativity.
Beginning in the 1990’s, however, American Robert Eisenberger and Cana-
dian Judy Cameron, conducting research and analyzing previous studies,
found that rewards generally have beneficial impacts. Rewards appear to
have detrimental effects only when they are given regardless of how the per-
son or animal does. Furthermore, the work of Allen Neuringer and col-
leagues has shown that, contrary to previous thinking, both people and ani-
mals can learn to behave in random, unpredictable ways.
The changes in behavior produced by learning are accompanied by
changes in physiological makeup. Learning is associated with changes in the
strength of connections between neurons (nerve cells in the brain), some
quite long-lasting. Eric R. Kandel and his colleagues have documented the
changes in physiology underlying relatively simple learning in giant sea
snails, progressing to more complex behaviors in mammals. Similar physio-
logical changes accompany learning in a variety of organisms, highlighting
the continuity of learning across different species.
Classical Conditioning
Classical conditioning was first systematically investigated by Ivan Pavlov in
the late 1800’s and early 1900’s. Classical conditioning involves the transfer
of control of an elicited response from one stimulus to another, previously
neutral, stimulus. Pavlov discovered classical conditioning accidentally while
investigating digestion in dogs. A dog was given meat powder in its mouth to
elicit salivation. After this process had been repeated a number of times, the
484
Learning
dog would start salivating before the meat powder was put in its mouth.
When it saw the laboratory assistant, it would start to salivate, although it
had not initially salivated at the sight. Pavlov devoted the rest of his long ca-
reer to the phenomenon of classical conditioning.
In classical conditioning, a response is initially elicited by an uncondi-
tioned stimulus (US). The US is a stimulus that elicits a response without any
prior experience. For example, the loud sound of a balloon bursting natu-
rally causes people to blink their eyes and withdraw from the noise. The re-
sponse that is naturally elicited is called the unconditioned response (UR).
If some stimulus reliably precedes the US, then over time it, too, will come to
elicit a response. For example, the sight of an overfull balloon initially does
not elicit blinking of the eyes, but if the sight of the balloon reliably precedes
the loud noise that comes when it bursts, people eventually come to blink
and recoil at the sight of an overfull balloon. The stimulus with the new
power to elicit the response is called the conditioned stimulus (CS), and the
response elicited by the CS is called the conditioned response (CR).
Classical conditioning occurs with a variety of behaviors and situations.
For example, a person who was stung by a wasp in a woodshed may now ex-
perience fear on approaching the woodshed. In this case, the building be-
comes a CS eliciting the CR of fear because the wasp’s sting (the US) elicited
pain and fear (the UR) in that place. To overcome the classical condition-
ing, the person would need to enter the woodshed repeatedly without inci-
dent. If the woodshed was no longer paired with the painful sting of the
wasp, over time the CR would extinguish.
Many phobias are thought to arise through classical conditioning. One
common successful treatment is systematic desensitization, in which the per-
son, through progressive steps, gradually faces the feared object or situation
until the fear CR extinguishes. Classical conditioning has been recognized
as the culprit in food aversions developed by people receiving chemother-
apy treatments for cancer. In this case, the food becomes a CS for illness (the
CR) by being paired with the chemotherapy treatment (the US) that later
elicits illness (the UR). Using more advanced principles of classical condi-
tioning learned through research with nonhumans, people are now able to
reduce the degree of aversion that occurs to regular meals, thus preventing
the person from developing revulsions to food, which would further compli-
cate the treatment of the cancer by introducing potential nutritional prob-
lems.
Operant Conditioning
Operant conditioning (also called instrumental conditioning) involves the
regulation of voluntary behavior by its consequences. Thorndike first sys-
temically studied operant conditioning in the late 1800’s. He placed cats in
puzzle boxes and measured the amount of time they took to escape to a wait-
ing bowl of food. He found that with increasing experience, the cats escaped
more quickly. Movements that resulted in being released from the box, such
485
Psychology Basics
as stepping on a panel or clawing a loop in a string, became more frequent,

whereas movements that were not followed by release became less frequent.
This type of operant learning is called “trial-and-error learning,” because
there is no systematic attempt made to teach the behavior. Instead, the or-
ganism makes many mistakes, which become less likely over time, and some-
times hits on the solution, which then becomes more likely over time.
B. F. Skinner, beginning in the 1930’s, greatly extended and systematized
the study of operant conditioning. One of his major contributions was to in-
vent an apparatus called the operant chamber, which provided a controlled
environment in which behavior was automatically recorded. In the operant
chamber, an animal, such as a rat, would be able to make an arbitrary re-
sponse, such as pressing a small lever on the side of the chamber with its
paws. The apparatus could be programmed to record the response automat-
ically and provide a consequence, such as a bit of food, to the animal. There
are several advantages to this technique. First, the chamber filters out un-
planned sights and sounds that could disturb the animal and affect ongoing
behavior. Second, the animal is free to make the response at any time, and so
response rate can vary over a wide range as a result of any experimental ma-
nipulations. This range means that response rate is a sensitive measure to
detect the effects of changes the experimenter makes. Third, the automatic
control and recording means that the procedure can be repeated exactly
the same way in every experimental session and that the experimenter’s
ideas about what should happen cannot influence the outcome. The oper-
ant conditioning chamber is used extensively today in experiments investi-
gating the learning of a variety of species from different perspectives.
One major technique to teach new behavior is called shaping. Shaping
refers to providing a consequence for successive approximations to a de-
sired response. For example, to teach a child to tie shoelaces, a parent might
start by crossing the laces, forming the loops and crossing them, and having
the child do the last part of pulling the loops tight. The parent would then
praise the child. The parent could then gradually have the child do more
and more of the task, until the whole task is successfully completed from the
start. This type of approach ensures that the task is never too far out of reach
of the child’s current capabilities. Shaping takes place when young children
are learning language, too. At first, parents and other caregivers are over-
joyed at any approximation of basic words. Over time, however, they require
the sounds to be closer and closer to the final, precisely spoken perfor-
mance. Shaping can be used to teach a wide variety of behaviors in humans
and nonhumans. The critical feature is that the requirement for the reward
is gradually increased, in pace with the developing skill. If for some reason
the behavior deteriorates, then the requirement can be lowered until the
person is once again successful, then proceed again through increasing lev-
els of difficulty. In order for any consequence to be effective, it should occur
immediately after the behavior and every time the behavior occurs.
486
Learning
Reinforcers and Punishers

In operant conditioning, there are four basic contingencies that can be used
to modify the frequency of occurrence of nonreflexive behavior. A contin-
gency refers to the relation between the situation, a behavior, and the conse-
quence of the behavior. A reinforcer is a consequence that makes a behavior
more likely in the future, whereas a punisher is a consequence that makes a
behavior less likely in the future. Reinforcers and punishers both come in
both positive and negative forms. A positive consequence is the presenta-
tion of a stimulus or event as a result of the behavior, and a negative conse-
quence is the removal of a stimulus or event as a result of the behavior. Cor-
rectly used, the terms “positive” and “negative” refer only to whether the
event is presented or removed, not whether the action is judged good or
bad.
A positive reinforcer is a consequence that increases the future likelihood
of the behavior that produced it. For example, if a parent were to praise a
child at dinner for eating properly with a fork, and as a result the child used
the fork properly more often, then praise would have served as a positive re-
inforcer. The vast majority of scientists studying learning recommend posi-
tive reinforcement as the best technique to promote learning. One can
attempt to increase the desired appropriate behavior through positive rein-
forcement, rather than focusing on the undesired or inappropriate behav-
ior. If the appropriate behavior becomes more frequent, then chances are
that the inappropriate behavior will have become less frequent as well, due
to the fact that there are only so many things that a person can do at one
time.
A negative reinforcer is a consequence that increases the future likeli-
hood of the behavior that removed it. For example, in many cars, a buzzer or
bell sounds until the driver puts on the seatbelt. In this case, putting on the
seatbelt is negatively reinforced by the removal of the noise. Another exam-
ple of negative reinforcement occurs when a child is having a tantrum in a
grocery store until given candy. The removal of the screaming would serve
as a negative reinforcer for the parent’s behavior: In the future when the
child was screaming, the parent would probably be more likely to give the
child candy. Furthermore, the parent is providing positive reinforcement
for screaming by presenting a consequence (candy) for a behavior (scream-
ing) that makes the behavior more likely to occur in similar situations in the
future. This example should make clear that reinforcement is defined in
terms of the presentation or removal of an event increasing the likelihood
of a behavior in the future, not in terms of intentions or opinions. Most par-
ents would not consider the behavior inadvertently created and maintained
in this way to be “positive.”
Positive punishment refers to the presentation of an event that decreases
the likelihood of the behavior that produced it. For example, if a person
touches a hot stove, the pain that ensues makes it much less likely that the
person will touch the stove under those conditions in the future. In this case,
487
Psychology Basics
the behavior (touching the stove) produces a stimulus (pain) that makes the
behavior less frequent. Negative punishment, on the other hand, refers to
the removal of an event that decreases the likelihood of the behavior that
produced it. For example, if a birdwatcher walking through the woods
makes a loud move that causes all of the birds to fly away, then the watcher
would be less likely to move like that in the future. In this way, watchers learn
to move quietly to avoid disturbing the birds they are trying to observe.
Negative reinforcement, positive punishment, and negative punishment
all involve what is called aversive control. An aversive stimulus is anything
that an organism will attempt to escape from or try to avoid if possible.
Aversive control refers to learning produced through the use of an aversive
stimulus. For example, parents sometimes use spanking or hitting in an at-
tempt to teach their child not to do something, such as hitting another
child. This type of approach has been shown to have a number of undesir-
able outcomes, however. One problem is that the appropriate or desired al-
ternative behavior is not taught. In other words, the child does not learn
what should be done instead of what was done. Another problem is that the
use of aversive stimuli can produce aggression. Humans and nonhumans
alike often respond to painful stimuli with an increased likelihood of aggres-
sion. The aggression may or may not be directed toward the person or thing
that hurt them. Additionally, the use of aversive control can produce avoid-
ance—children who have been spanked or hit may try to stay away from the
person who hurt them. Furthermore, through observation, children who
have been spanked may be more likely to use physical harm to others as an
attempted solution when they encounter conflict. Indeed, corporal punish-
ment (the use of spanking or other physical force intended to cause a child to
experience pain, but not injury, for the purpose of correction) has been
linked to many undesirable outcomes for children, some of which extend well
into adulthood. Beginning in the 1970’s, American psychologist Murray
Straus and his colleagues investigated the impact of corporal punishment
on children. Their findings indicated that the use of corporal punishment is
associated with an increase in later antisocial behavior, a decrease in cogni-
tive development relative to children who are not spanked, and an increased
likelihood of spousal abuse as an adult, in addition to several other detri-
mental outcomes.
As Seligman, Maier, and Overmier discovered, exposure to uncontrollable
aversive events can have profound impacts on future learning, a phenome-
non called “learned helplessness.” In learned helplessness, an organism
that has been exposed to uncontrollable aversive events later has an im-
paired ability to learn to escape from aversive situations and even to learn
new, unrelated behaviors. The phenomenon was accidentally discovered in
laboratory research with dogs. Seligman and his colleagues found that dogs
that were exposed to electrical shocks in a harness, with no possibility of es-
488
Learning
cape, later could not learn to escape shocks in a shuttle box in which they
had only to jump to the other side. Disturbingly, they would lie down and
whimper, not even trying to get away from the completely avoidable shocks.
Dogs that had not been exposed to the uncontrollable shocks learned to es-
cape in the shuttle box rapidly. More important, dogs exposed to the same
number and pattern of shocks, but with the ability to turn them off, also had
no trouble learning to escape in the shuttle box. In other words, it was the
exposure to uncontrollable shocks, not just shocks, that produced the later
deficit in escape learning. Moreover, the dogs that had been exposed to un-
controllable aversive events also had difficulties learning other, unrelated,
tasks. This basic result has since been found many times with many different
types of situations, species, and types of aversive events. For example,
learned helplessness has been shown to occur in dogs, cats, mice, rats, ger-
bils, goldfish, cockroaches, and even slugs. Humans show the learned help-
lessness phenomenon in laboratory studies as well. For example, people ex-
posed to an uncontrollable loud static noise later solved fewer anagrams
(word puzzles) than people exposed to the same amount and pattern of
noise but who could turn it off.
Learned helplessness has major implications for the understanding and
treatment of human depression. Although certainly the case with people is
more complex, animals that have developed learned helplessness in the lab-
oratory show similarities to depressed people. For example, they have gen-
eralized reduced behavioral output. Similarly, researchers discovered early on
that learned helplessness in rats could be prevented by treatment with anti-
depressant medication. Furthermore, exposure to uncontrollable aversive
events produces deficiencies in immune system function, resulting in
greater physical ailments, in both animals and people. In people, serial com-
binations of uncontrollable aversive events, such as sudden and unexpected
loss of a spouse or child, being laid off from a job, or losing a home to fire,
can result in the feeling that one is powerless and doomed. These feelings of
helplessness can then produce changes, such as decreased interest in life
and increased illness, which further compound the situation. Fortunately,
there are effective treatments for learned helplessness. One solution al-
ready mentioned is antidepressant medication, which may work in part be-
cause it overcomes the physiological changes produced by the helpless ex-
perience. Additionally, therapy to teach effective coping and successful
learning experiences can reverse learned helplessness in people and labora-
tory animals.
Learned Creativity and Variability

Beginning in the 1970’s, some psychologists began to criticize the use of re-
wards to promote learning. Tangible rewards, as well as praise and attention,
they argued, could interfere with creativity, problem-solving ability, motiva-
tion, and enjoyment. Fortunately, these concerns were allayed in the 1990’s
by careful research and examination of previous research, most notably that
489
Psychology Basics
Children can learn to be

creative in their drawing;
creativity was formerly
thought to be outside the
domain of learning.
(EyeWire)
of Eisenberger and Judy Cameron. Together, they analyzed the results of

more than one hundred published studies on the effects of rewards and
found that in general, rewards increase interest, motivation, and perfor-
mance. The only situation in which rewards had detrimental effects was
when they were offered independently of performance. In other words,
giving “rewards” regardless of how the person does is bad for morale and in-
terest.
Furthermore, several aspects of performance previously thought to be
beyond the domain of learning, such as creativity and even randomlike be-
havior, have been demonstrated to be sensitive to consequences. Children
can learn to be creative in their drawing, in terms of the number of novel
pictures drawn, using rewards for novelty. Similarly, as shown by the work of
American psychologist Allen Neuringer and his colleagues, people and ani-
mals alike can learn to engage in strings of unpredictable behavior that can-
not be distinguished from the random sort of outcomes generated by a ran-
dom number generator. This finding is particularly interesting given that
490
Learning
this novel behavior has been found to generalize to new situations, beyond
the situation in which the learning originally occurred. Learned variability
has been demonstrated in dolphins, rats, pigeons, and humans, including
children with autism. Learning to be creative and to try new approaches has
important implications for many aspects of daily life and problem solving.
Biological Bases of Learning

The features of learning do not occur in a vacuum: They often produce last-
ing, physiological changes in the organism. The search for the physical un-
derpinnings of learning has progressed from relatively basic reflexes in rela-
tively simple organisms to more complex behaviors in mammals. Beginning
in the 1960’s, Eric R. Kandel and his colleagues started to examine simple
learning in the large sea snail Aplysia. This snail was chosen as a model to
study physiological changes in learning because its nervous system is rela-
tively simple, containing several thousand neurons (nerve cells) compared
to the billions of neurons in mammals. The neurons are large, so research-
ers can identify individual cells and monitor them for changes as learning
progresses. In this Nobel Prize-winning work, Kandel and colleagues out-
lined many of the changes in the degree of responsiveness in connections
between neurons that underlie classical conditioning processes. The same
processes have been observed in other species, including mammals, and the
work continues to expand to more complex behavior. This research shows
the commonality in learning processes across species and emphasizes the
progress in understanding the physical basis that underlies learning.

Branch, Marc N., and Timothy D. Hackenberg. “Humans Are Animals, Too:
Connecting Animal Research to Human Behavior and Cognition.” In
Learning and Behavior Therapy, edited by William O’Donohue. Boston:
Allyn & Bacon, 1998. The authors explain the relevance of work with
nonhumans to humans. Includes a discussion of the effects of explicit re-
wards on motivation and the phenomenon of learning without aware-
ness. This book chapter is clearly written and understandable to the inter-
ested nonprofessional reader.
Carroll, Marilyn E., and J. Bruce Overmier, eds. Animal Research and Human
Health: Advancing Human Welfare Through Behavioral Science. Washington,
D.C.: American Psychological Association, 2001. Contains descriptions of
the application of research with animals to a variety of human conditions,
including anxiety, stress, depression, drug abuse, aggression, and a vari-
ety of areas of learning. Also contains a section on the ethics of using ani-
mals in behavioral research and a list of additional readings.
Eisenberger, Robert, and Judy Cameron. “The Detrimental Effects of Re-
ward: Myth or Reality?” American Psychologist 51, no. 11 (1996): 1153-1166.
This journal article in the publication of the American Psychological As-
sociation provides an analysis of over one hundred studies and finds that
491
Psychology Basics
rewards generally are not detrimental, but are in fact beneficial, to moti-
vation, interest, and enjoyment of a task. Although the article contains
advanced statistical techniques, they are not critical to the understanding
of the findings.
Mazur, James E. Learning and Behavior. Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Prentice
Hall, 2001. This best-selling introduction to the topic of learning and
behavior assumes no prior knowledge of psychology. The reading is
straightforward though sometimes challenging as it covers the basics of
classical and operant conditioning, biological bases of learning and be-
havior, and applications to complex human learning situations.
Overmier, J. Bruce, and V. M. LoLordo. “Learned Helplessness.” In Learning
and Behavior Therapy, edited by William O’Donohue. Boston: Allyn & Ba-
con, 1998. Scholarly, complete discussion of the history of research in
learned helplessness, thorough description of the phenomenon, up to
current controversies and debates in this area. Contains information on
the physiological underpinnings of learned helplessness and the applica-
tion of this research to human depression. Includes large reference sec-
tion with classic papers in this area of research.
Seligman, Martin E. P. Learned Optimism. New York: Pocket Books, 1998. This
book by one of the pioneers in the area describes the basic research un-
derlying the proposed therapeutic approach to address problems with
learned helplessness. Contains scales to assess the reader’s degree of opti-
mism and scientifically based recommendations to change problematic
behavior. Written for a broad audience.
Skinner, B. F. Science and Human Behavior. Reprint. New York: Classics of Psy-
chiatry & Behavioral Sciences Library, 1992. This classic work by Skinner
was designed to bring the study of human learning to a wide audience.
Describes the application of science to human problems. Reviews basic
learning principles before discussing their application to a variety of wide
ranging human issues.
Straus, Murray A., and Denise A. Donnelly. Beating the Devil out of Them: Cor-
poral Punishment in American Families and Its Effects on Children. New Bruns-
wick, N.J.: Transaction, 2001. This thought-provoking book by one of the
foremost experts on family violence is written for a broad audience. Dis-
cusses the prevalence of spanking and other forms of corporal punish-
ment. Outlines the short-term and long-term impacts of spanking on
children, including increased aggression, criminality, and depression. In-
cludes a discussion of benefits of alternative child-rearing strategies.
Amy L. Odum
See also: Cognitive Development: Jean Piaget; Giftedness; Imprinting; Intel-

ligence; Language; Learning Disorders; Logic and Reasoning; Memory; Men-
tal Retardation; Pavlovian Conditioning; Race and Intelligence; Thought:
Study and Measurement.
492
Learning Disorders
Learning disorders (LD) comprise the disorders usually first diagnosed in infancy,
childhood, or adolescence. Because the condition affects the academic progress of ap-
proximately 5 percent of all public school students in the United States, it has attracted
the attention of clinicians, educators, and researchers from varied disciplines. Sub-
stantial progress has been made in the assessment and diagnosis of learning disorders
but questions regarding etiology, course, and treatment of the disorder continue to
challenge investigators.
Key concepts
• disorder of written expression
• dyslexia
• learning disabilities
• learning disorder not otherwise specified
• mathematics disorder
• phonological processing
• reading disorder
Learning disorders (LD) is a general term for clinical conditions that meet
three diagnostic criteria: An individual’s achievement in an academic do-
main (such as reading) is substantially below that expected given his or her
age, schooling, and level of intelligence; the learning disturbance interferes
significantly with academic achievement or activities of daily living that re-
quire specific academic skills; and if a sensory deficit (such as blindness or
deafness) is present, the learning difficulties are in excess of those usually as-
sociated with it. The American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statis-
tical Manual of Mental Disorders: DSM-IV-TR (rev. 4th ed., 2000) specifies four
subcategories of learning disorders: Reading Disorder, Mathematics Disor-
der, Disorder of Written Expression, and Learning Disorder Not Otherwise
Specified (NOS). The criteria for the first three specific learning disorders
are the same except for the academic domain affected by the disorder. The
fourth subcategory is reserved for disorders involving learning the aca-
demic skills that do not meet the criteria for any specific learning disorder.
Included are problems in all three academic domains (reading, mathemat-
ics, written expression) that together significantly interfere with academic
achievement even though academic achievement as measured on standard-
ized tests does not fall substantially below what is expected given the individ-
ual’s chronological age, intelligence quotient (IQ), or age-appropriate edu-
cation.
A variety of statistical approaches are used to produce an operational def-
inition of “substantially below” academic achievement. Despite some con-
troversy about its appropriateness, the most frequently used approach de-
493
Psychology Basics
fines “substantially below” as a discrepancy between achievement and IQ of

more than two standard deviations (SD). In cases where an individual’s per-
formance on an IQ test may have been compromised by an associated disor-
der in linguistic or information processing, an associated mental disorder, a
general medical condition, or the individual’s ethnic or cultural back-
ground, a smaller discrepancy (between one and two SDs) may be accept-
able.
Differential diagnosis involves differentiating learning disorders from
normal variations in academic achievement, scholastic difficulties due to
lack of opportunity, poor teaching, or cultural factors, and learning difficul-
ties associated with a sensory deficit. In cases of pervasive developmental dis-
order or mild mental retardation, an additional diagnosis of learning disor-
der is given if the individual’s academic achievement is substantially below
the expected level given the individual’s schooling and intelligence.
The term “learning disorders” was first applied to a clinical condition
meeting these three criteria in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental
Disorders (4th ed., DSM-IV), published in 1994. Earlier editions of the DSM
used other labels such as “learning disturbance,” a subcategory within spe-
cial symptom reactions in DSM-II (1968). In DSM-III (1980) and DSM-III-R
(1987), the condition was labeled “Academic Skills Disorders” and listed un-
der “Specific Developmental Disorders”; furthermore, the diagnosis was
based only on “substantially below” academic achievement, and the disor-
der was classified as an Axis II rather than an Axis I or clinical condition. The
LD condition is also known by names other than those used in the psychiat-
ric nomenclature, most frequently as “learning disabilities,” which is de-
fined as a disorder in one or more of the basic psychological processes in-
volved in understanding or in using spoken or written language, which may
manifest itself in an imperfect ability to listen, think, speak, read, write,
spell, or do mathematical calculations in children whose learning problems
are not primarily the result of visual, hearing, or motor handicaps, mental
retardation, emotional disturbance, or environmental, cultural, or eco-
nomic disadvantage. Learning disabilities is the term used in P.L. 94-142,
the Education for All Handicapped Children Act of 1975, and in P.L. 101-
476, the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. Specific learning dis-
orders are also referred to by other names, such as dyslexia (Reading Dis-
order), dyscalculia (Mathematics Disorder), or dysgraphia (Disorder of
Written Expression). Empirical evidence about prevalence, etiology, course
of the disorder, and intervention comes mainly from subjects identified as
having dyslexia or learning disabilities.
Prevalence
Prevalence rates for learning disorders vary, depending on the definitions
and methods of determining the achievement-intelligence discrepancy. Ac-
cording to the American Psychiatric Association, estimates range from 2
percent to 10 percent for the general population, and 5 percent for public
494
Learning Disorders
school students in the United States. The prevalence rate for each specific
learning disorder is more difficult to establish because many studies simply
report the total number of learning disorders without separating them ac-
cording to subcategory. Reading disorder is the most common, found in 4
percent of school-age children in the United States. Approximately four out
of five cases of LD have Reading Disorder alone or in combination with
Mathematics Disorder or Disorder of Written Expression. About 1 percent
of school-age children have Mathematics Disorder, one out of five cases of
LD. Disorder of Written Expression alone is rare; it is usually associated with
Reading Disorder.
Studies based on referrals to school psychologists or clinics reported that
more males than females manifested a learning disorder. However, studies
employing careful diagnostic assessment and strict application of the crite-
ria have found more equal rates for males and females. LD often coexists
with another disorder, usually language disorders, communication disor-
ders, attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), or conduct disorder.
Etiology
There is strong empirical support for a genetic basis of Reading Disorder or
dyslexia from behavior genetic studies. John C. DeFries and his colleagues
indicate that heredity can account for as much as 60 percent of the variance
in Reading Disorders or dyslexia. As for the exact mode of genetic transmis-
sion, Lon R. Cardon and his collaborators, in two behavior genetic studies,
identified chromosome 6 as a possible quantitative trait locus for a predispo-
sition to develop Reading Disorder. The possibility that transmission occurs
through a subtle brain dysfunction rather than autosomal dominance has
been explored by Bruce Pennington and others.
The neurophysiological basis of Reading Disorders has been explored in
studies of central nervous dysfunction or faulty development of cerebral
dominance. The hypothesized role of central nervous dysfunction has been
difficult to verify despite observations that many children with learning dis-
orders had a history of prenatal and perinatal complications, neurological
soft signs, and electroencephalograph abnormalities. In 1925, neurologist
Samuel T. Orton hypothesized that Reading Disorder or dyslexia results
from failure to establish hemispheric dominance between the two halves of
the brain. Research has yielded inconsistent support for Orton’s hypothesis
and its reformulation, the progressive lateralization hypothesis. However,
autopsy findings of cellular abnormalities in the left hemispheres of dyslex-
ics that were confirmed in brain imaging studies of live human subjects have
reinvigorated researchers. These new directions are pursued in studies us-
ing sophisticated brain imaging technology.
Genetic and neurophysiological factors do not directly cause problems in
learning the academic skills. Rather, they affect development of neuropsy-
chological, information-processing, linguistic, or communication abilities,
producing difficulties or deficits that lead to learning problems. The most
495
Psychology Basics
promising finding from research on process and ability deficits concerns

phonological processing—the ability to use phonological information (the
phonemes or speech sounds of one’s language)—in processing oral and
written language. Two types of phonological processing, phonological
awareness and phonological memory (encoding or retrieval), have been
studied extensively. Based on correlational and experimental data, there is
an emerging consensus that a deficit in phonological processing is the basis
of reading disorder in a majority of cases.
Assessment
Assessment refers to the gathering of information in order to attain a goal.
Assessment tools vary with the goal. If the goal is to establish the diagnosis,
assessment involves the individualized administration of standardized tests
of academic achievement and intelligence that have norms for the child’s
age and, preferably, social class and ethnicity. To verify that the learning
disturbance is interfering with a child’s academic achievement or social
functioning, information is collected from parents and teachers through in-
terviews and standardized measures such as rating scales. Behavioral obser-
vations of the child may be used to supplement parent-teacher reports. If
there is visual, hearing, or other sensory impairment, it must be determined
that the learning deficit is in excess of that usually associated with it. The
child’s developmental, medical, and educational histories and the family
history are also obtained and used in establishing the differential diagnosis
and clarifying etiology.
If LD is present, the next goal is a detailed description of the learning dis-
order to guide treatment. Tools will depend upon the specific type of learn-
ing disorder. For example, in the case of dyslexia, E. Wilcutt and Penning-
ton suggest that the achievement test given to establish the achievement-
intelligence discrepancy be supplemented by others such as the Gray Oral
Reading Test (GORT-III), a timed measure of reading fluency as well as
reading comprehension. Still another assessment goal is to identify the
neuropsychological, linguistic, emotional, and behavioral correlates of the
learning disorder and any associated disorders. A variety of measures exist
for this purpose. Instrument selection should be guided by the clinician’s
hypotheses, based on what has been learned about the child and the disor-
der. Information about correlates and associated disorders is relevant to set-
ting targets for intervention, understanding the etiology, and estimating the
child’s potential response to intervention and prognosis.
In schools, identification of LD involves a multidisciplinary evaluation
team including the classroom teacher, a psychologist, and a special educa-
tion teacher or specialist in the child’s academic skill deficit (such as read-
ing). As needed, input may be sought from the child’s pediatrician, a speech
therapist, an audiologist, a language specialist, or a psychiatrist. A thorough
assessment should provide a good description of the child’s strengths as well
as weaknesses that will be the basis of effective and comprehensive treat-
496
Learning Disorders
DSM-IV-TR Criteria for Learning Disorders

Mathematics Disorder (DSM code 315.1)
Mathematical ability, as measured by individually administered standardized
tests, substantially below that expected given chronological age, measured intel-
ligence, and age-appropriate education
Disorder interferes significantly with academic achievement or activities of
daily living requiring mathematical ability
If a sensory deficit is present, mathematical difficulties exceed those usually
associated with it
Reading Disorder (DSM code 315.00)
Reading achievement, as measured by individually administered standard-
ized tests of reading accuracy or comprehension, substantially below that ex-
pected given chronological age, measured intelligence, and age-appropriate
education
daily living requiring reading skills
If a sensory deficit is present, reading difficulties exceed those usually asso-
ciated with it
Disorder of Written Expression (DSM code 315.2)
Writing skills, as measured by individually administered standardized tests
or functional assessments of writing skills, substantially below those expected
given chronological age, measured intelligence, and age-appropriate educa-
tion
daily living requiring the composition of written texts (such as writing gram-
matically correct sentences and organized paragraphs)
If a sensory deficit is present, writing difficulties exceed those usually associ-
ated with it
Learning Disorder Not Otherwise Specified
(DSM code 315.9)
ment plans for both the child and the family. In school settings, these are
called, respectively, an Individual Educational Plan (IEP) an
d an Individual Family Service Plan (IFSP).
Treatment
Most children with LD require special education. Depending upon the dis-
order’s severity, they may learn best in a one-on-one setting, small group,
special class, or regular classroom plus resource room tutoring.
Treatment of LD should address both the disorder and associated condi-
tions or correlates. Furthermore, it should include assisting the family and
497
Psychology Basics
school in becoming more facilitative contexts for development of the child

with LD. Using neuropsychological training, psychoeducational methods,
behavioral or cognitive-behavioral therapies, or cognitive instruction, singly
or in combination, specific interventions have targeted the psychological
process dysfunction or deficit assumed to underlie the specific learning dis-
order; a specific academic skill such as word attack; or an associated feature
or correlate such as social skills. Process-oriented approaches that rose to
prominence in the 1990’s are linguistic models aimed at remediating defi-
cits in phonological awareness and phonological memory, and cognitive
models which teach specific cognitive strategies that enable the child to be-
come a more efficient learner. Overall, treatment or intervention studies
during the last two decades of the twentieth century and at the beginning of
the twenty-first century are more theory-driven, built on prior research, and
rigorous in methodology. Many studies have shown significant gains in tar-
get behaviors. Transfer of training, however, remains elusive. Generalization
of learned skills and strategies is still the major challenge for future treat-
ment research. As the twenty-first century begins, LD remains a persistent or
chronic disorder.

Disorders: DSM-IV-TR. Rev. 4th ed. Washington, D.C.: Author, 2000. Pro-
vides a detailed description of the diagnostic criteria, associated features
and disorders, and differential diagnosis. It also describes the course of the
disorder and familial pattern, if any, for the specific learning disorders.
Brown, F. R., III, H. L. Aylward, and B. K. Keogh, eds. Diagnosis and Manage-
ment of Learning Disabilities. San Diego, Calif.: Singular Publishing Group,
1996. A multidisciplinary group of contributors provide a comprehensive
yet detailed view of diagnosis, assessment, and treatment of learning
problems. Because of its clarity and scope, this is recommended as an in-
troductory text.
Lyon, G. Reid. “Treatment of Learning Disabilities.” In Treatment of Child-
hood Disorders, edited by E. J. Mash and L. C. Terdal. New York: Guilford
Press, 1998. This chapter gives an excellent description of treatment
models and reviews the research on their respective efficacies.
Sternberg, R. J., and Louise Spear-Swerling, eds. Perspectives on Learning Dis-
abilities. Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1999. This sophisticated presen-
tation and critique of biological, cognitive, and contextual approaches to
learning disabilities is highly recommended for graduate students and
professionals.
Felicisima C. Serafica
See also: Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD); Brain Structure;

Intelligence; Intelligence Tests; Language; Logic and Reasoning; Memory;
Speech Disorders.
498
Logic and Reasoning
Logic and reasoning are essential elements of the human mind and underlie many
daily activities. Although humans may not follow the prescriptions of formal logic pre-
cisely, human reasoning is nevertheless often systematic. Study of the structures and
processes involved in the use of logic and reasoning provides insight into both the hu-
man mind and the possible creation of intelligent machines.
Key concepts
• atmosphere hypothesis
• availability
• belief-bias effect
• confirmation bias
• deductive reasoning
• gambler’s fallacy
• heuristic
• inductive reasoning
• representativeness
• syllogism
Logical and reasoning tasks are typically classified as either deductive or in-
ductive. In deductive reasoning, if the premises are true and a valid rule of
inference is used, the conclusion must be true. In inductive reasoning, in
contrast, the conclusion can be false even if the premises are true. In many
cases, deductive reasoning also involves moving from general principles to
specific conclusions, while inductive reasoning involves moving from spe-
cific examples to general conclusions.
Cognitive psychologists study deductive reasoning by examining how
people reason using syllogisms, logical arguments comprising a major and a
minor premise that lead to a conclusion. The premises are assumed to be
true; the validity of the conclusion depends upon whether a proper rule of
inference is used. The classic example of deduction is:
All men are mortal.

Socrates is a man.
Socrates is a mortal.
A more modern example of deduction might be:
All dinosaurs are animals.

All animals are in zoos.
All dinosaurs are in zoos.
499
Psychology Basics
The conclusion is valid but is not true, because one of the premises (all
animals are in zoos) is not true. Broadly speaking, truth refers to content
(that is, applicability of the conclusion to the real world), and validity refers
to form (that is, whether the conclusion is drawn logically). It is thus possi-
ble to have a valid argument that is nevertheless untrue. Even if a valid rule
of inference is applied and a valid conclusion is drawn, the conclusion may
not be true. If a valid conclusion has been drawn from true premises, how-
ever, the argument is called “sound.”
With inductive reasoning, the validity of the conclusion is less certain.
The classic example of induction is:
Every crow I have seen in my life up to this time has been black.
All crows are black.
Other examples of induction include a child who begins to say “goed”

(from “go”) instead of “went,” a detective piecing together evidence at the
scene of a crime, and a stock analyst who, after observing that prices have
fallen during the past two Septembers, urges clients to sell in August. In all
these cases, a conclusion is drawn based on evidence observed prior to the
conclusion. There remains the possibility, however, that additional evidence
may render the conclusion incorrect. It does not matter how many positive
instances (for example, black crows, September stock declines) have been
observed; if one counterexample can be found (a white crow, a September
stock rise), the conclusion is incorrect.
Heuristics
The study of induction spans a variety of methods and topics. In this article,
most of the consideration of induction involves cases in which people rely
on heuristics in their reasoning. Heuristics involve “rules of thumb” that
yield “ballpark” solutions that are approximately correct and can be applied
across a wide range of problems.
One common heuristic is representativeness, which is invoked in answer-
ing the following questions: What is the probability that object A belongs to
class B, event A originates from process B, or that process B will generate
event A? The representativeness heuristic suggests that probabilities are
evaluated by the degree to which A is representative of B, that is, by the de-
gree to which A resembles B. If A is representative of B, the probability that
A originates from B is judged to be high; if A does not resemble B or is not
similar to B, the probability that A originates from B is judged to be low.
A second heuristic is availability, which is invoked in judgments of fre-
quency. Specifically, people assess the frequency of a class by the ease with
which instances of that class can be brought to mind. Factors that influence
the ability to think of instances of a class, such as recency, salience, number
of associations, and so forth, influence availability in such a way that certain
types of events (such as recent and salient) are more available. For example,
500
Logic and Reasoning
if several people one knows have been involved in car crashes recently, one’s
subjective probability of being in a car crash is increased.
Rules of Inference
Before examining how people reason deductively, two rules of inference
must be considered: modus ponens (the “method of putting,” which involves
affirming a premise) and modus tollens (the “method of taking,” which in-
volves negating a premise). Considering P and Q as content-free abstract
variables (much like algebraic variables), modus ponens states that given “P
implies Q” and given P, one can infer Q. In the following example, applying
modus ponens to 1 and 2 (in which P is “it rained last night” and Q is “the game
was canceled”), one can infer 3.
1. If it rained last night, then the game was canceled.

2. It rained last night.
3. The game was canceled.
Modus tollens states that given “P implies Q” and ~Q (read “not Q”; “~” is a
symbol for negation), one can infer “~P.” Applying modus tollens to 1 and 4,
one can infer 5.
4. The game was not canceled.

5. It did not rain last night.
In general, people apply modus ponens properly but do not apply modus
tollens properly. In one experiment, four cards showing the following letters
or numbers were placed in front of subjects:
EK47
Subjects saw only one side of each card but were told that a letter appeared
on one side and a number on the other side. Subjects were asked to judge
the validity of the following rule by turning over only those cards that pro-
vided a valid test of the following statement: If a card has a vowel on one side,
then it has an even number on the other side. Turning over E is a correct ap-
plication of modus ponens, and turning over 7 is a correct application of mo-
dus tollens (consider P as “vowel on one side” and Q as “even number on the
other side”). Almost 80 percent of subjects turned over E only or E and 4,
while only 4 percent of subjects chose the correct answer, turning over E and
7. While many subjects correctly applied modus ponens, far fewer correctly ap-
plied modus tollens. Additionally, many subjects turned over 4, an error called
affirmation of the consequent.
When stimuli are concrete, reasoning improves. In an analogous experi-
ment, four cards with the following information were placed before sub-
jects:
501
Psychology Basics
beer Coke 16 22
One side of each card showed a person’s drink; the other side showed a per-
son’s age. Subjects evaluated this rule: If a person is drinking beer, that per-
son must be at least nineteen. In this experiment, nearly 75 percent of the
subjects made the correct selections, showing that in some contexts people
are more likely to apply modus tollens properly.
When quantifiers such as “all,” “some,” and “none” are used within syllo-
gisms, additional errors in reasoning occur. People are more likely to accept
positive conclusions to positive premises and negative conclusions to nega-
tive premises, negative conclusions if premises are mixed, a universal con-
clusion if premises are universal (all or none), a particular conclusion if pre-
mises are particular (some), and a particular conclusion if one premise is
general and the other is particular. These observations led to the atmo-
sphere hypothesis, which suggests that the quantifiers within the premises
create an “atmosphere” predisposing subjects to accept as valid conclusions
that use the same quantifiers.
Influence of Knowledge and Beliefs

Prior knowledge or beliefs can influence reasoning if people neglect the
form of the argument and concentrate on the content; this is referred to as
the belief-bias effect. If a valid conclusion appears unbelievable, people re-
ject it, while a conclusion that is invalid but appears believable is accepted as
valid. Many people accept this syllogism as valid:
All oak trees have acorns.

This tree has acorns.
This tree is an oak tree.
Consider, however, this logically equivalent syllogism:
All oak trees have leaves.

This tree has leaves.
This tree is an oak tree.
In the first syllogism, people’s knowledge that only oak trees have acorns
leads them to accept the conclusion as valid. In the second syllogism, peo-
ple’s knowledge that many types of trees have leaves leads them to reject the
conclusion as invalid.
Biases in Reasoning
A common bias in inductive reasoning is the confirmation bias, the ten-
dency to seek confirming evidence and not to seek disconfirming evidence.
In one study, subjects who were presented with the numbers (2, 4, 6) deter-
mined what rule (concept) would allow them to generate additional num-
502
Logic and Reasoning
bers in the series. In testing their hypotheses, many subjects produced series
to confirm their hypotheses—for example, (20, 22, 24) or (100, 102, 104)—
of “even numbers ascending by 2,” but few produced series to disconfirm
their hypotheses—for example, (1, 3, 5) or (20, 50, 187). In fact, any ascend-
ing series (such as 32, 69, 100,005) would have satisfied the general rule, but
because subjects did not seek to disconfirm their more specific rules, they
did not discover the more general rule.
Heuristics also lead to biases in reasoning. In one study, subjects were told
that bag A contained ten blue and twenty red chips, while bag B contained
twenty blue and ten red chips. On each trial, the experimenter selected one
bag; subjects knew that bag A would be selected on 80 percent of the trials.
The subject drew three chips from the bag and reasoned whether A or B had
been selected. When subjects drew two blues and one red, all were confident
that B had been selected. If the probability for that sample is actually calcu-
lated, however, the odds are 2:1 that it comes from A. People chose B be-
cause the sample of chips resembles (represents) B more than A, and ig-
nored the prior probability of 80 percent that the bag was A.
In another experiment, subjects were shown descriptions of “Linda” that
made her appear to be a feminist. Subjects rated the probability that Linda
was a bank teller and a feminist higher than the probability that Linda was a
bank teller. Whenever there is a conjunction of events, however, the proba-
bility of both events is less than the probability of either event alone, so the
probability that Linda was a bank teller and a feminist was actually lower
than the probability that she was only a bank teller. Reliance on representa-
tiveness leads to overestimation of the probability of a conjunction of events.
Reliance on representativeness also leads to the “gambler’s fallacy.” This
fallacy can be defined as the belief that if a small sample is drawn from an in-
finite and randomly distributed population, that sample must also appear
randomly distributed.
Consider a chance event such as flipping a coin. (H represents “heads”; T
represents “tails.”) Which sequence is more probable: HTHTTH or
HHHHHH? Subjects judge that the first sequence is more probable, but
both are equally probable. The second sequence, HHHHHH, does not ap-
pear to be random, however, and so is believed to be less probable. After a
long run of H, people judge T as more probable than H because the coin is
“due” for T. A problem with the idea of “due,” though, is that the coin itself
has no memory of a run of H or T. As far as the coin is concerned, on the
next toss there is .5 probability of H and .5 probability of T. The fallacy arises
because subjects expect a small sample from an infinitely large random dis-
tribution to appear random. The same misconceptions are often extended
beyond coin-flipping to all games of chance.
In fallacies of reasoning resulting from availability, subjects misestimate
frequencies. When subjects estimated the proportion of English words be-
ginning with R versus words with R as the third letter, they estimated that
more words begin with R, but, in fact, more than three times as many words
503
Psychology Basics
have R as their third letter. For another example, consider the following
problem. Ten people are available and need to be organized into committees.
Can more committees of two or more committees of eight be organized?
Subjects claimed that more committees of two could be organized, probably
because it is easier to visualize a larger number of committees of two, but
equal numbers of committees could be made in both cases. In both examples,
the class for which it is easier to generate examples is judged to be the most
frequent or numerous. An additional aspect of availability involves causal
scenarios (sometimes referred to as the simulation heuristic), stories or nar-
ratives in which one event causes another and which lead from an original
situation to an outcome. If a causal scenario linking an original situation
and outcome is easily available, that outcome is judged to be more likely.
Evolution of Study
Until the twentieth century, deductive logic and the psychology of human
thought were considered to be the same topic. The mathematician George
Boole titled his 1854 book on logical calculus An Investigation of the Laws of
Human Thought. This book was designed “to investigate the fundamental
laws of those operations of the mind by which reasoning is performed.” Hu-
mans did not always seem to operate according to the prescriptions of logic,
but such lapses were seen as the malfunctioning of the mental machinery.
When the mental machinery functioned properly, humans were logical. In-
deed, it is human rationality, the ability to think logically, that for many
thinkers throughout time has separated humans from other animals (for ex-
ample, Aristotle’s man as rational animal) and defined the human essence
(for example, René Descartes’s “I think, therefore I am”).
As a quintessential mental process, the study of reasoning is an integral
part of modern cognitive psychology. In the mid-twentieth century, how-
ever, when psychology was in the grip of the behaviorist movement, little at-
tention was given to such “mentalistic” conceptions, with the exception of
isolated works such as Frederic C. Bartlett’s studies of memory and Jerome
S. Bruner, Jacqueline J. Goodnow, and George A. Austin’s landmark publi-
cation A Study of Thinking (1956), dealing with, among other topics, induc-
tion and concept formation. The development of the digital computer and
the subsequent application of the computer as a metaphor for the human
mind suggested new methods and vocabularies for investigating mental pro-
cesses such as reasoning, and with the ascendancy of the cognitive approach
within experimental psychology and the emergence of cognitive science, re-
search on human reasoning has become central in attempts both to under-
stand the human mind and to build machines that are capable of indepen-
dent, intelligent action.
Involvement of Computers
In the latter part of the twentieth century, there were attempts to simulate
human reasoning with computers and to develop computers capable of
504
Logic and Reasoning
humanlike reasoning. One notable attempt involved the work of Allen New-
ell and Herbert Simon, who provided human subjects with various sorts of
problems to solve. Their human subjects would “think out loud,” and tran-
scripts of what they said became the basis of computer programs designed to
mimic human problem solving and reasoning. Thus, the study of human
logic and reasoning not only furthered the understanding of human cogni-
tive processes but also gave guidance to those working in artificial intelli-
gence. One caveat, however, is that even though such transcripts may serve
as a model for computer intelligence, there remain important differences
between human and machine “reasoning.” For example, in humans, the
correct application of some inference rules (for example, modus tollens) de-
pends upon the context (for example, the atmosphere hypothesis or the be-
lief-bias effect). Furthermore, not all human reasoning may be strictly
verbalizable, and to the extent that human reasoning relies on nonlinguistic
processes (such as imagery), it might not be possible to mimic or re-create it
on a computer.
After being assumed to be logical, or even being ignored by science, hu-
man reasoning is finally being studied for what it is. In solving logical prob-
lems, humans do not always comply with the dictates of logical theory; the
solutions reached may be influenced by the context of the problem, previ-
ous knowledge or belief, and the particular heuristics used in reaching a so-
lution. Discovery of the structures, processes, and strategies involved in rea-
soning promises to increase the understanding not only of how the human
mind works but also of how to develop artificially intelligent machines.

Halpern, Diane F. Thought and Knowledge: An Introduction to Critical Thinking.
4th ed. Mahwah, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum, 2003. Presents a brief overview
of memory and language, then presents data and theory on performance
with different types of deductive arguments, analyzing arguments, falla-
cies, reasoning with probabilities, and hypothesis testing. The author
provides numerous examples and exercises, and the text can be under-
stood by high school or college students.
Holland, John H., et al. Induction: Processes of Inference, Learning, and Discov-
ery. Reprint. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1989. Presents a broad cross-
disciplinary account of induction and examines the role of inferential
rules in induction, people’s mental models of the world, concept forma-
tion, problem solving, and the role of induction in discovery. The authors
provide an extensive bibliography of scholarly research on induction.
Johnson-Laird, Philip Nicholas. Mental Models. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard
University Press, 1983. Presents an extensive review of data and theory on
syllogistic reasoning. The author presents a unified theory of the mind
based on recursive procedures, propositional representations, and men-
tal models. The text is very thorough and detailed, and many readers may
find it daunting.
505
Psychology Basics
Kahneman, Daniel, Paul Slovic, and Amos Tversky, eds. Judgment Under Un-
certainty: Heuristics and Biases. New York: Cambridge University Press,
1987. Presents a collection of many of the important papers on heuristics,
including several papers each on representativeness, availability, causality
and attribution, and corrective procedures. Many of the papers are thor-
ough and present detailed information on experiments or theory.
Kelley, David. The Art of Reasoning. 3d ed. New York: W. W. Norton, 1998. A
well-regarded introduction to classic logic. Thorough and accessible.
Sternberg, Robert J., and Talia Ben-Zeev. Complex Cognition: The Psychology of
Human Thought. New York: Oxford University Press, 2001. An introduction
to cognitive psychology, including explanations of the types of reasoning
in theory and in practice. Synthesizes the “normative reference” and
“bounded rationality” approaches to understanding human thought.
Weizenbaum, Joseph. Computer Power and Human Reason II. New York: W. H.
Freeman, 1997. Provides many examples of “computer reason” and ar-
gues that some aspects of the mind cannot be explained in information-
processing (computational) terms. Makes the case that computers should
not be given tasks that demand human reason or wisdom. Written in an
accessible and easy-to-read style.
Timothy L. Hubbard
See also: Thought: Study and Measurement.
506
Madness
Historical Concepts
Fields of study: General constructs and issues; models of abnormality
Throughout history, humans have tried to explain the abnormal behavior of people
with mental disorders. From the ancient concept of demoniacal possession to modern
biopsychosocial models, beliefs regarding the cause of mental disorders have influenced
the way communities treat those variously labeled mad, insane, or mentally ill.
Key concepts
• asylum
• biopsychosocial model of mental disorders
• deinstitutionalization
• demoniacal possession
• humoral imbalance
• lobotomy
• madness
• moral treatment
• phenothiazines
People are social creatures who learn how to behave appropriately in fami-
lies and communities. What is considered appropriate, however, depends
on a host of factors, including historical period, culture, geography, and reli-
gion. Thus, what is valued and respected changes over time, as do sociocul-
tural perceptions of aberrant or deviant behavior. How deviancy is treated
depends a great deal on the extent of the deviancy—is the person danger-
ous, a threat to self or to the community, in flagrant opposition to commu-
nity norms, or is the person just a little odd? How the community responds
also depends on its beliefs as to what causes aberrant behavior. Supernatural
beliefs in demons, spirits, and magic were common in preliterate societies.
In the medieval Western world, Christians believed that the devil was in pos-
session of deranged souls. Hence, the mentally ill were subjected to cruel
treatments justified by the idea of routing out demons or the devil. For cen-
turies, the prevailing explanation for madness was demoniacal possession.
Prior to the nineteenth century, families and communities cared for the
mad. If they were unmanageable or violent, the mad were incarcerated in
houses of correction or dungeons, where they were manacled or put into
straitjackets. If a physician ever attended someone who was deemed mad by
the community, it was to purge or bleed the patient to redress a supposed
humoral imbalance.
Most medical explanations prior to the advent of scientific medicine were
expressed in terms of the four humors: black bile, yellow bile, blood, and
507
Psychology Basics
phlegm. Imbalances usually were treated with laxatives, purgatives, astrin-

gents, emetics, and bleeding. Understanding moved from the holistic and
humoral to the anatomical, chemical, and physiological. Also, views of hu-
mans and their rights changed enormously as a consequence of the eigh-
teenth century American and French Revolutions.
During the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, madhouses were first re-
placed by more progressive lunatic asylums and then by mental hospitals
and community mental health centers. In parallel fashion, custodians and
superintendents of madhouses became mad-doctors or alienists in the nine-
teenth century and psychiatrists, psychologists, and counselors of various
kinds in the twentieth century. Similarly, the language changed: Madness
was variously called lunacy, insanity, derangement, or alienation. The term
currently used is mental disorder. These changes reflect the rejection of su-
pernatural and humoral explanations of madness in favor of a disease
model with varying emphases on organic or psychic causes.
Early Views of Madness

One of the terrible consequences of the belief in supernatural possession by
demons was the inhumane treatment in which it often resulted. An example
is found in the book of Leviticus in the Bible, which many scholars believe is
a compilation of laws which had been handed down orally in the Jewish
community for as long as a thousand years until they were written down, per-
haps about 700 b.c.e. Leviticus 20:27, in the King James version, reads, “A
man or a woman that hath a familiar spirit . . . shall surely be put to death:
they shall stone him with stones.” The term “familiar spirit” suggests demo-
niacal possession.
There were exceptions to the possession theory and the inhumane treat-
ment to which it often led. Hippocrates, who lived around 300 b.c.e. in
Greece and who is regarded as the father of medicine, believed that mental
illness had biological causes and could be explained by human reason
through empirical study. Although Hippocrates found no cure, he did rec-
ommend that the mentally ill be treated humanely, as other ill people would
be treated. Humane treatment of the mentally ill was often the best that phy-
sicians and others could do.
The period of Western history that is sometimes known as the Dark Ages
was particularly dark for the mad. Folk belief, theology, and occult beliefs
and practices of all kinds often led to terrible treatment. Although some ed-
ucated and thoughtful people, even in that period, held humane views, they
were in the minority regarding madness.
Eighteenth and Nineteenth Century Views

It was not until what could be considered the modern historical period, be-
ginning at the end of the eighteenth century—the time of the American
and French Revolutions—that major changes took place in the treatment of
the mentally ill. Additionally, there was a change in attitudes toward such
508
Madness: Historical Concepts
persons, in approaches to their treatment and in beliefs regarding the

causes of their strange behaviors. The man who, because of his courage, be-
came a symbol of this new attitude was the French physician Philippe Pinel
(1745-1826), appointed physician-in-chief of the Bictre Hospital in Paris in
1792. The Bictre was one of a number of “asylums” which had developed in
Europe and in Latin America over several hundred years to house the in-
sane. Often started with the best of intentions, most of the asylums became
hellish places of incarceration.
In the Bictre, patients were often chained to the walls of their cells and
lacked even the most elementary amenities. Pinel insisted to a skeptical
committee of the Revolution that he be permitted to remove the chains
from some of the patients. In one of the great, heroic acts in human history,
Pinel introduced “moral treatment” of the insane, risking grave personal
consequences if his humane experiment had failed.
This change was occurring in other places at about the same time. After
the death of a Quaker in Britain’s York Asylum, the local Quaker community
founded the York Retreat, where neither chains nor corporal punishment
were allowed. In the United States, Benjamin Rush, a founder of the Ameri-
Benjamin Rush invented

this “tranquillizing chair”
in 1811. (National
Library of Medicine)
509
Psychology Basics
A “centrifugal bed” was used to spin mental patients in the early nineteenth century. (National
Library of Medicine)
can Psychiatric Association, applied his version of moral treatment, which

was not entirely humane as it involved physical restraints and fear as thera-
peutic agents. Toward the middle of the nineteenth century, American cru-
sader Dorothea Lynde Dix fought for the establishment of state hospitals for
the insane. As a result of her activism, thirty-two states established at least
one mental hospital. Dix had been influenced by the moral model as well as
by the medical sciences, which were rapidly developing in the nineteenth
century. Unfortunately, the state mental hospital often lost its character as a
“retreat” for the insane.
The nineteenth century was the first time in Western history (with some
exceptions) that a number of scientists turned their attention to abnormal
behavior. For example, the German psychiatrist Emil Kraepelin spent much
of his life trying to develop a scientific classification system for psycho-
pathology. Sigmund Freud attempted to develop a science of mental illness.
Although many of Freud’s ideas have not withstood empirical investigation,
perhaps his greatest contribution was his insistence that scientific principles
apply to mental illness. He believed that abnormal behavior is not caused by
supernatural forces and does not arise in a chaotic, random way, but that it
can be understood as serving some psychological purpose.
Modern Medicines
Many of the medical/biological treatments for mental illness in the first half
of the twentieth century were frantic attempts to deal with very serious prob-
lems—attempts made by clinicians who had few effective therapies avail-
510
able. The attempt to produce convulsions (which often did seem to make
people “better,” at least temporarily) was popular for a decade or two. One
example was insulin shock therapy, in which convulsions were induced in
mentally ill people by insulin injection. Electroconvulsive (electric shock)
therapy was also used. Originally it was primarily used with patients who had
schizophrenia, a severe form of psychosis. Although it was not very effective
with schizophrenia, it was found to be useful with patients who had resistant
forms of depressive psychosis. Another treatment sometimes used, begin-
ning in the 1930’s, was prefrontal lobotomy. Many professionals today would
point out that the use of lobotomy indicates the almost desperate search for
an effective treatment for the most aggressive or the most difficult psychotic
patients. As originally used, lobotomy was an imprecise slashing of the fron-
tal lobe of the brain.
The real medical breakthrough in the treatment of psychotic patients was
associated with the use of certain drugs from a chemical family known as
phenothiazines. Originally used in France as tranquilizers for surgery pa-
tients, their potent calming effect attracted the interest of psychiatrists and
other mental health workers. One drug of this group, chlorpromazine, was
found to reduce or eliminate psychotic symptoms in many patients. This
and similar medications came to be referred to as antipsychotic drugs. Al-
though their mechanism of action is still not completely understood, they
improved the condition of many severely ill patients while causing severe
side effects for others. The drugs allowed patients to function outside the
hospital and often to lead normal lives. They enabled many patients to bene-
fit from psychotherapy. The approval of the use of chlorpromazine as an
antipsychotic drug in the United States in 1955 revolutionized the treat-
ment of many mental patients. Individuals who, prior to 1955, might have
spent much of their lives in a hospital could instead control their illness ef-
fectively enough to live in the community, work at a job, attend school, and
be a functioning member of a family.
In 1955, the United States had approximately 559,000 patients in state
mental hospitals; seventeen years later, in 1972, the population of the state
mental hospitals had decreased almost by half, to approximately 276,000.
Although all of this cannot be attributed to the advent of the psychoactive
drugs, they undoubtedly played a major role. The phenothiazines had fi-
nally given medicine a real tool in the battle with psychosis. One might be-
lieve that the antipsychotic drugs, combined with a modern version of the
moral treatment, would enable society to eliminate mental illness as a major
human problem. Unfortunately, good intentions go awry. The “major tran-
quilizers” can easily become chemical straitjackets; those who prescribe the
drugs are sometimes minimally involved with future treatment. In the early
1980’s, policy makers saw what appeared to be the economic benefits of re-
ducing the role of the mental hospital, by discharging patients and closing
some facilities. However, they did not foresee that large numbers of home-
less psychotics would live in the streets as a consequence of “deinstitutionali-
511
Psychology Basics
zation.” The plight of the homeless continues in the early part of the twenty-
first century to be a serious problem throughout the United States.
Disorder and Dysfunction

The twentieth century saw the exploration of many avenues in the treat-
ment of mental disorders. Treatments ranging from classical psychoanalysis
to cognitive and humanistic therapies to the use of therapeutic drugs were
applied. Psychologists examined the effects of mental disorders on many as-
pects of life, including cognition and personality. These disorders affect the
most essential of human functions, including cognition, which has to do
with the way in which the mind thinks and makes decisions. Cognition does
not work in “ordinary” ways in the person with a serious mental illness, mak-
ing his or her behavior very difficult for family, friends, and others to under-
stand. Another aspect of cognition is perception. Perception has to do with
the way that the mind, or brain, interprets and understands the information
which comes to a person through the senses. There is a general consensus
among most human beings about what they see and hear, and perhaps to a
lesser extent about what they touch, taste, and smell. The victim of mental
illness, however, often perceives the world in a much different way. This per-
son may see objects or events that no one else sees, phenomena called hallu-
cinations. The hallucinations may be visual—for example, the person may
see a frightening wild animal that no one else sees—or aural—for example,
the person may hear a voice that no one else hears, accusing him or her of
terrible crimes or behaviors.
A different kind of cognitive disorder is delusions. Delusions are untrue
and often strange ideas, usually growing out of psychological needs or prob-
lems of a person who may have only tenuous contact with reality. A person,
for example, may believe that other employees are plotting to harm her in
some way when, in fact, they are merely telling innocuous stories around the
water cooler. Sometimes people with mental illness will be disoriented,
which means that they do not know where they are in time (what year, what
season, or what time of day) or in space (where they live, where they are at
the present moment, or where they are going).
In addition to experiencing cognitive dysfunction that creates havoc,
mentally ill persons may have emotional problems that go beyond the ordi-
nary. For example, they may live on such an emotional “high” for weeks or
months at a time that their behavior is exhausting both to themselves and to
those around them. They may exhibit bizarre behavior; for example, they
may talk about giving away vast amounts of money (which they do not have),
or they may go without sleep for days until they drop from exhaustion. This
emotional “excitement” seems to dominate their lives and is called mania.
The word “maniac” comes from this terrible emotional extreme.
At the other end of the emotional spectrum is clinical depression. This
does not refer to the “blues” of ordinary daily life, with all its ups and downs,
but to an emotional emptiness in which the individual seems to have lost all
512
emotional energy. The individual often seems completely apathetic. The

person may feel life is not life worth living and may have anhedonia, which
refers to an inability to experience pleasure of almost any kind.
Anyone interacting with a person suffering from a severe mental disorder
comes to think of him or her as being different from normal human beings.
The behavior of those with mental illness is regarded, with some justifica-
tion, as bizarre and unpredictable. They are often labeled with a term that
sets them apart, such as “crazy” or “mad.” There are many words in the En-
glish language that have been, or are, used to describe these persons—many
of them quite cruel and derogatory. Since the nineteenth century, profes-
sionals have used the term “psychotic” to denote severe mental illness or dis-
orders. Interestingly, one translation of psychotic is “of a sickness of the
soul” and reflects the earlier belief regarding the etiology or cause of mental
illness. This belief is still held by some therapists and pastoral counselors in
the twenty-first century. Until the end of the twentieth century, the term
“neurosis” connoted more moderate dysfunction than the term “psychosis.”
However, whether neurosis is always less disabling or disturbing than psy-
chosis has been an open question. An attempt was made to deal with this
dilemma in 1980, when the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic
and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (3d ed., 1980, DSM-III) officially
dropped the term “neurosis” from the diagnostic terms.
The current approach to mental disorders, at its best, offers hope and
healing to patients and their families. However, much about the etiology of
mental disorders remains unknown to social scientists and physicians. In
1963, President John F. Kennedy signed the Community Mental Health and
Retardation Act. Its goal was to set up centers throughout the United States
offering services to mentally and emotionally disturbed citizens and their
families, incorporating the best that had been learned and that would be
learned from science and from medicine. Outpatient services in the com-
munity, emergency services, “partial” hospitalizations (adult day care), con-
sultation, education, and research were among the programs supported by
the act. Although imperfect, it nevertheless demonstrated how far science
had come from the days when witches were burned at the stake and the pos-
sessed were stoned to death.
When one deals with mental disorders, one is dealing with human behav-
ior—both the behavior of the individual identified as having the problem
and the behavior of the community. The response of the community is criti-
cal for the successful treatment of disorders. For example, D. L. Rosenhan,
in a well-known 1973 study titled “On Being Sane in Insane Places,” showed
how easy it is to be labeled “crazy” and how difficult it is to get rid of the la-
bel. He demonstrated how one’s behavior is interpreted and understood on
the basis of the labels that have been applied. (The “pseudopatients” in the
study had been admitted to a mental hospital and given a diagnosis—a la-
513
Psychology Basics
bel—of schizophrenia. Consequently, even their writing of notes in a note-

book was regarded as evidence of their illness.) To understand mental disor-
ders is not merely to understand personal dysfunction or distress but also to
understand social and cultural biases of the community, from the family to
the federal government. The prognosis for eventual mental and emotional
health depends not only on appropriate therapy but also on the reasonable
and humane response of the relevant communities.

American Psychiatric Association. Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Disor-
ders: DSM-IV-TR. Rev. 4th ed. Washington, D.C.: Author, 2000. This is the
official manual for the classification of mental disorders used by clini-
cians and researchers in a variety of settings. The manual also is used for
educational purposes as disorders are described with respect to diagnos-
tic features, cultural and age considerations, prevalence, course, and fa-
milial patterns. The language is accessible to advanced students.
Berrios, German E., and Roy Porter. A History of Clinical Psychiatry: The Origin
and History of Psychiatric Disorders. Washington Square: New York Univer-
sity Press, 1995. This book addresses the clinical and social history of
mental disorders and is a good follow-up for readers interested in study-
ing a particular type of disorder. A major theme throughout involves
tracking the interaction between clinical signals of disorder, successive
historical periods, and psychosocial contexts. For advanced students.
Frankl, Viktor Emil. Man’s Search for Meaning: An Introduction to Logotherapy.
New York: Insight Books, 1997. A powerful book which serves as an exam-
ple of many publications that emphasize what has been called “moral
treatment.” Frankl’s book is partly autobiographical, based on his experi-
ences as a Jew in a German concentration camp. The book then goes on
to develop some ideas related to abnormal behavior.
Freud, Sigmund. The Freud Reader. Edited by Peter Gay. 1989. Reprint. New
York: W. W. Norton, 1995. This book offers a selection of essays and ex-
cerpts meant to give the reader an understanding of the breadth of
Freud’s seminal work. Topics include Freud’s psychosexual theory of hu-
man development, his theory of mind, psychoanalysis, and his ideas on
the arts, religion, and culture. The editor offers introductions for each se-
lection. Good overview of a historically important thinker.
Grob, Gerald N. The Mad Among Us: A History of the Care of America’s Mentally
Ill. New York: Free Press, 1994. This history of the care and treatment of
the mentally ill in America begins with the colonial period and ends with
the modern period. It is a thoughtful analysis of changing societal per-
ceptions of moral obligation and of the historically varying policies re-
garding presumed effective care. Documents the contradictory policies
of confinement versus community living for the disordered. Also looks at
the question of whether the public need for protection overrides the
needs of the individual. Written for the general reader.
514
Porter, Roy. The Greatest Benefit to Mankind: A Medical History of Humanity.

New York: W. W. Norton, 1997. An engaging book that includes a chapter
on psychiatry, a short history of mental disorders covering the eighteenth
through the twentieth centuries in Britain, Europe, and North America.
Good discussions of the asylum movement, degeneration theory and
Nazi psychiatry, psychoanalysis, and modern developments. Porter was a
social historian of medicine whose scholarship is accessible to the general
reader. There is an extensive list of sources for further reading. Highly
recommended.
__________. Madness: A Brief History. New York: Oxford University Press,
2002. A history of Western ideas about mental illness by one of the most
respected historians of medicine. Changing ideas about “madness” help
trace the evolution of psychology.
Robinson, Daniel N. An Intellectual History of Psychology. 3d ed. Madison: Uni-
versity of Wisconsin Press, 1995. Although mental illness as such occupies
a small part of this book, it is a genuinely important book in helping
to understand the philosophical and intellectual currents which have
played such a major role in the psychological and scientific understand-
ing of mental illness. A sometimes demanding book to read, it is well
worth the intellectual energy for one who wants to understand various in-
tellectual disciplines.
Rosenhan, David L. “On Being Sane in Insane Places.” Science 179 (January
19, 1973): 250-258. More of a “naturalistic illustration” than a scientific
experiment, this article raises provocative questions and puts forth some
controversial conclusions. Enjoyable reading that does not require much
psychological background on the part of the reader.
James Taylor Henderson; updated by Tanja Bekhuis
See also: Psychology: Fields of Specialization; Psychosurgery; Schizophre-

nia: Background, Types, and Symptoms; Schizophrenia: Theoretical Expla-
nations; Thought: Study and Measurement.
515
Memory
Type of psychology: Memory
Field of study: Cognitive processes
Theories of memory attempt to identify the structures and explain the processes under-
lying the human memory system. These theories give coherence to an understanding of
memory and suggest new research needed to extend knowledge about learning and
memory.
Key concepts
• episodic memory
• iconic memory
• memory trace
• schemas
• semantic memory
• sensory memory
Human memory is among the most complex phenomena in the universe. A

Russian newspaper reporter once flawlessly recalled a list of fifty unrelated
words he had studied for only three minutes fifteen years earlier. On the
other hand, as everyone knows from personal experience, the memory sys-
tem is also capable of losing information presented only seconds before. Er-
rors in memory create so many problems that it seems imperative to know
all that is possible about human memory. For that, a theory is needed.
A scientific theory is a systematic way to understand complex phenomena
that occur in nature. A theory is judged to be useful insofar as its claims can
be supported by the findings of empirical tests, especially experimentation,
and insofar as it leads to further research studies. A theory is not right or
wrong; it is simply a tool to describe what is known and to suggest what needs
further study.
Three major forms of memory are generally described: short-term, long-
term, and sensory memory. Short-term memory represents the temporary
retention of newly acquired information. Generally, short-term memory
lasts no longer than about twenty seconds. This is useful for short-term tasks,
such as the recall of speech during discussions or discourse with another
person. Short-term memory is rapidly lost, sometimes referred to as a pro-
cess of decaying. Alan Baddeley, a major researcher in the field of memory,
has suggested a concept of “working memory” may be substituted for short-
term. Repeat stimulation, or rehearsal, may transfer short-term memory
into that of long-term.
Long-term memory involves storage of information over longer periods
of time, potentially as long as the life of the individual. Some researchers
into the subject consider long-term memory to include two major areas: epi-
516
Memory
sodic and semantic. Episodic memory addresses events that have a temporal
relationship with a person’s life. This may include recall of when events or
information appeared. Semantic memory represents the concepts or skills,
represented in part by learning, that people acquire through the course of
their lives.
Sensory memories are those which can be retrieved as a result of sen-
sory stimuli. For example, a particular odor may result in recall of events
from the past. The unusual smell of a cleaning solution may cause recall of
a college dormitory from years past. This form of recall has been called ol-
factory memory. The image of a flower may result in the memory of a teen-
age boyfriend. Such a visual stimulus is sometimes referred to as iconic
memory.
Theories of memory have been important to psychology for a long time,
often occupying the time and interest of researchers throughout their ca-
reers. Memory, which is always connected to learning, is defined as the men-
tal process of preserving information acquired through the senses for later
use. The cognitive approach to memory places emphasis on mental pro-
cesses, which result in the ability to comprehend or recall what is learned.
The basis is found in changes that occur in the regions of the brain, such as
the hippocampus, associated with memory. In a sense, memory is the record
of the experiences of a lifetime. Without it, a person could not reexperience
the past; everything at every moment would be brand-new. A person could
not recognize the face of a loved one or learn from any experience. A per-
son would thus have a greatly reduced chance for survival and would have
no sense of personal identity. Memory is, in short, critical to functioning as a
human being.
Associationism, Cognitive Theory, and Neuropsychology

The goal of a theory of memory is to explain the structures (analogous to
hardware) and the processes (analogous to software) that make the system
work. Explaining how such a complex system works is a massive undertak-
ing. Many attempts have taken the form of large-scale theories, which seek
to deal with all major operations of the memory systems. The major theories
of memory are associationism and theories from cognitive psychology and
neuropsychology. The theories differ primarily in views of the retention and
retrieval functions of memory. They also differ in terms of their conception
of memory as active or passive.
Associationism, is the theory that memory relies on forming links or
bonds between two unrelated things. This theory stems from the work of
Hermann Ebbinghaus, who started the use of laboratory methods in the
study of memory in the late nineteenth century. According to this theory,
the ability to remember depends on establishing associations between stim-
uli and responses (S-R). Establishing associations depends on the frequency,
recency, and saliency of their pairing. If these bonds become very strong,
the subject is said to have developed a habit. Associationism also assumes the
517
Psychology Basics
existence of internal stimuli that produce behavioral responses. These re-

sponses then become stimuli for other unobservable internal responses,
thus forming chains. In this way, complex physical behaviors and mental as-
sociations can be achieved. Associationists tend to view the memory system
as essentially passive, responding to environmental stimuli.
Cognitive theory emphasizes studying complex memory in the real world;
it is concerned with the ecological validity of memory studies. Most of this
work stems from the research of Sir Frederic C. Bartlett, who was not satis-
fied with laboratory emphasis on “artificial memory,” but rather chose to
study what he called meaningful memory. Meaningful memory, he said in
his book Remembering: A Study in Experimental and Social Psychology (1932), is a
person’s effort to make sense of the world and to function effectively in
it. Cognitive psychology recognizes subjective experiences as inescapably
linked to human behavior. It centers on internal representation of past ex-
periences and assumes that intentions, goals, and plans make a difference in
what is remembered and how well it is remembered. The focus in memory
research is on semantic memory—the knowledge of words, categories, con-
cepts, and meanings located in long-term memory. People have highly com-
plex networks of concepts, which helps account for their behavior in the
real world. These networks are called schemas. New experiences and new in-
formation are viewed in light of old schemas so that they are easier to re-
member. Cognitive theory emphasizes how the individual processes infor-
mation, and it uses the computer as its working model of memory.
Neuropsychology has contributed the third major theory of memory. Al-
though psychology has always recognized the connection between its con-
cerns and those of biology and medicine, the technology now available has
made neuropsychological analysis of brain structure and functioning possi-
ble. Karl Lashley was an early researcher who sought to find the location of
memory in the brain. He ran rats through mazes until they had learned the
correct pathway. His subsequent surgical operations on experimental rats’
brains failed to show localization of memory.
The search for the memory trace, the physiological change that presum-
ably occurs as a result of learning, continued with Donald Hebb, who had as-
sisted Lashley. The brain consists of billions of nerve cells, which are con-
nected to thousands of other neurons. Hebb measured the electrical activity
of the brain during learning, and he discovered that nerve cells fire repeat-
edly. He was able to show that an incoming stimulus causes patterns of neu-
rons to become active. These cell assemblies discovered by Hebb constitute
a structure for the reverberating circuits, a set of neurons firing repeatedly
when information enters short-term memory. This firing seems to echo the
information until it is consolidated in long-term memory. Other research-
ers have found chemical and physical changes associated with the synapses
and in the neurons themselves during learning and when the learning is
consolidated into long-term memory. The discovery of the memory trace, a
dream of researchers for a long time, may become a reality. Neuropsy-
518
Memory
chology sees memory as a neural function controlled by electrical and

chemical activity.
Clinical Approaches to Memory Disorders

Human memory is so important to daily life that any theory that could ex-
plain its structures and processes and thus potentially improve its function-
ing would be invaluable. Memory is inextricably tied to learning, planning,
reasoning, and problem solving; it lies at the core of human intelligence.
None of the three theories is by itself sufficient to explain all the phenom-
ena associated with memory. Over the years, a number of ideas have been
developed in the attempt to improve memory functioning through passive
means. Efforts to induce learning during sleep and to assess memory of pa-
tients for events taking place while under anesthesia have had mixed results,
but on the whole have not succeeded. Memory enhancement through hyp-
nosis has been attempted but has not been shown to be very effective or reli-
able. Pills to improve memory and thereby intelligence have been marketed
Although memory does

decline with age, most
older people do not
experience significant
impairment.
(PhotoDisc)
519
Psychology Basics
but so far have not been shown to be the answer to memory problems. Re-
search has begun on the possibility that certain drugs (such as tacrine) may
interactively inhibit memory loss in people afflicted with certain kinds of de-
mentia (for example, Alzheimer’s disease). Work in neuropsychology has
shown the influence of emotion-triggered hormonal changes in promoting
the memory of exciting or shocking events (such as one’s first kiss or an
earthquake). This has led to an understanding of state-dependent memory:
Things learned in a particular physical or emotional state are more easily re-
membered when the person is in that state again. This helps explain the dif-
ficulties in remembering events that took place when a person was intoxi-
cated or depressed. In fact, heavy use of alcohol may result in significant
memory loss. A person may not even remember having injured someone in
a car crash. Although not fully researched, it may be that certain kinds of
memory are mood-congruent. Perhaps memories of events that occurred
when a person was in a certain mood may become available to the person
only when that mood is again induced.
More active means for memory improvement have met with greater suc-
cess. Associationist theory has demonstrated the value of the use of mne-
monics, devices or procedures intentionally designed to facilitate encoding
and subsequent recall. The use of rhymes, acronyms, pegwords, and the like
enables people to recall factual information such as the number of days in
each month (“Thirty days have September . . . ”), the names of the Great
Lakes (the acronym HOMES), and the colors of the visible spectrum (ROY
G. BIV). Visual cues, such as tying a string around one’s finger or knotting
one’s handkerchief, are traditional and effective ways to improve prospec-
tive memory. Cognitive psychology has demonstrated the importance of
emotional factors—how and why something is learned—to the effectiveness
of memory. It has provided the research base to demonstrate the effective-
ness of study strategies such as the SQ3R (survey, question, read, recite, re-
view) technique. Cognitive theory has also shown that metamemory, a per-
son’s knowledge about how his or her memory works, may be important for
the improvement of memory.
In clinical settings, much research has been concerned with memory im-
pairment as a means to test the applicability of theories of memory. Head in-
juries are a common cause of amnesia in which events immediately prior to
an accident cannot be recalled. Damage to the hippocampus, a part of the
brain that is vital to memory, breaks down the transfer of information from
short-term to long-term memory. One dramatic case concerns “H. M.,” a pa-
tient who had brain surgery to control epileptic seizures. After surgery,
H. M.’s short-term memory was intact, but if he was momentarily distracted
from a task, he could not remember anything about what he had just been
doing. The information was never transferred to long-term memory. Such
patients still remember information that was stored in long-term memory be-
fore their operation, but to them everyday experiences are always strangely
new. They can read the same paragraph over and over, but each time the ma-
520
Memory
terial will be brand-new. In H. M.’s case, it was discovered that his intelli-
gence as measured by standardized tests actually improved, yet he was con-
tinually disoriented and unable to learn even the simplest new associations.
Intelligence tests are made to measure general information, vocabulary,
and grammatical associations; these things were stored in H. M.’s long-term
memory and were apparently not affected by brain surgery. In cases less dra-
matic than H. M.’s, damage to particular areas of the brain can still have dev-
astating effects on the memory. Damage can be caused by accidents, violent
sports activity, strokes, tumors, and alcoholism. Alzheimer’s disease is an-
other area to which research findings on memory may be applied. In this fa-
tal disease a patient’s forgetfulness increases from normal forgetting to the
point that the patient cannot remember how to communicate, cannot rec-
ognize loved ones, and cannot care for his or her own safety needs.
Associationism, cognitive psychology, and neuropsychology can each ex-
plain some of the structures and processes involved in these and other real-
world problems, but it seems as though none of the theories is sufficient by
itself. Memory is such a complex phenomenon that it takes all the large-
scale theories and a number of smaller-scale ones to comprehend it. The
truth probably is that the theories are not mutually exclusive, but rather are
complementary to one another.
Physiological Basis of Memory

Theories of learning and memory have been of great concern to philoso-
phers and psychologists for a long time. They have formed a major part of
the history of psychology. Each of the theories has been ascendant for a
time, but the nature of theory building requires new conceptions to com-
pensate for perceived weaknesses in currently accepted theories and mod-
els. Associationism was the principal theory of memory of stimulus-response
psychology, which was dominant in the United States until the mid-1950’s.
Cognitive psychology evolved from Gestalt psychology, from Jean Piaget’s
work on developmental psychology, and from information-processing the-
ory associated with the computer, and was extremely important during the
1970’s and 1980’s. Neuropsychology developed concurrently with advanced
technology that permits microanalysis of brain functioning. It has resulted
in an explosion of knowledge about how the brain and its systems operate.
Formation of memory seems to involve two individual events. Short-term
memory develops first. Repeated rehearsal transfers this form of memory
into long-term storage. At one time, it was believed both these forms of
memory involved similar events in the brain. However, experimental mod-
els have shown such a theory to be incorrect. Two experimental approaches
have addressed this issue: the separation of memory formation involving
“accidental” or intentional interference with brain function, and develop-
ment of an animal model for the study of memory.
Electroshock treatment of depression in humans has been shown to in-
terfere with short-term memory formation. However, these persons are still
521
Psychology Basics
perfectly able to recall the memory of earlier events stored within long-term
memory. Accidental damage to temporal lobes of the brain does not appear
to interfere with short-term memory, but may inhibit the ability to recall
events from the past.
The experimental use of an animal model in the study of memory forma-
tion was developed by Eric Kandel at Columbia University. Kandel has uti-
lized the sea slug Aplysia in his study of memory. The advantage of such a
model is its simplicity—instead of approximately one trillion neurons which
make up the nervous system of humans, Aplysia contains a “mere” twenty
thousand.
Using a variety of stimuli on the animal, and observing its response,
Kandel has shown that the physiological basis for short-term memory differs
from that of long-term. Specifically, short-term memory involves stimulus to
only a small number of individual neurons. Long-term memory involves de
novo (new) protein synthesis in the affected cells, and formation of exten-
sive neural circuits. Kandel was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or
Medicine in 2000 for this work.
Memory Retrieval
The basis for memory recall remains an active area of study. Memory re-
trieval can be of two types: recognition and recall. In recognition, the indi-
vidual is presented with information that had been previously learned. The
subject remembers he or she has already observed or learned that informa-
tion. In effect, it is analogous to seeing a movie or book for the second time.
In recall, information is reproduced from memory, as in response to a ques-
tion. The physiological basis for retrieval probably involves the activation of
regions of the brain which were involved in the initial encoding.

Baddeley, Alan D. Human Memory: Theory and Practice. Rev. ed. Boston: Allyn
and Bacon, 1998. Updated edition of a classic text. The original emphasis
on history of memory research continues, along with experimental views
of consciousness and implicit memory.
Collins, Alan, ed. Theories of Memory. Mahwah, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum, 1993.
Emphasis of the book is on research into theories of memory, particularly
that of a cognitive approach. Various explanations are presented.
Hunt, R. Reed, and Henry Ellis. Fundamentals of Cognitive Psychology. 6th ed.
Boston: McGraw-Hill, 1999. The authors approach the role of cognitive
psychology in memory using an experimental problem-solving approach.
Updated theories explaining both long-term and short-term memory, as
well as retrieval, are included.
Kandel, Eric. “The Molecular Biology of Memory Storage: A Dialogue Be-
tween Genes and Synapses.” Science 294 (2001): 1030-1038. A summary of
the Nobel Prize-winning research into the physiological basis of memory.
The author provides an experimental approach in differentiating short-
522
Memory
term and long-term memory at the molecular level. The article requires
some knowledge of neural function.
Neisser, Ulric. Cognition and Reality: Principles and Implications of Cognitive Psy-
chology. San Francisco: W. H. Freeman, 1981. This book marked the ac-
ceptance of cognitive psychology as a major component within the ap-
proach to the study and understanding of memory. The major goals of
the approach are described. Many of the author’s suggestions as to an ex-
perimental approach using real-world models have been applied in sub-
sequent years.
Norman, Donald A. The Psychology of Everyday Things. 1988. Reprint. New
York: Basic Books, 2002. An enjoyable approach to the subject. The au-
thor emphasizes the cognitive approach in dealing with problems. Topics
include recognition of both good and bad design as well as ways to im-
prove design based upon psychology of the consumer.
Nyberg, Lars, et al. “Reactivation of Encoding-Related Brain Activity During
Memory Retrieval.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the
United States of America 97 (September 26, 2000): 11, 120-121, 124. De-
scription of positron emission tomography (PET) studies which monitor
brain activity during memory recall. The authors demonstrate, through
linkage of visual and auditory recall, that recall involves regions of the
brain initially involved in memory formation.
R. G. Gaddis; updated by Richard Adler
See also: Brain Structure; Memory: Animal Research.
523
Memory
Animal Research
Type of psychology: Biological bases of behavior; memory
Fields of study: Biological influences on learning; nervous system;
Pavlovian conditioning
Research with nonhuman animals has significantly contributed to an understanding

of the basic processes of memory, including its anatomy and physiology. Important
brain regions, neurotransmitters, and genes have been identified, and this informa-
tion is now being used to understand further and treat human memory disorders.
Key concepts
• anterograde amnesia
• engram
• experimental brain damage
• genetic engineering
• hippocampus
• prefrontal cortex
• retrograde amnesia
• stroke
Nonhuman animals have been used as subjects in memory research since

the earliest days of psychology, and much of what is known about the funda-
mental processes of memory is largely based on work with animals. Rats,
mice, pigeons, rabbits, monkeys, sea slugs, flatworms, and fruit flies are
among the most commonly used species. The widespread use of animals in
memory research can be attributed to the ability systematically to manipu-
late and control their environments under strict laboratory conditions and
to use procedures and invasive techniques, such as surgery and drugs, that
cannot ethically be used with humans. A typical research protocol involves
training animals on any of a variety of learning paradigms and concurrently
measuring or manipulating some aspect of the nervous system to examine
its relationship to memory.
Although learning and memory are closely related, a distinction should
be drawn between learning and memory. Learning is defined as a relatively
permanent change in behavior as a result of experience. Memory is the un-
derlying process by which information is encoded, stored, and retrieved by
the nervous system. Modern learning and memory paradigms are based on
the principles of classical and operant conditioning first established by the
early behaviorists: Ivan Pavlov, Edward L. Thorndike, John B. Watson, and
B. F. Skinner. These learning paradigms can be used to examine different
types of memory and to explore the underlying brain mechanisms that may
mediate them. For classical conditioning, widely used paradigms include
524
Memory: Animal Research
eyeblink conditioning, taste aversion learning, and fear conditioning. For

operant conditioning, memory for objects, spatial memory, context dis-
crimination, and maze learning are among the most frequently used proce-
dures. Two other very simple forms of learning, habituation (the gradual
decrease in response to a stimulus as a result of repeated exposure to it) and
sensitization (the gradual increase in response to a stimulus after repeated
exposure to it) are both simple forms of nonassociative learning also exten-
sively used in animal memory research.
Researchers have at their disposal a number of techniques that allow
them to manipulate the nervous system and assess its functions. Historically,
experimental brain damage has been one of the most widely used proce-
dures. This technique involves surgically destroying (known as lesioning)
various parts of the brain and assessing the effects of the lesion on memory
processes. Pharmacological manipulations are also frequently used and in-
volve administering a drug known to affect a specific neurotransmitter or
hormonal system thought to play a role in memory. Functional studies in-
volve measuring brain activity while an animal is actually engaged in learn-
ing. Recordings can be made from individual brain cells (neurons), groups
of neurons, or entire anatomical regions. Beginning in the late 1990’s, ge-
netic engineering began to be applied to the study of animal memory.
These procedures involve the direct manipulation of genes that produce
proteins suspected to be important for memory.
By combining a wide variety of memory paradigms with an increasing
number of ways to manipulate or measure the nervous system, animal re-
search has been extremely useful in addressing several fundamental ques-
tions about memory. These issues include the important brain structures in-
volved in memory, the manner in which information is stored in the
nervous system, and the causes and potential treatments for human mem-
ory disorders.
The Anatomy of Memory

One of the first questions about memory to be addressed using animals was
its relationship to the underlying structure of the nervous system. American
psychologist Karl Lashley (1890-1958) was an early pioneer in this field. His
main interest was in finding what was then referred to as the engram, the
physical location in the brain where memories are stored. Lashley trained
rats on a variety of tasks, such as the ability to learn mazes or perform sim-
ple discriminations, and then lesioned various parts of the cerebral cortex
(the convoluted outer covering of the brain) in an attempt to erase the
memory trace. Despite years of effort, he found that he could not com-
pletely abolish a memory, no matter what part of the cortex he lesioned.
Lashley summed up his puzzlement and frustration at these findings in this
now well-known quote: “I sometimes feel, in reviewing the evidence on the
localization of the engram, that the necessary conclusion is that learning
just is not possible.”
525
Psychology Basics
While the specific location of the brain lesion did not appear important,
Lashley found that the total amount of brain tissue removed was critical.
When large lesions were produced, as compared to smaller ones, he found
that memories could be abolished, regardless of the location in the cortex
where they were made. This led Lashley to propose the concepts of mass ac-
tion and equipotentiality, which state that the cortex works as a whole and
that all parts contribute equally to complex behaviors.
Further research has generally supported Lashley’s original conclusions
about the localization of the engram. However, better memory tests and
more sophisticated techniques for inducing brain damage have revealed
that certain brain regions are more involved in memory than others and
that different brain regions are actually responsible for different types of
memory. For example, classical conditioning, which is the modification of a
reflex through learning, appears primarily to involve the brain stem or cere-
bellum, which are two evolutionarily old brain structures. Specific circuitry
within these structures that underlies a number of forms of classical condi-
tioning has been identified.
In the rabbit, a puff of air blown into the eye produces a reflexive blink-
ing response. When researchers repeatedly pair the air puff with a tone, the
tone itself will eventually elicit the response. The memory for this response
involves a very specific circuit of neurons, primarily in the cerebellum. Once
the response is well learned, it can be abolished by lesions in this circuit. Im-
portantly, these lesions do not affect other forms of memory. Similarly, taste
aversion learning, a process by which animals learn not to consume a food
or liquid that has previously made them ill, has been shown to be mediated
by a very specific circuit in the brain stem, specifically the pons and medulla.
Animals with lesions to the nucleus of the solitary tract, a portion of this cir-
cuit in the medulla where taste, olfactory, and illness-related information
converge, will not readily learn taste aversions.
More complex forms of learning and memory have been shown to in-
volve more recently evolved brain structures. Many of these are located in ei-
ther the cortex or the limbic system, an area of the brain located between
the newer cortex and the older brain stem. One component of the limbic
system believed to be heavily involved in memory is the hippocampus. One
of its primary functions appears to be spatial memory. Rats and monkeys
with damage limited to the hippocampus are impaired in maze learning and
locating objects in space but have normal memory for nonspatial tasks. Ani-
mals that require spatial navigation for their survival, such as homing pi-
geons and food-storing rodents (which must remember the location of the
food that they have stored) have disproportionately large hippocampi.
Moreover, damage to the hippocampus in these species leads to a disruption
in their ability to navigate and find stored food.
One area of the cortex that has been shown to be involved in memory is
the prefrontal cortex. This area has been implicated in short-term memory,
which is the ability to hold temporarily a mental representation of an object
526
or event. Monkeys and rats that received lesions to the prefrontal cortex
were impaired in learning tasks that required them to remember briefly the
location of an object or to learn tasks that require them to switch back and
forth between strategies for solving the task. Studies involving the measure-
ment of brain function have also demonstrated that this area of the brain is
active during periods when animals are thought to be holding information
in short-term memory.
While experimental brain damage has been one of the predominant
techniques used to study structure/function relationships in the nervous
system, difficulty in interpretation, an increased concern for animal welfare,
and the advent of more sophisticated physiological and molecular tech-
niques have led to an overall decline in their use.
The Molecules of Memory

While lesion studies have been useful in determining the brain structures
involved in memory, pharmacological techniques have been used to address
its underlying chemistry. Pharmacological manipulations have a long his-
tory in memory research with animals, dating back to the early 1900’s and
the discovery of neurotransmitters. Neurotransmitters are chemical mes-
sengers secreted by neurons and are essential to communication within the
nervous system. Each neurotransmitter, of which there are more than one
hundred, has its own specific receptor to which it can attach and alter cellu-
lar functioning. By administering drugs that either increase or decrease the
activity of specific neurotransmitters, researchers have been able to investi-
gate their role in memory formation.
One neurotransmitter that has been strongly implicated in memory is
glutamate. This transmitter is found throughout the brain but is most highly
concentrated in the cerebral cortex and the hippocampus. Drugs that in-
crease the activity of glutamate facilitate learning and improve memory,
while drugs that reduce glutamate activity have the opposite effect. The neu-
rotransmitter dopamine has also been implicated in memory formation. In
small doses, drugs such as cocaine and amphetamine, which increase dopa-
mine activity, have been found to improve memory in both humans and
lower animals. Moderate doses of caffeine can also facilitate memory stor-
age, albeit by a less understood mechanism. Other neurotransmitters be-
lieved to be involved in memory include acetylcholine, serotonin, norepi-
nephrine, and the endorphins.
Research with simpler organisms has been directed at understanding the
chemical events at the molecular level that may be involved in memory. One
animal in particular, the marine invertebrate Aplysia californica, has played a
pivotal role in this research. Aplysia have very simple nervous systems with
large, easily identifiable neurons and are capable of many forms of learning,
including habituation, sensitization, and classical conditioning. Canadian
psychologist Donald Hebb (1904-1985), a former student of Lashley, pro-
posed that memories are stored in the nervous system as a result of the
527
Psychology Basics
strengthening of connections between neurons as a result of their repeated

activation during learning. With the Aplysia, it is possible indirectly to ob-
serve and manipulate the connections between neurons while learning is
taking place. Eric Kandel of Columbia University has used the Aplysia as a
model system to study the molecular biology of memory for more than
thirty years. He demonstrated that when a short-term memory is formed in
the Aplysia, the connections between the neurons involved in the learning
process are strengthened by gradually coming to release more neuro-
transmitters, particularly serotonin. When long-term memories are formed,
new connections between nerve cells actually grow. With repeated disuse,
these processes appear to reverse themselves. Kandel’s work has suggested
that memory (what Lashley referred to as the engram) is represented in the
nervous system in the form of a chemical or structural change, depending
on the nature and duration of the memory itself. For these discoveries,
Kandel was awarded the Nobel Prize in 2000.
Modern genetic engineering techniques have made it possible to address
the molecular biology of memory in mammals (predominantly mice) as
well as invertebrates. Two related techniques, genetic knockouts and trans-
genics, have been applied to the problem. Genetic knockouts involve re-
moving, or “knocking out,” a gene that produces a specific protein thought
to be involved in memory. Frequently targeted genes include those for
neurotransmitters or their receptors. Transgenics involves the insertion of a
new gene into the genome of an organism with the goal of either overpro-
ducing a specific protein or inserting a completely foreign protein into the
animal. Neurotransmitters and their receptors are again the most fre-
quently targeted sites. A remarkable number of knockout mice have been
produced with a variety of short- and long-term memory deficits. In many
ways, this technique is analogous to those used in earlier brain lesion studies
but is applied at the molecular level. Dopamine, serotonin, glutamate, and
acetylcholine systems have all been implicated in memory formation as a re-
sult of genetic knockout studies. Significantly, researchers have also been
able to improve memory in mice through genetic engineering. Transgenic
mice that overproduce glutamate receptors actually learn mazes faster and
have better retention than normal mice. It is hoped that in the future gene
therapy for human memory disorders may be developed based on this tech-
nique.
Animal Models of Human Memory Disorders

Animal research has many practical applications to the study and treatment
of human memory dysfunction. Many types of neurological disorder and
brain damage can produce memory impairments in humans, and it has
been possible to model some of these in animals. The first successful at-
tempt at this was production of an animal model of brain-damaged-induced
amnesia. It had been known since the 1950’s that damage to the temporal
lobes, as a result of disease, traumatic injury, epilepsy, or infection, could
528
produce a disorder known as anterograde amnesia, the inability to form

new long-term memories. This is in contrast to the better-known retrograde
amnesia, which is an inability to remember previously stored information.
Beginning in the late 1970’s, work with monkeys, and later rats, began to
identify the critical temporal lobe structures that, when damaged, produce
anterograde amnesia. These structures include the hippocampus and, per-
haps more important, the adjacent, overlying cortex, which is known as the
rhinal cortex. As a result of this work, this brain region is now believed to be
critical in the formation of new long-term memories.
Memory disorders also frequently develop after an interruption of oxy-
gen flow to the brain (known as hypoxia), which can be caused by events
such as stroke, cardiac arrest, or carbon monoxide poisoning. There are a
variety of animal models of stroke and resultant memory disorders. Signifi-
cantly, oxygen deprivation produces brain damage that is most severe in the
temporal lobe, particularly the hippocampus and the rhinal cortex. Using
animal models, the mechanisms underlying hypoxic injury have been inves-
tigated, and potential therapeutic drugs designed to minimize the brain
damage and lessen the memory impairments have been tested. One poten-
tially damaging event that has been identified is a massive influx of calcium
into neurons during a hypoxic episode. This has led to the development of
calcium blockers and their widespread use in the clinical treatment of com-
plications arising from stroke.
Alzheimer’s disease is probably the best-known human memory disorder.
It is characterized by gradual memory loss over a period of five to fifteen
years. It typically begins as a mild forgetfulness and progresses to antero-
grade amnesia, retrograde amnesia, and eventually complete cognitive dys-
function and physical incapacitation. One pathological event that has been
implicated in the development of Alzheimer’s disease is the overproduction
of a protein known as the amyloid-beta protein. The normal biological func-
tion of this protein is not known, but at high levels it appears to be toxic to
neurons. Amyloid-beta deposits are most pronounced and develop first in
the temporal and frontal lobes, a fact that corresponds well with the mem-
ory functions ascribed to these areas and the types of deficits seen in people
with Alzheimer’s disease. The development of an animal model has marked
a major milestone in understanding the disorder and developing a potential
treatment. Mice have been genetically engineered to overproduce the amy-
loid-beta protein. As a result, they develop patterns of brain damage and
memory deficits similar to those in humans with Alzheimer’s disease. The
development of the Alzheimer’s mouse has allowed for a comprehensive in-
vestigation of the genetics of the disorder as well as providing a model on
which to test potential therapeutic treatments. Limited success for potential
treatments has been obtained with an experimental vaccine in animals. This
vaccine has been shown to reduce both brain damage and memory deficits.
Application to the treatment of human Alzheimer’s disease is many years
away.
529
Psychology Basics

Anagnostopoulos, Anna V., Larry E. Mobraaten, John J. Sharp, and Muriel
T. Davisson. “Transgenic and Knockout Databases: Behavioral Profiles of
Mouse Mutants.” Physiology and Behavior 73 (2001): 675-689. A summary
of an ongoing project to construct a database of genetically engineered
mice designed to facilitate the dissemination of findings among research-
ers. The article contains an exhaustive reference section on mutant mice
and their behavioral and physiological profiles.
Cohen, Neil J., and Howard Eichenbaum. Memory, Amnesia, and the Hippo-
campal System. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1993. A discussion of mem-
ory impairments resulting from damage the hippocampus and adjacent
brain regions.
Duva, Christopher A., Thomas J. Kornecook, and John P. J. Pinel. “Animal
Models of Medial Temporal Lobe Amnesia: The Myth of the Hippocam-
pus.” In Animal Models of Human Emotion and Cognition, edited by Mark
Haug and Richard E Whalen. Washington, D.C.: American Psychological
Association, 1999. A critical evaluation of the role of the hippocampus in
memory for objects. The article includes a historical description of hu-
man amnesia and attempts to model it in monkeys and rats.
Kiefer, Steven W. “Neural Mediation of Conditioned Food Aversions.” An-
nals of the New York Academy of Sciences 443 (1985): 100-109. A comprehen-
sive review of the brain areas and neural systems involved in food aversion
learning.
Martinez, Joe L., and Raymond P. Kesner. Neurobiology of Learning and Mem-
ory. New York: Academic Press, 1998. An overview of information on
the neurobiology of learning and memory from developmental, phar-
macological, and psychobiological perspectives. A good introductory
source.
Morgan, Dave, et al. “A Peptide Vaccination Prevents Memory Loss in an An-
imal Model of Alzheimer’s Disease.” Nature 408 (2000): 982-985. This
original research report describes a successful attempt to vaccinate Alz-
heimer’s mice against the disorder and prevent memory loss.
Squire, Larry R., and Eric Kandel. Memory: From Mind to Molecules. New York:
Scientific American Library, 1999. An approachable volume summariz-
ing the major developments in understanding the anatomy and physiol-
ogy of vertebrate and invertebrate learning. This text contains an exten-
sive discussion of Kandel’s work with the molecular biology of memory in
Aplysia and Squires’s work on the neuroanatomy of memory with mon-
keys. An excellent source for people with a limited background in biology
and chemistry.
Tang, Ya-Ping, et al. “Genetic Enhancement of Learning and Memory in
Mice.” Nature 401 (1999): 63-69. An original research report that de-
scribes how memory was improved in a strain of mice by genetically engi-
neering them to contain an overabundance of glutamate receptors in the
hippocampus.
530
Thompson, Richard F. “The Neurobiology of Learning and Memory.” Sci-

ence 233, no. 13 (1986): 941-947. The author summarizes his work on the
brain mechanisms involved in classical conditioning of the eyeblink re-
flex in rabbits.
Tulving, Endel, and Fergus I. M. Craik. The Oxford Handbook of Memory. New
York: Oxford University Press, 2000. A comprehensive volume dealing
with a wide variety of topics related to both animal and human memory.
An excellent general reference source.
Christopher A. Duva
See also: Animal Experimentation; Brain Structure; Habituation and Sensi-

tization; Memory.
531
Mental Retardation
Fields of study: Childhood and adolescent disorders; organic disorders
Mental retardation occurs about three times per thousand births and usually indicates
an intelligence quotient (IQ) of less than 70. Variations in severity may allow some in-
dividuals to be virtually independent and capable of retaining simple jobs, whereas
more severely affected persons may require lifetime institutional care. The causes of
mental retardation are numerous, with many having a clear-cut underlying genetic
basis, others implicating environmental factors, and still others with no known cause.
Key concepts
• congenital
• Down syndrome
• fetal alcohol syndrome
• fragile X syndrome
• idiopathic
• intelligence quotient (IQ)
• mental retardation
• phenylketonuria
• teratogens
The term “mental retardation” conjures up different meanings for different
people. A useful definition is provided by the American Association on Men-
tal Retardation: “Mental retardation is a particular state of functioning that
begins in childhood and is characterized by limitation in both intelligence
and adaptive skills.” Mental retardation reflects the “fit” between the capa-
bilities of individuals and the structure and expectations of their environ-
ment. It is characterized by significantly subaverage intellectual function-
ing, existing concurrently with related limitations in two or more of the
following skill areas: communication, home living, community use, health
and safety, leisure, self-care, social skills, self-direction, functional academ-
ics, and work. It is evident that deficits in intelligence and adaptive skills will
be related to the complexity of the society in which the individual lives.
Categorizations of the severity of mental retardation have been estab-
lished based on IQ scores. The four levels of severity are mild retardation
(IQ range 50-70), moderate retardation (IQ range 35-50), severe retarda-
tion (IQ range 20-35), and profound (IQ range less than 20). Rather than
use a classification based on the severity level, a classification based on the
type and intensity of support needed also is now in practice: intermittent,
limited, extensive, or pervasive. Persons with mild retardation usually are ca-
pable of living with some degree of independence in the community and
can usually work successfully at simple jobs. The great majority—85 per-
cent—of cases of mental retardation fall into this category. The remaining
15 percent of cases are at the moderate, severe, and profound levels, with
only approximately 1 percent to 2 percent at the profound level. These last
532
Mental Retardation
three levels are sometimes grouped together as severe. Profoundly affected

individuals require constant care and supervision.
Several causes of mental retardation are becoming known, although in
many cases it may not be possible to ascribe mental retardation to a specific
cause. Just because a disorder is congenital (present at birth) does not nec-
essarily imply that the disorder is genetic. Agents that are capable of affect-
ing the developing fetus such as alcohol, mercury, infections, maternal
phenylketonuria, and many other substances may lead to mental retarda-
tion. Many single-gene disorders and chromosomal abnormalities produce
mental retardation as part of their syndromes, or disorders characterized by
multiple effects. A large-scale study of severely mentally retarded patients in-
stitutionalized in Wisconsin, summarized by Sarah Bundey in 1997, indi-
cated that 11.8 percent of the cases were caused by chromosomal abnormal-
ity, 6.5 percent by single-gene defects, 16.3 percent by multiple congenital
anomaly syndromes, 14.7 percent by central nervous system malformations
such as hydrocephalus, 32.1 percent by central nervous system dysfunction
due to perinatal or unidentified prenatal causes including cerebral palsy, 8.5
percent by infectious disease, 3.9 percent by postnatal brain damage, and
1.2 percent by infantile psychosis; 4.3 percent were unclassified. It was noted
that the number of patients with Down syndrome was low because they were
admitted less frequently. Other surveys have shown that Down syndrome ac-
counts for about one-third of mentally retarded patients.
Etiology
Although some cases of mental retardation are idiopathic (without a spe-
cific known cause), many known causes account for many of the cases of
mental retardation. The difficulties in teasing out factors involved in mental
and behavioral disorders are seen clearly in the study of children exposed
prenatally to radiation following the Chernobyl nuclear plant disaster in
1986, as reported by S. Igumnov and V. Drozdovitch. The children who had
been exposed to radiation displayed borderline intellectual functioning
and emotional disorders to a greater degree than those in a control group.
Other unfavorable social-psychological and sociocultural factors included a
low educational level of the parents and problems associated with relocation
from the contaminated areas.
Similar complications are seen in the work of M. S. Durkin and col-
leagues on prenatal and postnatal risk factors among children in Bangla-
desh. The study screened more than ten thousand children from both rural
and urban areas. Significant predictors of serious mental retardation in-
cluded maternal goiter and postnatal brain infections. Consanguinity (hav-
ing ancestors who were closely related) also was a significant factor in the ru-
ral areas. For less severe mental retardation, maternal illiteracy, maternal
history of pregnancy loss, and small size for gestational age at birth were sig-
nificant independent risk factors.
It is convenient to separate the known causes of mental retardation into
533
Psychology Basics
DSM-IV-TR Criteria for Mental Retardation

Significantly subaverage intellectual functioning:
• for children and adults, IQ of approximately 70 or below
• for infants, clinical judgment of significantly subaverage intellectual
functioning
Concurrent deficits or impairments in adaptive functioning (effectiveness
in meeting standards expected for age and cultural group) in at least two of
the following areas:
• communication
• self-care
• home living
• social/interpersonal skills
• use of community resources
• self-direction
• functional academic skills
• work
• leisure
• health
• safety
Onset before age eighteen
DSM code based on degree of severity reflecting level of intellectual im-
pairment:
• Mild Mental Retardation (DSM code 317): IQ level of 50-55 to ap-
prox. 70
• Moderate Mental Retardation (DSM code 318.0): IQ level of 35-40 to
50-55
• Severe Mental Retardation (DSM code 318.1):
IQ level of 20-25 to 35-40
• Profound Mental Retardation (DSM code 318.2): IQ level below 20
or 25
• Mental Retardation, Severity Unspecified (DSM code 319): IQ level
Untestable
the two categories of genetic and acquired or environmental. However, many

cases of mental retardation may be a result of the interaction of several genes
and the environment, in which case the disorder is said to be multifactorial.
Genetic Causes
Approximately one thousand genetic disorders are associated with mental
retardation, and the number increases regularly. If mental retardation is as-
sociated with other conditions or features, it is syndromic; if it is the only pri-
mary symptom, it is said to be nonspecific. In general, a genetic involvement
534
Mental Retardation
is more likely to be found in severe forms of mental retardation than it is in

milder forms. A few examples of chromosomal and single-gene disorders
leading to mental retardation will be discussed as representative examples.
chromosomal disorders. Down syndrome was first described by John
Langdon Down in 1866, and although heredity was suspected in its etiology,
it was not until 1959 that it was discovered that Down syndrome patients had
one extra chromosome, for a total of forty-seven instead of the normal forty-
six. Down syndrome occurs at a frequency of about one in one thousand
births and is the single most prevalent cause of mental retardation. The
great majority of Down syndrome patients have three chromosomes num-
ber 21 instead of two (a condition called trisomy 21). The physical features
associated with Down syndrome are easily recognizable: short stature, a
short neck with excessive loose skin, thick lips, epicanthal folds of the eye,
malformed ears, poor muscle tone, and a flattened facial profile. Major
physical problems include heart and kidney defects, deafness, and gastroin-
testinal blockages. Developmental milestones are delayed, and mental retar-
dation is common. Intelligence varies considerably, with an average IQ of 50
and only a small percentage of patients approaching the normal range. It is
essential that parents and educators assess the capabilities of each child and
provide an educational environment that maximizes achievement.
Although Down syndrome is genetic in the sense that it results from an
imbalance in the genetic material—an extra chromosome—it is not heredi-
tary in the sense that it does not run in families. The incidence of Down syn-
drome shows a striking increase with maternal age, increasing dramatically
(to one in fifty births) in women giving birth beyond age thirty-five.
A normal human has twenty-two pairs of autosomes and one pair of sex
chromosomes—XX if a female, XY if a male. Cases involving an extra chro-
mosome or a missing chromosome, particularly if the missing chromosome
is one of the autosomes, usually lead to spontaneous abortion. The few that
survive have severe malformations, including those of the brain, and are
likely to have severe mental retardation. Malformations as a result of abnor-
malities involving the sex chromosomes are usually less severe. Females with
an extra X chromosome (XXX) tend to have lower IQs than their siblings.
Males with an extra X chromosome (XXY), a condition called Klinefelter
syndrome, usually are not mentally retarded but may develop psychosocial
problems. Males with an extra Y chromosome (XXY) may have speech, lan-
guage, and reading problems.
single-gene disorders. Fragile X syndrome is the second most com-
mon genetic cause of mental retardation. It is the most common inherited
form of mental retardation. As is true of other disorders due to sex-linked
recessive genes, more males are affected than are females. The frequency of
fragile X males is about 1 in 1,000; for females, it is about 1 in 2,500. It is esti-
mated that up to 8 percent of the males in institutions for mental retarda-
tion have a fragile X chromosome. Grant R. Sutherland and John C. Mulley
in 1996 provided a useful review of the characteristics of fragile X syndrome.
535
Psychology Basics
Features include a prominent forehead and jaws; prominent, long, and

mildly dysmorphic ears; hyperextensible finger joints; enlarged testes (mac-
roorchidism); and mitral value prolapse. About 80 percent of fragile X
males have mental retardation. Most of them have moderate retardation,
but some are only mildly retarded. They tend to have better verbal than
spatial abilities. They show speech abnormalities such as echolalia (compul-
sively repeating the speech of others). In general, they tend to be hyperac-
tive. Only about one-half of girls with the fragile X chromosome are af-
fected, and limited studies of females estimate that perhaps up to 7 percent
of female mental retardation is due to fragile X syndrome. The specific gene
involved in fragile X syndrome has been identified: The syndrome is caused
by an expanded triplet repeat, a form of mutation in which deoxyribonu-
cleic acid (DNA) nucleotides are repeated a number of times.
Phenylketonuria (PKU) is one of the inborn errors of metabolism that re-
sults in mental retardation if left untreated. PKU is a disorder of amino acid
metabolism in which individuals cannot metabolize normally the amino
acid phenylalanine because they are deficient in the liver enzyme phenylala-
nine hydroxylase. As a result, phenylalanine and other metabolites accumu-
late in the blood. At birth, children are normal, but clinical features gradu-
ally appear during the first twelve months. Some affected persons have a
“mousy” odor about them because of the excretion of phenylacetic acid.
They tend to have light skin and hair, seizures, mental retardation, and
other neurologic symptoms. PKU occurs in about one in fourteen thousand
births and once accounted for about 1 percent of severely retarded individu-
als in institutions. Some interesting variations in the incidence of PKU are
seen among different populations. In Turkey, a very high incidence is seen,
1 in 2,600 births, whereas in Japan the rate is only 1 in 143,000 births. The
disorder is inherited as autosomal recessive, and most of the affected chil-
dren are born to parents who are not affected.
PKU represents the prototype of genetic disorders for which newborn
screening can be done: babies with high blood levels of phenylalanine can
be identified, and treatment can begin immediately. Dietary management
of phenylalanine levels does not correct the underlying gene defect, but it
keeps the levels sufficiently low that adverse effects on the brain and ner-
vous system do not occur, and mental retardation is avoided. It is thought
necessary to maintain the special diet through the adolescent years. It also is
necessary for women with PKU who become pregnant to resume a diet low
in phenylalanine to prevent high intrauterine levels from affecting the de-
veloping fetus, even though the latter may not be genetically “programmed”
to inherit PKU. Untreated patients with PKU have mean IQs around 50,
whereas treated patients will have IQs close to normal.
Environmental Causes
Numerous cases of mental retardation are a result of damage to a fetus dur-
ing pregnancy. Other problems may arise during birth or after birth. Physi-
536
Mental Retardation
cal or chemical agents that cause an increase in congenital defects are

known as teratogens. Because teratogens affect embryos and fetuses di-
rectly, the effects are not likely to produce heritable changes. A woman who
uses or is exposed to various teratogens during pregnancy runs the risk of
producing a child with a developmental malformation. Potential teratogens
include alcohol, drugs, viral infections, radiation, diabetes mellitus, malnu-
trition, and environmental toxins.
Since its initial clinical delineation in 1973, fetal alcohol syndrome has
been noted as a major cause of mental retardation in countries where alco-
hol is consumed regularly. Estimates indicate that it may be responsible for
as many as one to three cases of mental retardation out of every thousand
births. Fortunately, fetal alcohol syndrome is easily preventable through ab-
stinence from alcohol during pregnancy. Children affected with fetal alco-
hol syndrome have a characteristic facial appearance, with a small skull, up-
turned nose, thin upper lip, underdeveloped upper jaw, epicanthal folds,
and a long philtrum (the vertical groove on the median line of the upper lip).
There is growth retardation, which has its onset prenatally and continues
during the postnatal period with some catch-up growth taking place thereaf-
ter. Head and brain size remain well below normal. Children show develop-
mental delays, attention deficits, hyperactivity, and mental deficiency. Al-
though the average IQ of children with fetal alcohol syndrome is low, 60 to
65, there is considerable variation, with some children having normal or near-
normal intelligence but experiencing learning disorders. Severe physical
defects found in many of these children include cardiac and skeletal defects.
Although it is evident that the risk of fetal alcohol syndrome is related to
the amount and timing of the alcohol consumed by the pregnant woman,
an exact close relationship has been difficult to establish. Even with moder-
ate consumption (one to two ounces of absolute alcohol), the serious effects
of fetal alcohol syndrome have been observed in approximately 10 percent
of births. Many physicians now recommend that women practice total absti-
nence from alcohol during the entire pregnancy.
Prevention and Treatment

Although it is not possible to treat some underlying causes of mental retar-
dation, many of the genetic and teratogenic cases can be prevented through
genetic counseling, prenatal diagnosis, and education to alert people of the
risk to developing fetuses of teratogens such as alcohol. It also is essential to
have an accurate diagnosis of the cause and nature of the problems associ-
ated with individual cases of mental retardation in order for parents to be
able to undertake the best possible intervention program for their children.
Newborn screening programs can detect certain disorders that will lead
to mental retardation, including PKU, congenital hypothyroidism, galacto-
semia, maple syrup urine disease, and other inherited metabolic disorders.
Prenatal testing (such as amniocentesis and chorionic villi sampling) can be
used to detect chromosomal disorders, including Down syndrome and sev-
537
Psychology Basics
eral hundred single-gene disorders that may lead to severe physical or men-
tal disorders in children. Neural tube defects can be detected prenatally by
testing the amniotic fluid for elevated levels of alpha-fetoprotein. Most of
the cases of prenatal testing are done for individuals in which there is a rea-
son to suspect that the fetus is at an increased risk for a particular genetic
disease or birth defect. These risks include increased maternal age, birth of
a previous child with a disorder, and a family history of a disorder. Genetic
counseling also is used to aid a couple in understanding genetic risks before
a pregnancy has commenced, however, most mentally retarded children are
born to parents with no history of mental retardation.

Baroff, George S., and J. Gregory Olley. Mental Retardation: Nature, Cause,
and Management. 3d ed. Philadelphia: Brunner-Routledge, 1999. This
textbook presents information on the biological and psychological causes
of mental retardation and its management.
Beirne-Smith, Mary, James R. Patton, and Richard F. Ittenback. Mental Retar-
dation. 6th ed. Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 2002. A compre-
hensive book that deals with historical, biological, psychological and so-
ciological aspects of mental retardation.
Burack, Jacob A., Robert M. Hodapp, and Edward Zigler, eds. Handbook of
Mental Retardation and Development. New York: Cambridge University Press,
1997. Provides comprehensive information emphasizing the develop-
mental aspects of mental retardation.
Durkin, M. S., et al. “Prenatal and Postnatal Risk Factors for Mental Retarda-
tion Among Children in Bangladesh.” American Journal of Epidemiology
152, no. 11 (2000): 1024-1033. This study examines the roles of different
factors in causing mental retardation in rural and urban children.
Igumnov, S., and V. Drozdovitch. “The Intellectual Development, Mental,
and Behavioural Disorders in Children from Belarus Exposed in Utero
Following the Chernobyl Accident.” European Psychiatry 15, no. 4 (2000):
244-253. The authors report borderline intellectual functioning and
emotional disorders in children exposed in utero to fallout from Cher-
nobyl, along with factors thought to contribute (such as relocation).
McKusick, Victor A. Mendelian Inheritance in Man. 12th ed. Baltimore: John
Hopkins University Press, 1999. A comprehensive catalog of human
genes and genetic disorders including mitochondrial genes.
Rimoin, David L., J. Michael Connor, and Reed E. Pyeritz. Emery and Rimoin’s
Principles and Practice of Medical Genetics. 3d ed. New York: Churchill
Livingstone, 1997. This voluminous book includes several chapters deal-
ing with mental and behavioral disorders.
Donald J. Nash
See also: Developmental Disabilities; Intelligence; Thought: Study and

Measurement.
538
Mood Disorders
The diagnosis of a mood disorder requires the presence or absence of a mood episode
such as a major depressive episode, manic episode, mixed episode, or hypomanic epi-
sode. Mood disorders include major depressive disorder, dysthymic disorder, bipolar I
disorder, bipolar II disorder, and cyclothymic disorder. The mood disorders can be speci-
fied with seasonal pattern, rapid-cycling, or postpartum onset.
Key concepts
• bipolar I disorder
• cyclothymic disorder
• depressive episode
• dysthymic disorder
• hypomanic episode
• major depressive disorder
• manic episode
• postpartum onset
• rapid-cycling
• seasonal pattern
Descriptions of mood disorders can be found in ancient texts such as the Bi-
ble and the writings of Hippocrates (c. 460-c. 377 b.c.e.). In about 30 c.e.,
Aulus Cornelius Celsus, a medical writer, described melancholia as a depres-
sion caused by black bile.
Mood disorders are characterized predominantly by a disturbance in
mood. The American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Man-
ual of Mental Disorders: DSM-IV-TR (rev. 4th ed., 2000) describes mood epi-
sodes that characterize the mood disorders: major depressive episode, manic
episode, mixed episode, and hypomanic episode.
In a major depressive episode, a person experiences depressed mood for
a period of at least two weeks. For the diagnosis of a depressive episode, the
person must experience at least four of the following symptoms: changes in
appetite or weight, sleep, and psychomotor activity; decreased energy; feel-
ings of worthlessness or guilt; difficulty concentrating; recurrent thoughts
of death or suicide. There is significant impairment in occupational or so-
cial functioning.
In a manic episode, a person experiences an abnormally elevated or irri-
table mood for at least one week. In addition, the person must experience at
least three of the following symptoms: inflated self-esteem, decreased need
for sleep, pressured (loud, rapid) speech, racing thoughts, excessive plan-
ning of or participation in multiple activities, distractibility, psychomotor
agitation (such as pacing), or excessive participation in activities that may
have negative consequences (such as overspending). There is severe im-
539
Psychology Basics
pairment in social or occupational functioning, or there are psychotic fea-

tures.
A hypomanic episode is characterized by a period of at least four days of
abnormally elevated or irritable mood. The affected person must experi-
ence at least three of the following symptoms: inflated self-esteem, decreased
need for sleep, pressured speech, flight of ideas, increased involvement in
goal-directed activities, psychomotor agitation, or excessive participation in
activities that may lead to negative consequences. The hypomanic episode is
differentiated from the manic episode by less severe impairment in social or
occupational functioning and a lack of psychotic features.
A person experiencing a mixed episode displays symptoms of both manic
and major depressive episodes nearly every day for a period of one week.
Major depressive disorder is characterized by one or more major depres-
sive episodes. Dysthymic disorder involves at least two years of depressed
mood with symptoms that do not meet the criteria for a major depressive ep-
isode. Bipolar I disorder includes one or more manic or mixed episodes
with major depressive episodes. Bipolar II disorder is characterized by one
or more major depressive episodes with at least one hypomanic episode.
Cyclothymic disorder is represented by at least two years of hypomanic epi-
sodes and depressive symptoms that do not meet the criteria for a major de-
pressive episode.
Major Depressive Disorder

Major depressive disorder involves disturbances in mood, concentration,
sleep, activity, appetite, and social behavior. It is much more than tempo-
rarily feeling sad. It is estimated that one out of every five women and one in
fifteen men will suffer from major depression in his or her lifetime. An esti-
mated eighteen million Americans are affected. In 1990, $30.4 billion was
lost as a result of the illness.
A major depressive episode may develop gradually or appear quite sud-
denly, without any relation to environmental factors. The symptoms of ma-
jor depressive disorder will vary among individuals, but there are some com-
mon symptoms. People with major depressive disorder may have difficulty
falling asleep, sleep restlessly or excessively, and wake up without feeling
rested. They may experience a decrease or increase in a desire to eat. They
may crave certain foods, such as carbohydrates. They may be unable to pay
attention to things. Even minor decisions may seem impossible to make. A
loss of energy is manifested in slower mental processing, an inability to per-
form normal daily routines, and slowed reaction time. Sufferers may experi-
ence anhedonia, an inability to experience pleasure. They lose interest in
activities they used to enjoy. They ruminate about failures and feel guilty
and helpless. People with major depressive disorder tend to seek negative
feedback about themselves from others. They see no hope for improvement
and may be thinking of death and suicide. In adolescents, depression may
be manifested in anger, aggressiveness, delinquency, drug abuse, poor per-
540
Mood Disorders
formance in school, or running away. Depression is a primary risk factor in

the third leading cause of death among young people, suicide.
There is probably no single cause of major depressive disorder, although
it is primarily a disorder of the brain. A chemical dysfunction and genetics
are thought to be parts of the cause. Neural circuits, which regulate mood,
thinking, sleep, appetite, and behavior, do not function normally. Neuro-
transmitters are out of balance. One neurotransmitter implicated in depres-
sion is serotonin. It is thought that in major depressive disorder there is a re-
duced amount of serotonin available in the neural circuits (specifically, in
the synapses). This results in reduced or lacking nerve impulse. In many pa-
tients with the disorder, the hormonal system that regulates the body’s re-
sponse to stress is overactive. Stress, alcohol or drug abuse, medication, or
outlook on life may trigger depressive episodes.
Cognitive theories of depression state that a negative cognitive style, such
as pessimism, represents a diathesis (a predisposition) which, in the pres-
ence of stress, triggers negative cognitions such as hopelessness. Negative
cognitions increase the person’s vulnerability to depression. Some common
precipitants of depression in vulnerable people include marital conflict, ac-
ademic or work-related difficulty, chronic medical problems, and physical
or sexual abuse.
In most cases, medication or psychotherapy is the treatment of choice.
Treatment depends on the severity and pattern of the symptoms. With treat-
ment, 80 percent of people with major depressive disorder return to normal
functioning.
Antidepressant drugs influence the functioning of certain neurotrans-
mitters (serotonin, which regulates mood, and norepinephrine, which reg-
ulates the body’s energy). Tricyclic antidepressants act simultaneously to in-
crease both these neurotransmitters. This type of antidepressant often
produces intolerable side effects such as sleepiness, nervousness, dizziness,
dry mouth, or constipation. Monoamine oxidase inhibitors (MAOIs) in-
crease levels of these same neurotransmitters plus dopamine, which regu-
lates attention and pleasure. MAOIs can cause dizziness and interact nega-
tively with some foods. Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) have
fewer side effects but can cause nausea, insomnia or sleepiness, agitation, or
sexual dysfunction. SSRIs have also been linked to violent behavior and sui-
cide in children and adults, although this association is contested. Amino-
ketones increase norepinephrine and dopamine, with agitation, insomnia,
and anxiety being common side effects. Selective norepinephrine reuptake
inhibitors (SNRIs) increase levels of norepinephrine and can cause dry
mouth, constipation, increased sweating, and insomnia. The selective sero-
tonin reuptake inhibitors and blockers (SSRIBs) increase serotonin and
elicit the fewest side effects (nausea, dizziness, sleepiness). Herbal remedies,
such as St. John’s wort, may act like SSRIs; there is some evidence that St.
John’s wort contributes to infertility. Some drugs blunt the action of a neu-
rotransmitter known as substance P. Other drugs reduce the level and ef-
541
Psychology Basics
fects of a stress-sensitive brain chemical known as corticotropin-releasing

factor (CRF). The hypothalamus, the part of the brain that manages hor-
mone release, increases production of CRF when a threat is detected. The
body responds with reduced appetite, decreased sex drive, and heightened
alertness. Persistent overactivation of this hormone may lead to depression.
The effects of antidepressants are due to slow-onset adaptive changes in
neurons. They may take several weeks to have a noticeable effect.
Psychotherapy works by changing the way the brain functions. Cognitive-
behavioral therapy helps patients change the negative styles of thinking and
behaving associated with depression. Therapies teach patients new skills to
cope better with life, increase self-esteem, cope with stress, and better deal
with interpersonal relationships. There is evidence that severe depression
responds most favorably with a combination of medication and psycho-
therapy.
Electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) is an effective treatment for major de-
pressive disorder. The treatment was first developed in 1934. Between 80
percent and 90 percent of people with the disorder show great improve-
ment with ECT, which produces a seizure in the brain by applying electrical
stimulation to the brain through electrodes placed on the scalp. ECT re-
duces the level of CRF. The treatment is usually repeated to obtain a thera-
peutic response. Common, yet short-lived, side effects include memory loss
and other cognitive deficits.
Dysthymic Disorder
Dysthymic disorder was first introduced as a category of mood disorder in
1980. Dysthymia means “ill humor.” It is characterized as a mild, chronic de-
pression lasting at least two years and affects 3 to 5 percent of all Americans.
The majority of people with dysthymia also develop major depressive disor-
der, a state called double depression. The disorder is more prevalent in
women than in men.
Essentially, dysthymic disorder is a low-grade, chronic depression. Diag-
nosis of dysthymic disorder requires the impairment of physical and social
functioning. Treatment may include cognitive and behavioral therapy as
well as pharmacotherapy, especially SSRIs.
Bipolar Disorder
In 1686, Théophile Bonet, a French pathologist, described a mental illness
he called maniaco-melancholicus. In 1854, Jules Falret, a French physician, de-
scribed folie circulaire, distinguished by alternating moods of depression and
mania. In 1899, Emil Kraepelin, a German psychologist, described manic-
depressive psychosis. Bipolar disorder has a lifetime prevalence of 1.2 per-
cent. It affects more than 2.3 million adult Americans each year. It is equally
common in men and women.
There is a genetic link to bipolar disorder. About 50 percent of all bipolar
disorder patients have at least one parent with a mood disorder. An in-
542
Mood Disorders
creased level of calcium ions is found in the blood of patients with bipolar
disorder. There is also a lowered blood flow in the brain as well as slower
overall metabolism. Some research suggests that bipolar disorder may be
caused by disturbed circadian rhythms and related to disturbances in mela-
tonin secretion.
The DSM-IV-TR divides bipolar disorder into bipolar I disorder, bipolar II
disorder, and cyclothymic disorder. Bipolar I disorder is characterized by
the occurrence of one or more manic episodes or mixed episodes and one
or more major depressive episodes. Bipolar II disorder is characterized by
the occurrence of one or more major depressive episodes accompanied by
at least one hypomanic episode. Cyclothymic disorder is a chronic, fluctuat-
ing mood disturbance involving periods of hypomanic episodes and periods
of major depressive episodes.
Treatment options include psychotherapy and medication. Mood stabi-
lizers, such as lithium and divalproex sodium, are the most commonly used
medications. Lithium is a naturally occurring substance that increases sero-
tonin levels in the brain. Side effects can include dry mouth, high overdose
toxicity, nausea, and tremor. Divalproex sodium increases GABA (gamma-
amino butyric acid) in the brain. Neurotransmitters trigger either “go” sig-
nals that allow messages to be passed on to other cells in the brain or “stop”
signals that prevent messages from being forwarded. GABA is the most com-
mon message-altering neurotransmitter in the brain. Possible side effects of
divalproex sodium include constipation, headache, nausea, liver damage,
and tremor. Olanzapine increases levels of dopamine and serotonin. Side
effects include drowsiness, dry mouth, low blood pressure, rapid heart-
beat, and tremor. Anticonvulsants are also widely prescribed. Carbamaze-
pine, for example, increases GABA and serotonin. Possible side effects in-
clude blurred vision, dizziness, dry mouth, stomach upset, or sedation. In
the case of severe mania, patients may take a tranquilizer or a neuroleptic
(antipsychotic drug) in addition to the mood stabilizer. During the depres-
sive episode, the person may take an antidepressant. ECT may also be help-
ful during severe depressive episodes.
Specifiers for Mood Disorders

Specifiers allow for a more specific diagnosis, which assists in treatment and
prognosis. A postpartum onset specifier can be applied to a diagnosis of
major depressive disorder or bipolar I or II disorder if the onset is within
four weeks after childbirth. Symptoms include fluctuations in mood and
intense (sometimes delusional) preoccupation with infant well-being. Se-
vere ruminations or delusional thoughts about the infant are correlated
with increased risk of harm to the infant. The mother may be uninterested
in the infant, afraid of being alone with the infant, or may even try to kill
the child while experiencing auditory hallucinations instructing her to do
so or delusions that the child is possessed. Postpartum mood episodes se-
verely impair functioning, which differentiates them from the “baby blues”
543
Psychology Basics
that affects about 70 percent of women within ten days after birth.
Seasonal pattern specifier can be applied to bipolar I or II disorder or ma-
jor depressive disorder. Occurrence of major depressive episodes is corre-
lated with seasonal changes. In the most common variety, depressive epi-
sodes occur in the fall or winter and remit in the spring. The less common
type is characterized by depressive episodes in the summer. Symptoms in-
clude lack of energy, oversleeping, overeating, weight gain, and carbohy-
drate craving. Light therapy, which uses bright visible-spectrum light, may
bring relief to patients with a seasonal pattern to their mood disorder.
The rapid cycler specifier can be applied to bipolar I or II disorder. Cy-
cling is the process of going from depression to mania, or hypomania, and
back or vice versa. Cycles can be as short as a few days or as long as months or
years. Rapid cycling involves the occurrence of four or more mood episodes
during the previous twelve months. In extreme cases, rapid cyclers can
change from depression to mania and back or vice versa in as short as a few
days without a normal mood period between episodes. Seventy to ninety
percent of rapid cyclers are both premenopausal and postmenopausal
women. Rapid cycling is associated with a poorer prognosis.

Copeland, Mary Ellen. The Depression Workbook: A Guide for Living with Depres-
sion and Manic Depression. Oakland, Calif.: New Harbinger, 1992. This
workbook for coping with depression is based on a study of 120 people
with depression and manic depression. The author includes sections on
possible causes of mood disorders and offers advice about building a sup-
port system, finding a health care professional, building self-esteem, and
preventing suicide.
Court, Bryan L., and Gerald E. Nelson. Bipolar Puzzle Solution: A Mental
Health Client’s Perspective. Philadelphia: Taylor & Francis, 1996. The au-
thors provide answers to questions asked by support group members
about living with manic-depressive illness.
Cronkite, Kathy. On the Edge of Darkness. New York: Dell, 1994. A collection of
celebrity accounts of their personal experiences with depression. The
reader is invited into their experiences of what depression feels like, how
it is treated, and the consequences to the individual and family.
Dowling, Colette. “You Mean I Don’t Have to Feel This Way?” New Help for Depres-
sion, Anxiety, and Addiction. New York: Macmillan, 1991. Presents the bio-
logical basis of disorders including bulimia, depression, and panic disor-
der. Includes a section on getting help through psychotherapy and
medication.
Gold, Mark S. The Good News About Depression: Breakthrough Medical Treatments
That Can Work for You. New York: Bantam Books, 1995. The author, a
biopsychiatrist, guides the reader through treatments available to people
with depression. He describes conditions that mimic the symptoms of de-
pression.
544
Mood Disorders
Healy, David. The Creation of Psychopharmacology. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard

University Press, 2002. Details the discovery and development of psychi-
atric medications (including antidepressants), the extremely profitable
partnership between psychiatrists and the large pharmaceutical compa-
nies, and the frightening consequences for today’s culture and society.
Ingersoll, Barbara D., and Sam Goldstein. Lonely, Sad, and Angry. New York:
Doubleday, 1995. Provides information about depressive disorders in
children and adolescents. Includes guidelines on how to react to a crisis,
what to expect in the future, and how to get family help. There is also a
section on recognizing depression in the classroom.
Moreines, Robert N., and Patricia L. McGuire. Light Up Your Blues: Under-
standing and Overcoming Seasonal Affective Disorders. Washington, D.C.: The
PIA Press, 1989. The authors, both biopsychiatrists, describe the symp-
toms, causes, and effects of seasonal affective disorder. They also describe
phototherapy.
Nelson, John E., and Andrea Nelson, eds. Sacred Sorrows: Embracing and
Transforming Depression. New York: Jeremy P. Tarcher/Putnam, 1996. This
is an anthology of personal experiences, biological research, psychologi-
cal research, and spiritual traditions written by psychiatrists, psycholo-
gists, social workers, novelists, philosophers, and teachers. The book pro-
vides a firsthand experience of depression and a look at theories about
why people become depressed. Some of the essays discuss treatments in-
cluding medication, physical exercise, psychotherapy, and raising plane-
tary awareness.
Radke-Yarrow, Marian. Children of Depressed Mothers. New York: Cambridge
University Press, 1998. Presents a developmental perspective on the chil-
dren of depressed mothers. The book reports the results of a longitudinal
study of children and their families.
Thompson, Tracy. The Beast: A Journey Through Depression. New York: Pen-
guin, 1996. A journalist tells the story of how she came to terms with her
depression. Good firsthand discussion of symptoms such as short-term
memory deficits, anxiety, anhedonia, and changes in sleep patterns, sen-
sation, and perception. Her account includes a frank discussion of feel-
ings of isolation and thoughts of suicide.
Elizabeth M. McGhee Nelson
See also: Bipolar Disorder; Clinical Depression; Depression; Drug Ther-

apies.
545
Moral Development
Fields of study: Infancy and childhood; social perception and cognition
Moral development is the process of internalizing society’s rules and principles of right
and wrong. In order to maintain a stable social order, the achievement of morality is
necessary. Acquiring morals is a sequential process linked to a person’s stage of moral
reasoning and cognitive understanding.
Key concepts
• cognitive development
• empathy
• moral development
• moral rules
• morality
• social order
Morality is a set of standards that a person has about the rightness and
wrongness of various kinds of behavior. Moral development is the way in
which these sets of standards change over a period of time and experiences.
Without moral rules—obligatory social regulations based on the principles
of justice and welfare for others—society would be chaotic and without or-
der. Most societies, for example, agree that certain behaviors (such as mur-
der and theft) are wrong, and most people follow those moral principles.
Not everyone has the same way of reasoning about the morality of a situa-
tion, however, as seen in the following two scenarios from the work of psy-
chologist Jean Piaget.
A little boy named John is in his room. He is called to dinner, and he goes
into the dining room. Behind the door on a chair is a tray with fifteen cups
on it. John does not know this; when he goes in, the door knocks against the
tray, and all fifteen cups are broken. There is another boy, named Henry.
One day when his mother is out, he tries to get some jam from the cupboard.
He climbs onto a chair but cannot reach it; he knocks over a cup. The cup
falls down and breaks.
When asked which of the above two boys is more naughty, most adults
would immediately reply that Henry is more guilty. Conversely, a child be-
tween six and ten years of age usually will say that John is more guilty. The
differences between the two scenes consist of both the amount of damage
done and the intentions of the two children. It is obvious that children and
adults do not view the situations in the same way.
Influence of Freud and Piaget

Human morality has been an issue in philosophy since the days of Aristotle;
the topic was first studied by psychologists in the early twentieth century. At
546
Moral Development
this time, both Sigmund Freud and Piaget addressed the issue of children’s
moral development.
Freud proposed that children around four years of age assimilate the
morals and standards of their same-sex parent, resulting in the onset of the
child’s superego, which is the storehouse for one’s conscience. Thus, chil-
dren have a rudimentary sense of right and wrong based on the morals of
their parental figure. Since Freud’s concept was based on his theory of
psychosexual development, it was discredited by his European colleagues
for most of his lifetime. Thus, his theory of moral acquisition has not gener-
ally been the basis of research on the development of morality.
Piaget began observing children when he was giving intelligence tests in
the laboratory of Alfred Binet. He observed that children do not reason in
the same way that adults do. Thus, by questioning Swiss schoolchildren
about their rules in a game of marbles, Piaget adapted his theory of cogni-
tive development to moral development. Lawrence Kohlberg elaborated on
Piaget’s theory by studying children’s, as well as adults’, reasoning concern-
ing moral dilemmas. Kohlberg is still generally considered the leading theo-
rist of moral development.
Stages of Moral Development

According to Piaget and Kohlberg, moral judgments are related to the stage
of cognitive development from which a person is operating when making
these judgments. According to Piaget’s theory, the development of morality
includes several stages. People cannot progress to higher stages of moral de-
velopment until they have also progressed through higher stages of cogni-
tive understanding. Cognition refers to the mental processes of thinking,
reasoning, knowing, remembering, understanding, and problem solving.
During the premoral stage (birth through five years of age), children have
little awareness of morals. As they grow, children learn about cooperative ac-
tivity and equality among peers. This cognitive knowledge leads to a new re-
spect for rights and wrongs. At this stage (age six to ten), children cannot
judge that Henry is more guilty than John, because they are not capable of
understanding the differences in the children’s intentions. The only under-
standing is of the degree of damage done. Therefore, the number of cups
broken is the basis for the judgment of the wrongness of the act, regardless
of the actor’s good or bad intentions.
Finally, as children develop, they learn that rules can be challenged, and
they are able to consider other factors, such as a person’s intentions and mo-
tivation. Once this shift in perception occurs, children’s moral development
will progress to a higher stage.
Role of Reasoning
Kohlberg expanded Piaget’s theory by investigating how people reasoned
the rightness or wrongness of an act and not how people actually behaved.
For example, Kohlberg proposed the following moral dilemma. A man
547
Psychology Basics
named Heinz had a wife who was dying from a disease that could be cured
with a drug manufactured by a local pharmacist. The drug was expensive to
make, but the druggist was charging ten times the amount it cost. Heinz
could not afford the drug and pleaded with the man to discount the drug or
let him pay a little at a time. The druggist refused, so Heinz broke into the
pharmacy and stole the drug for his wife. Should Heinz have stolen the
drug?
By listening to people’s reasoning concerning Heinz’s actions, Kohlberg
proposed that there are three levels (of two stages each) of moral reasoning.
The first level is called the preconventional level; in this stage, a person’s
feelings of right and wrong are based on an external set of rules that have
been handed down by an authority figure such as a parent, teacher, or reli-
gious figure. These rules are obeyed in order to avoid punishment or to gain
rewards. In other words, people at this stage of moral reasoning would not
steal the drug—not because they believed that stealing was wrong but rather
because they had been told not to and would fear being caught and pun-
ished for their action.
The second level of moral reasoning is the conventional level, at which
judgments of right and wrong are based on other people’s expectations. For
example, at this level there are two substages. One is known as the “good
boy/nice girl” orientation, in which morality is based on winning approval
and avoiding disapproval by one’s immediate group. In other words, people
may or may not steal the drug based on what they believe their peers would
think of them. The second substage is called the “law and order” orienta-
tion, under which moral behavior is thought of in terms of obedience to the
authority figure and the established social order. Social order refers to the
way in which a society or culture functions, based on the rules, regulation,
and standards that are held and taught by each member of the society. The
“laws” are usually obeyed without question, regardless of the circumstances,
and are seen as the mechanism for the maintenance of social order. A per-
son operating from this stage would say that Heinz should not steal the drug
because it was against the law—and if he did steal the drug, he should go to
jail for his crime.
The third level of moral reasoning is called the postconventional orienta-
tion. At this stage, the person is more concerned with a personal commit-
ment to higher principles than with behavior dictated by society’s rules. Dis-
obeying the law would be in some instances far less immoral than obeying a
law that is believed to be wrong, and being punished for the legal disobedi-
ence would be easier than the guilt and self-condemnation of disobeying
the personal ethical principles held by that person. For example, many civil
rights workers and Vietnam War conscientious objectors were jailed, beaten,
and outcast from mainstream society, but those consequences were far less
damaging to them than transgressing their own convictions would have
been.
According to Kohlberg, the preconventional stage is characteristic of
548
Moral Development
young children, while the conventional stage is more indicative of the gen-
eral population. It has been estimated that only about 20 percent of the
adult population reach the postconventional stage. Thus, the course of
moral development is not the same for everyone. Even some adults operate
at the preconventional level of moral reasoning. Education, parental affec-
tion, observation and imitation, and explanations of the consequences of
behavior are factors in determining the course of moral development in a
child.
Role-Playing
Moral development is a progression from one stage to a different, higher
stage of reasoning. One cannot proceed to a higher stage of morality with-
out the accompanying cognitive understanding. Thus, if a child thinks that
John, who broke fifteen cups, is more guilty than Henry, who broke one
cup, then merely telling the child that Henry’s intentions were not as good
as John’s, and therefore John is not as guilty, is not going to change the
child’s perceptions. The child’s understanding of the situation must be ac-
tively changed. One way of doing this is through role-playing. The child who
thinks that John is more guilty can be told to act out the two scenes, play-
ing each of the two boys. By asking the child questions about his or her feel-
ings while going through each of the scenes, one can help the child gain em-
pathy (the capacity for experiencing the feelings and thoughts of other
people) for each of the characters and a better understanding of inten-
tions and actions. Once the child has the cognitive understanding of inten-
tions, he or she is then able to reason at a higher level of moral develop-
ment.
In other words, in trying to elevate someone’s moral reasoning, the first
goal is to elevate his or her cognitive understanding of the situation. This
can also be done by citing similar examples within the person’s own experi-
ence and chaining them to the event at hand. For example, if last week the
child had accidentally broken something, asking the child how he or she re-
members feeling when that event happened will remind the child of the
emotions experienced at the time of the event. The child must then associ-
ate the remembered emotions with the situation at hand. This can be ac-
complished by asking questions, such as “Do you think that John might have
felt the same way as you did when you broke the vase?” or “How do you think
John felt when the cups fell down? Have you ever felt the same?” If one
merely tells the child that John felt bad, the child may or may not compre-
hend the connection, but if one asks the child to reason through the situa-
tion by having empathy for John, then the child is more likely to progress to
the next stage of moral reasoning.
This type of empathetic role-playing can be very important in trying to
change deviant behavior. If a child is stealing, then having the child imagine
or play a role in a situation where he or she is the one being stolen from is
the quickest way for the child to change his or her judgments of the right-
549
Psychology Basics
ness or wrongness of the situation. Punishment may deter the behavior, but
it does not result in a change in cognitive understanding or moral reason-
ing.
In addition to changing moral reasoning powers, this type of role-playing
is also more likely to aid the child from an understimulated home environ-
ment. The child whose social environment includes many incidents of unde-
sirable behaviors or who lacks examples of positive behaviors must be stimu-
lated in ways that appeal to current cognitive understanding but that show
ways of thinking that differ from current examples in his or her life.
Study of Social Cognitions

Other areas of psychological research are concerned with the topic of chil-
dren’s “social cognitions,” which subsumes the topic of morals and consid-
ers other issues such as empathy, attribution, and motivations. One area that
has come to light is the issue of the effect of the emotions on cognitions and
their contribution to moral judgments. For example, it has been shown that
people in a good mood are more likely to help someone else than those in a
bad mood. Expanding on this premise, other research has demonstrated
that even the way people perceive an object or situation is closely linked to
their psychological or emotional states at the time. Even concrete percep-
tions can be changed by a person’s state of being. One example is that peo-
ple who are poor actually judge the size of a quarter to be larger than do
people who are rich.
As cognitive theories begin to consider the interactive components that
emotions have in cognitions, new methods of study and new theoretical pre-
dictions will change the way cognitive psychologists study such areas as prob-
lem solving, decision making, reasoning, and memory. Each of these areas is
independently related to the study of moral development and should affect
the way psychologists think about how people acquire and think about mo-
rality within society.
In addition, as society increases in sophistication and technology, new is-
sues will emerge that will strain old theories. Issues that are particular to new
generations will result in new ways of thinking about morality that were not
faced by past generations. The direction that moral development goes is ul-
timately highly dependent on the problems of the current society.

Duska, Ronald F., and Mariellen Whelan. Moral Development: A Guide to Piaget
and Kohlberg. New York: Paulist Press, 1975. Presents Jean Piaget’s theory
and its implications for Lawrence Kohlberg’s expansion into his own the-
ory of moral development. All of the moral stories used by Piaget and
Kohlberg in their research are replicated in this book. Also includes re-
search findings and ways in which to apply these theories to everyday situ-
ations in teaching children. This book can be read easily by the high
school or college student.
550
Moral Development
Gilligan, Carol, Janie Victoria Ward, and Jill McLean Taylor, eds. Mapping the
Moral Domain. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1990. A col-
lection of essays presenting the contribution of women’s studies to Kohl-
bergian theories of moral development.
Nucci, Larry P. Education in the Moral Domain. New York: Cambridge Univer-
sity Press, 2001. Brings together theoretical and practical approaches to
creating a classroom environment that nurtures moral development in
children.
Reed, Donald R. C. Following Kohlberg: Liberalism and the Practice of Democratic
Community. South Bend, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1998. Of-
fers a comprehensive overview of Kohlberg’s research, from an empirical
and psychological perspective as well as a more abstract philosophy.
Rich, John Martin, and Joseph L. DeVitis. Theories of Moral Development. 2d
ed. Springfield, Ill.: Charles C Thomas, 1996. Presents a range of psychol-
ogists’ theories on moral development, including Sigmund Freud, Alfred
Adler, Carl Jung, and David Sears. In addition, it places moral develop-
ment within the framework of higher education and relates it to a life-
span perspective. Certain sections of the book would be difficult for a
novice student to follow; however, in terms of a summary review of theo-
retical positions, the book is a handy reference.
Donna Frick-Horbury
See also: Adolescence: Cognitive Skills; Cognitive Development: Jean Pia-

get; Crowd Behavior; Development; Helping; Women’s Psychology: Carol
Gilligan.
551
Motivation
Type of psychology: Biological bases of behavior; emotion; learning;
memory; motivation; social psychology
Fields of study: Attitudes and behavior; aversive conditioning;
behavioral and cognitive models; cognitive learning; methodological
issues; motivation theory; Pavlovian conditioning; personality theory;
social motives
Central to the study of psychology is motivation, which is fundamentally concerned
with emotion, personality, learning, memory, and gaining an understanding of how
behavior is most effectively activated, organized, and directed toward the achievement
of goals.
Key concepts
• activation theory
• behavioral approach
• cognitive approach
• hedonistic theory
• humanistic approach
• hydraulic model
• incentive theory
• psychodynamic approach
• teacher expectations
Research in motivation is pivotal to such fields as educational psychology, so-

cial psychology, behavioral psychology, and most other subareas of psychol-
ogy. Motivation is centrally concerned with the goals people set for them-
selves and with the means they take to achieve these goals. It is also
concerned with how people react to and process information, activities di-
rectly related to learning. Motivation to process information is influenced
by two major factors: the relevance of the topic to the person processing the
information, which affects the willingness to think hard about the topic; and
the need for cognition, or the willingness to think hard about varied topics,
whether they are directly relevant or not. The relevance of a topic is central
to people’s motivation to learn about it.
For example, if the community in which a person lives experiences a severe
budgetary crisis that will necessitate a substantial increase in property taxes,
every resident in that community, home owners and renters alike, is going to
be affected directly or indirectly by the increase. Because this increase is rel-
evant to all the residents, they will, predictably, be much concerned with the
topic and will likely think hard about its salient details. If, on the other hand,
a community in a distant state faces such a crisis, residents in other commu-
nities, reading or hearing about the situation, will not have the motivation to
do much hard thinking about it because it does not affect them directly.
552
Motivation
The second category of motivation rests in the need of some individuals

for cognition. Their inherent curiosity will motivate them to think deeply
about various topics that do not concern them directly but that they feel a
need to understand more fully. Such people are deliberative, self-motivated
thinkers possessed of an innate curiosity about the world that surrounds
them. They generally function at a higher intellectual level than people who
engage in hard thinking primarily about topics that affect them directly.
One of the aims of education at all levels is to stimulate people to think
about a broad variety of topics, which they will do because they have an in-
herent curiosity that they long to satisfy.
Early Concerns with Motivation

During the late nineteenth century, Austrian psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud
(1856-1939) developed theories about motivation that are usually catego-
rized as the psychodynamic approach. He contended that people have psy-
chic energy that is essentially sexual or aggressive in its origins. Such energy
seeks results that please, satisfy, or delight. This pleasure principle, as it was
called, had to function within the bounds of certain restraints, identified as
the reality principle, never violating the demands of people’s conscience or
of the restrains or inhibitions that their self-images imposed. In Freudian
terms, the superego served to maintain the balance between the pleasure
principle and the reality principle. In Beyond the Pleasure Principle (1922),
Freud reached the conclusion that all motivation could be reduced to two
opposing sources of energy, the life instinct and the death instinct.
Heinz Hartmann (1894-1970) went a step beyond Freud’s psychody-
namic theory, emphasizing the need for people to achieve their goals in
ways that do not produce inner conflict, that are free of actions that might
compromise or devastate the ego. More idealistic was Robert White, who de-
nied Freud’s contention that motivation is sexual or aggressive in nature.
White contended that the motivation to achieve competence is basic in peo-
ple. Everyone, according to White, wishes to be competent and, given
proper guidance, will strive to achieve competence, although individual
goals and individual determinations of the areas in which they wish to be
competent vary greatly from person to person.
Such social psychologists as Erik Erikson (1902-1994), Carl Jung (1875-
1961), and Karen Horney (1885-1952) turned their attention away from the
biological and sexual nature of motivation, focusing instead upon its social
aspects. They, like Freud, Hartmann, and White before them, sought to un-
derstand the unconscious means by which psychic energy is distributed as it
ferrets out sources of gratification.
The Behaviorists
The behavioral approach to motivation is centrally concerned with rewards
and punishments. People cultivate behaviors for which they are rewarded.
They avoid behaviors that experience has shown them will result in pain or
553
Psychology Basics
punishment. B. F. Skinner (1904-1990) was probably the most influential be-

haviorist. Many educators accepted his theories and applied them to social
as well as teaching situations.
Clark Hull (1884-1952), working experimentally with rats, determined
that animals deprived of such basic requirements as food or punished by
painful means such as electric shock, develop intense reactions to these
stimuli. John Dollard (1900-1980) and Neal Miller (1909-2002) extended
Hull’s work to human subjects. They discovered that the response elicited by
these means depends on the intensity of the stimulus, not on its origin. The
stimuli employed also evoke previously experienced stimulus-response reac-
tions, so that if subjects are hurt or punished following a volitional act, they
will in future avoid such an act. In other words, if the negative stimuli are
rapidly reduced, the responses that immediately preceded the reduction are
reinforced. These researchers concluded that physiological needs such as
hunger are innate, whereas secondary drives and the reaction to all drives,
through conditioning, are learned.
Ivan Pavlov (1849-1936) demonstrated the strength of conditioned re-
sponses in his renowned experiments with dogs. He arranged for a bell to
sound immediately before the dogs in his experiment were fed. The dogs
came to associate the sound of a bell with being fed, a pleasurable and satis-
fying experience. Eventually, when Pavlov rang the bell but failed to follow
its ringing with feeding, the dogs salivated merely on hearing the sound, be-
cause they anticipated the feeding to which they had become conditioned.
Over time, the motivation to satisfy their hunger came to be as much related
to hearing the bell as it was to their actually being fed. Pavlovian condition-
ing is directly related to motivation, in this case the motivation to satisfy hun-
ger.
Konrad Lorenz’s Hydraulic Model

Freud argued that if instinctive urges are bottled up, they will eventually
make the individual ill. They demand release and will find it in one way or
another as the unconscious mind works to direct the distribution of the indi-
vidual’s psychic energy.
Konrad Lorenz (1903-1989) carried this notion a step beyond what Freud
had postulated, contending that inherent drives that are not released by ex-
ternal means will explode spontaneously through some inherent releasing
mechanism. This theory, termed Lorenz’s hydraulic model, explains psy-
chic collapses in some people, particularly in those who are markedly re-
pressed.
Erich Fromm (1900-1980) carried Freud’s notions about the repression
of innate drives one step beyond what Lorenz espoused. Fromm added a
moral dimension to what Freud and Lorenz asserted, by postulating that hu-
mans develop character as a means of managing and controlling their in-
nate physiological and psychological needs. He brought the matter of free
will into his consideration of how to deal in a positive way with innate drives.
554
Motivation
The Hedonistic Theory of Motivation

Hedonism emphasizes pleasure over everything else. The hedonistic theory
of motivation stems from Freud’s recognition of the pleasure principle,
which stipulates that motivation is stimulated by pleasure and inhibited by
pain.
Laboratory experiments with rats demonstrated unequivocally that, given
a choice, rats work harder to get food that tastes good to them than to get
food that is nutritious. Indeed, laboratory animals will take in empty calories
to the point of emaciation as long as the food that contains such calories
tastes good. It is thought that hedonistic motivation is directly related to
pleasure centers in the brain, so that organisms work both consciously and
unconsciously toward stimulating and satisfying these pleasure centers.
The Incentive Theory of Motivation

Alfred Adler (1870-1937), the Austrian psychologist who founded the school
of individual psychology, rejected Freud’s emphases on sex and aggression as
fundamental aspects of motivation. Breaking from Freud, who had been
among his earliest professional associates, Adler contended that childhood
feelings of helplessness led to later feelings of inferiority. His means of treat-
ing the inferiority complex, as this condition came to be known, was to en-
gage his patients in positive social interaction. To do this, he developed an
incentive theory of motivation, as articulated in his two major works, Praxis
und Theorie der Individual psychologie (1920; The Practice and Theory of Individ-
ual Psychology, 1924) and Menschenkenntnis (1927; Understanding Human Na-
ture, 1927).
Adler’s theory focused on helping people to realize the satisfaction in-
volved in achieving superiority and competence in areas in which they had
some aptitude. The motivation to do so is strictly personal and individual.
Adler’s entire system was based on the satisfactions to be derived from
achieving a modicum of superiority. The incentive approach views compe-
tence as a basic motivation activated by people’s wish to avoid failure. This is
a reward/punishment approach, although it is quite different from that of
the behaviorists and is, in essence, humanistic. The reward is competence;
the punishment is failure. Both factors stimulate subjects’ motivation.
The Activation Theory of Motivation

Drive reductionists believed that if all of an organism’s needs are fulfilled,
that organism will lapse into a lethargic state. They conclude that increasing
needs will cause the organism to have an increased drive to fulfill those
needs. Their view is that the inevitable course that individual organisms se-
lect is that of least resistance.
Donald O. Hebb, however, takes a more sanguine view of motivation, par-
ticularly in humans. In his activation theory, he contends that a middle
ground between lethargy at one extreme and incapacitating anxiety at the
other produces the most desirable level of motivation. This theory accounts
555
Psychology Basics
for states of desired arousal such as that found in such pursuits as competi-
tive sports.
The drive reductionists ascribe to the reward/punishment views of most
of the behaviorists, who essentially consider organisms to be entities in need
of direction, possibly of manipulation. The drive inductionists, on the other
hand, have faith in the innate need of organisms to be self-directive and to
work individually toward gaining competence. Essentially they accept the
Greek ideal of the golden mean as a guiding principle, which has also been
influential in the thinking of such humanistic psychologists.
The Humanistic Approach to Motivation

Abraham Maslow (1908-1970) devised a useful though controversial hierar-
chy of needs required to satisfy human potential. These needs proceed from
low-level physiological needs such as hunger, thirst, sex, and comfort,
through such other needs as safety, love, and esteem, finally reaching the
highest level, self-actualization. According to Maslow, human beings prog-
ress sequentially through this hierarchy as they develop. Each category of
needs proceeds from the preceding category, and no category is omitted as
the human develops, although the final and highest category, self-actualiza-
tion, which includes curiosity, creative living, and fulfilling work, is not nec-
essarily attained or attainable by all humans.
The humanists stipulate that people’s primary motives are those that lead
toward self-actualization, those that capitalize on the unique potential of
each individual. In educational terms, this means that for education to be ef-
fective, it must emphasize exploration and discovery over memorization
and the rote learning of a set body of material. It must also be highly individ-
ualized, although this does not imply a one-on-one relationship between stu-
dents and their teachers. Rather than acting as fonts of knowledge, teachers
become facilitators of learning, directing their students individually to
achieve the actualization of the personal goals that best suit them.
Carl Rogers (1902-1987) traced much psychopathology to conflicts be-
tween people’s inherent understanding of what they require to move toward
self-actualization and society’s expectations, which may run counter to indi-
vidual needs. In other words, as many people develop and pass through the
educational system, they may be encouraged or required to adopt goals that
are opposed to those that are most realistic for them. Humanistic views of
human development run counter to the views of most of the psychodynamic
and behaviorist psychologists concerned with learning theory and motiva-
tion as it relates to such theory.
Cognitive Approaches to Motivation

Research of Kurt Lewin (1890-1947) in the subjective tension systems that
work toward resolution of problems in humans, along with his research
done in collaboration with Edward C. Tolman (1886-1959) that emphasizes
expectancies and the subjective value of the results of actions, has led to a
556
Motivation
cognitive approach to motivation. Related to this research is that of Leon

Festinger (1919-1989), whose theory of cognitive dissonance stipulates that
if a person’s beliefs are not in harmony with one another, the person will ex-
perience a discomfort that he or she will attempt to eliminate by altering his
or her beliefs.
People ultimately realize that certain specific behaviors will lead to antici-
pated results. Behavior, therefore, has a purpose, but the number of goals
related to specific behaviors is virtually infinite. People learn to behave in
ways that make it most likely to achieve expected results.
Robert Rosenthal and Lenore Jacobson demonstrated that teacher ex-
pectations have a great deal to do with the success of the students with whom
they work. Their experiment, detailed fully in Pygmalion in the Classroom
(1968), relates how they selected preadolescent and adolescent students
randomly and then told the teachers of those students that they had devised
a way of determining which students were likely to show spurts of unusual
mental growth in the coming year.
Each teacher was given the names of two or three students who were iden-
tified as being on the brink of rapid intellectual development. The research-
ers tested the students at the end of the school year and found that those
who had been designated as poised on the brink of unusual mental develop-
ment tested above the norm, even though they had been selected randomly
from all the students in the classes involved. In this experiment, teacher mo-
tivation to help certain students succeed appears to have been central to
those students’ achieving goals beyond those of other students in the class.

Boekaerts, Monique, Paul R. Pintrich, and Moshe Zeidner. Handbook of Self-
Regulation. San Diego, Calif.: Academic Press, 2000. Chapters 5 and 15
deal specifically with motivation, offering unique perspectives that are
both physiological and social. The approach of this volume is essentially
humanistic.
Ferguson, Eva Dreikurs. Motivation: A Biosocial and Cognitive Integration of Mo-
tivation and Emotion. New York: Oxford University Press, 2000. This book
requires some background in the field of motivation. It is carefully re-
searched and accurately presented. Its focus is more on the physiological
aspects of motivation than on the social.
Glover, John A., Royce R. Ronning, and Cecil R. Reynolds, eds. Handbook of
Creativity. New York: Plenum Press, 1989. Of special interest to those seek-
ing information about motivation will be chapter 7, “Cognitive Processes
in Creativity,” and those parts of chapter 5, “The Nature-Nurture Prob-
lem in Creativity,” that deal with cognitive and motivational processes.
Greenwood, Gordon E., and H. Thompson Fillmer. Educational Psychology:
Cases for Teacher Decision-Making. Columbus, Ohio: Merrill, 1999. Of par-
ticular value in this book of case studies is part 5, which deals with motiva-
tion and classroom management. In this section, chapter 25, “Motivation
557
Psychology Basics
or Control?,” is particularly relevant to readers interested in motivation.

The approach in this book is eminently practical. The writing is easily ac-
cessible to beginners in the field.
Kendrick, Douglas T., Steven L. Neuberg, and Robert B. Cialdini. Social Psy-
chology: Unraveling the Mystery. Boston: Allyn & Bacon, 1999. This is one of
the best-written, most accessible books in introductory psychology. It is
replete with examples to illustrate what is being said. The prose style is en-
ticing, and the intellectual content is exceptional. The chapter titled
“The Motivational Systems: Motives and Goals” is particularly relevant to
those studying motivation. Strongly recommended for those unfamiliar
with the field.
Lawler, Edward E., III. Rewarding Excellence: Pay Strategies for the New Economy.
San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2000. Approached from the standpoint of a
professor of management, this book discusses various motivational proto-
cols employed by industry. Some of them are easily transferable to
broader contexts. The tactics suggested are largely behavioral. They deal
extensively with reward/punishment scenarios.
Lesko, Wayne A., ed. Readings in Social Psychology: General, Classic, and Contem-
porary Selections. Boston: Allyn & Bacon, 2000. This entire collection is
worth reading. Nearly every selection in it relates in some way to motiva-
tion.
Rosenthal, Robert, and Lenore Jacobson. Pygmalion in the Classroom. 1968.
Reprint. New York: Irvington, 1992. This report of an experiment that
deals with teacher expectations and their relation to student achieve-
ment is compelling and provocative.
Wagner, Hugh. The Psychobiology of Human Motivation. New York: Routledge,
1999. Demonstrates how humans can adapt to complex social environ-
ments by controlling and channeling their basic physiological drives.
Wagner points out the fallacy of attempting to explain human motivation
in terms of models based on animal physiology. He also questions Abra-
ham Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. Wagner’s skepticism is at once chal-
lenging, thought-provoking, and refreshing.
Wong, Roderick. Motivation: A Biobehavioural Approach. New York: Cam-
bridge University Press, 2000. Wong’s focus is sharply on behaviorism and
on the physiological aspects of motivation, although chapter 9, “Social
Motivation: Attachment and Altruism,” moves into the area of social psy-
chology. This in not a book for beginners, although its ideas are well pre-
sented, often with cogent examples.
R. Baird Shuman
See also: Behaviorism; Conditioning; Drives; Pavlovian Conditioning; S-R

Theory: Neal E. Miller and John Dollard.
558
Multiple Personality
Fields of study: Coping; models of abnormality; personality disorders
Multiple personality is the name of abnormal behavior in which a person behaves as if

under the control of distinct and separate parts of the personality at different times. It
is caused by severe childhood abuse and responds to long-term psychotherapy that ad-
dresses the past abuse and the resulting symptoms of dissociation.
Key concepts
• alternate personality
• dissociation
• dissociative identity disorder
• integration
• repression
Multiple personality has had considerable research and clinical attention fo-
cused on it since the early 1980’s, and this interest has increased significantly
from that point forward. However, multiple personality was known and stud-
ied even prior to the work of Sigmund Freud (1856-1939), the Austrian psy-
chiatrist and founder of psychoanalysis. Well-known French psychologists
Pierre Janet (1859-1947) and Alfred Binet (1857-1911), among others, had
written about it in the late nineteenth century, prior to Freud’s writings.
With the rise of psychoanalysis in the early twentieth century, the study of
multiple personality and dissociation waned dramatically for many years.
Two famous multiple personality cases in the United States were popular-
ized by books and then films: The Three Faces of Eve in 1957 and Sybil in 1973.
In 1980, multiple personality disorder (MPD) was officially sanctioned as
a legitimate psychiatric disorder by its inclusion in the Diagnostic and Statisti-
cal Manual of Mental Disorders (3d ed., 1980, DSM-III) published by the
American Psychiatric Association. The official diagnostic label was changed
in the fourth edition, DSM-IV (1994), to dissociative identity disorder
(DID), though it is still commonly known as multiple personality.
Cause
Research has shown that multiple personality is most probably caused by se-
vere childhood abuse, usually both physical and sexual. Psychotherapists
who specialize in treating disorders caused by trauma hypothesize that the
human mind or personality divides to cope with the terror of the trauma. It
is as if one part of the mind handles the abuse to protect another part of the
mind from the pain. This splitting of consciousness is a psychological de-
fense called dissociation. Instead of memory, bodily sensation, emotions,
and thoughts all being associated with an experience (which is the normal
process of human experience), these aspects lose their association and seem
559
Psychology Basics
to separate. A common example would be that a person who was sexually

abused as a child loses the memory of those events and may have no recall of
them until later in adulthood. In this case, the whole experience is dissoci-
ated. For example, in multiple personality, a so-called alternate personality
(“alter” for short) named Ann experienced the abuse, while alter Jane, who
deals with normal, everyday living, was not abused. Thus, Jane has no memo-
ries of abuse. A variation is that only certain aspects of the experience are
dissociated, so that, for instance, the abused person has the memory that the
sexual abuse happened but has no emotions regarding the pain and trauma
of it. Freud coined the term “repression” to describe the process by which
emotions that are too threatening to be admitted into consciousness are
pushed into the unconscious.
Diagnosis
Several well-researched psychological tests and structured interviews aid in
diagnosing a client. For a formal diagnosis of DID, the Diagnostic and Statisti-
cal Manual of Mental Disorders: DSM-IV-TR (rev. 4th ed., 2000) states that the
following four criteria must be present: two or more distinct identities or
personality states (each with its own relatively enduring pattern of perceiv-
ing, relating to, and thinking about the environment and self); at least two
Image not available
Chris Costner Sizemore, the subject of the book and film The Three Faces of Eve about multi-
ple personality disorder. (AP/Wide World Photos)
560
of these identities or personality states recurrently take control of the per-

son’s behavior; there is an inability to recall important personal information
that is too extensive to be explained by ordinary forgetfulness; and the dis-
turbance is not due to the direct physiological effects of a substance (such as
blackouts due to alcohol, drugs, or seizures).
The central paradox of multiple personality is that it is both real and not
real at the same time. It is not real in that the mind or personality does not
literally split. There is only one brain and one body. It is a creation of a per-
son’s imagination. At the same time, however, the person with DID experi-
ences very real separations and is not faking them. The perceived separate
parts must be dealt with as if they were separate, while teaching them the re-
ality that they must live in the same body and jointly suffer the consequences
of the actions of any one part.
Multiple personality goes unrecognized too often as a result of several
reasons. First, it has only received considerable attention since the early
1980’s. Second, it was wrongly thought to be extremely rare, so psychothera-
pists were previously taught that they would probably never see a case of it.
Third, the trauma that causes DID produces so many symptoms, such as de-
pression, anxiety, hearing voices, and mood changes, that it is wrongly diag-
nosed as schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, or something else. Fourth, there is
skepticism about its validity as a true diagnosis.
Alters can be categorized in various ways. Some are victims who took most
of the abuse. Some are persecutors who identified with the abuser and try to
control other alters internally. Some are functioning alters who handle work
or school. Alters may believe they are the opposite sex of the body and can
see themselves as almost any age. Some may know a great deal about other
alters. Others may only know of themselves and have no knowledge that oth-
ers even exist.
Because at least some alters are usually dissociated from other alters, the
person with DID will typically experience time loss when one alter has had
control of the body and a different alter, who does not know what has hap-
pened previously, takes control. Dissociation is experienced in degrees.
When it is present to a lesser degree, DID patients hear voices inside their
heads. They are hearing alters talking. This may scare them when they first
experience it, or it may be so normal for them that they mistake these voices
for their own thoughts.
Treatment
Clinical experience and research have shown that this disorder is treatable
to full remission, and therefore the prognosis is more hopeful than with
some other psychiatric disorders. The negative side of treatment is that it
takes a long time, usually five to seven years and in some cases longer. The
guidelines for treatment established by the International Society for the
Study of Dissociation call for psychotherapy two to three times a week for
several years.
561
Psychology Basics
The initial goal of psychotherapy is stabilization, to stop any destructive

behaviors such as suicide or other forms of self-harm. The intermediate goal
is to become aware of the alters, counsel their individual needs, and then
bring about cooperation and communication between alters to make daily
functioning more effective. The long-range goal is to bring about the inte-
gration of all split personalities into one unified personality. Integration is
the combining of all aspects of the self, even the ones that may seem destruc-
tive or feel great pain. The goal is not to get rid of certain alters, as every part
is an aspect of the self and needs to be integrated into the self.
Part of treatment consists of recounting and processing the memories of
abuse. Ignoring past abuse is not helpful. However, this memory work needs
to be done slowly and carefully, going at a pace that does not overwhelm the
client. One goal is to keep the client functioning as normally as possible in
daily life. Mistakes have been made by therapists who go too fast, too far, and
who focus on talking about memories without addressing other needs, such
as helping clients stabilize, encouraging cooperation and communication
of alters, gradually integrating alters, teaching toleration of uncomfortable
emotions, and instilling new coping mechanisms other than dissociating.
The therapist should not suggest to the client that he or she was abused but
should let the client discover this on his or her own.
Hypnosis may be used as part of the treatment, but it is not required. Ex-
perienced trauma therapists talk easily with the various alters and usually
learn to recognize the different parts with little trouble. The switch between
alters most often, but not always, is subtle and not dramatic. Psychiatric med-
ications are often used as an adjunct to talking therapy, to help with the
symptoms accompanying DID such as depression and anxiety. As DID is a
disorder caused by personal experience, it is not cured by medications.
What does not work is ignoring or denying the presence of alters, focus-
ing only on the present and ignoring the past, trying to get rid of so-called
bad alters, and exorcising alters who are psychological entities. Obviously, a
person with DID will succeed best in counseling with a psychotherapist who
is experienced and has specialized training in the treatment of trauma disor-
ders.
Impact
People who suffer from multiple personality are adults who live with a cop-
ing mechanism that worked well to survive the horrors of abuse in child-
hood but is not working as well in a normal adult environment. All pa-
tients with DID suffer to some extent, which usually drives them to find
relief. Some of these forms of relief are healthy, such as psychotherapy, and
some may be unhealthy, such as addictions used to drown the painful feel-
ings.
Some people with multiple personality appear to function normally and
may not themselves know that they have more than one personality. They
may be able to function at a very high level at a job, for instance, while those
562
close to them sense things are not normal. They may function normally for
years and then have a crisis that seems to develop very rapidly. Other people
with DID have trouble functioning normally and have a long history of psy-
chological problems. These people may be unable to work to support them-
selves and need multiple hospitalizations. It is common for someone with
DID to function at an extremely high level in one area or at one time and,
conversely, to function at a very low level in another area or at another time.
This leaves those around them very puzzled and confused.
Controversy
Unfortunately, there is controversy regarding multiple personality. Some
critics inside and outside the mental health profession claim that it is not a
legitimate psychiatric disorder, perhaps because the idea of having multiple
personality and repressed memories does not make sense to them. They may
believe that this disorder is created by people seeking attention through be-
ing dramatic, caused by incompetent therapists suggesting this diagnosis to
their clients, or used by people wanting an excuse for irresponsible or even
criminal behavior. Some of these critics also attack the concept of recovered
memories of child sexual abuse. They believe this profound loss of memory
is not real and that these recovered memories are actually false memories
that serve the same purposes mentioned above.
The result is that the trauma field has tended to become polarized into
true believers and extreme skeptics. A balanced position has sometimes
been lost. Trauma experts with a balanced view will admit that some memo-
ries are inaccurate, that some clients labeled as having DID have indeed
been misdiagnosed for the reasons the critics offer, and that some therapists
do a poor job. However, these experts argue that the research base and clini-
cal evidence supporting the existence of a distinct diagnosis called DID is
strong and that the repression of memories of childhood abuse is real.

Cohen, L., J. Berzhoff, and M. Elin, eds. Dissociative Identity Disorder: Theoreti-
cal and Treatment Controversies. Northvale, N.J.: Jason Aronson, 1995. This
book gives the differing views regarding the controversies around DID.
Each chapter offers both sides of the position on the topic at hand. It is
somewhat technical.
Hocking, Sandra J. Living with Your Selves: A Survival Manual for People with
Multiple Personalities. Rockville, Md.: Launch Press, 1992. This is a self-
help book written by and for someone who has multiple personality. It
contains helpful and accurate information.
Putnam, Frank. Diagnosis and Treatment of Multiple Personality Disorder. New
York: Guilford Press, 1989. A textbook meant for professionals, written by
an expert at the National Institute of Mental Health.
Ross, Colin A. Dissociative Identity Disorder: Diagnosis, Clinical Features, and
Treatment of Multiple Personality. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1997. Per-
563
Psychology Basics
haps the leading textbook on DID. Everything you wanted to know and
more by an international psychiatric expert. It is written for the profes-
sional, though it is very readable. It also contains the author’s psychologi-
cal test, called the DDIS, to help diagnose DID.
__________. The Osiris Complex: Case Studies in Multiple Personality Disorder. To-
ronto: University of Toronto Press, 1994. An interesting and readable
book for both lay and professional audiences, giving specific cases with
details that illustrate features of DID.
Dennis Bull
See also: Personality Disorders.
564
Nervous System
Type of psychology: Biological bases of behavior; language; learning;
memory; sensation and perception
Fields of study: Auditory, chemical, cutaneous, and body senses;
biological treatments; endocrine system; nervous system; organic
disorders; schizophrenias; thought; vision
The nervous system represents the interconnections of cells that recognize and coordi-
nate the senses of the body. The nervous system is divided into two major components:
the central nervous system, which includes the brain and spinal cord, and the periph-
eral nervous system, which communicates impulses to and from the regions of the body.
Key concepts
• central nervous system
• endocrine system
• endorphins and enkephalins
• limbic system
• neuron
• neurotransmitters
• peripheral nervous system
The functions of the human nervous system are in many ways analogous to
that of a computer. The brain receives information in the form of stimuli
from the senses open to the outside world. Within the brain are specific re-
gions, analogous to programs, that interpret the stimuli and allow for a re-
sponse. More specifically, such responses take the form of physiological or
behavioral changes. Some of these stimuli result from activation of tissues or
organs within the endocrine system, a network of glands which secrete hor-
mones directly into the bloodstream for regulation of target organs.
The functional unit of the nervous system is the neuron, a cell which re-
ceives or sends information in the form of electrical impulses. The major
component of the neuron is the cell body, the portion which contains the
nucleus and most of the internal organelles. Two major forms of neurons
are found within the nervous system: sensory neurons, which transmit the
impulse toward the central nervous system (brain and spinal cord), and mo-
tor neurons, which receive impulses from the brain or spinal cord and trans-
mit the impulse to muscles or other tissues.
Depending upon the type of neuron, a variety of processes may emanate
from the cell body. Axons transmit the impulse away from the cell body and
toward the target cell or tissue. Dendrites receive the impulse from other
neurons or other sources of stimuli. The actual nerve consists of bundles of
thousands of axons wrapped within a form of connective tissue.
The surface of a resting, or unstimulated, neuron has a measurable electri-
cal potential across the membrane. When the nerve is stimulated, whether
mechanically such as by pressure or electrically as in the sense of sight, an in-
565
Psychology Basics
flux of electrically charged ions such as sodium occurs; the result is referred
to as an action potential. The electrical discharge flows along the axon until
it reaches the end of the neuron. Eventually the resting potential is restored,
and the neuron may again undergo stimulation.
At its tip, the axon divides into numerous terminal branches, each with a
structure called a synaptic bulb on the end. Within the bulb are vessels con-
taining chemicals called neurotransmitters, molecules which transmit the
electrical signal from one neuron to another, or to target tissues such as
those in the endocrine system.
The Nervous System
Cerebrum
Cerebellum Medulla oblongata

(behind cerebellum)
Brachial plexus
Spinal nerves
Spinal cord
Sciatic
nerves
566
Nervous System
There exist within the nervous system a large number of different forms
of neurons, many of which respond to different types of neurotransmitters.
Alterations in production of these chemicals, or in the ability of nerves to re-
spond to their stimuli, form the physiological basis for a variety of psycholog-
ical problems.
Central Nervous System

The central nervous system is composed of two principal structures: the
brain and the spinal cord. The brain is one of the largest organs in the hu-
man body, weighing on average about three pounds and consisting of one
trillion neurons by early adulthood.
The brain is subdivided into four major functional areas. The cerebrum,
the largest portion of the brain, regulates sensory and motor functions. The
convolutions characteristic of the human brain represent the physical ap-
pearance of the cerebrum. The brain stem connects the brain with the spi-
nal cord, carrying out both sensory and motor functions. The diencephalon
consists of the thalamus, the relay center for sensory functions entering the
cerebrum, and the hypothalamus, which controls much of the peripheral
nervous system activity and regulates endocrine processes. The fourth por-
tion of the brain is the cerebellum, the rear of the brain where voluntary
muscle activity is controlled.
Peripheral Nervous System

The peripheral nervous system consists of the sensory receptors such as
those that recognize touch or heat in the skin or visual stimuli in the retina
of the eye, and the nerves which communicate the stimuli to the brain. The
peripheral nervous system is often subdivided into two parts, according to
function: the somatic portion, which recognizes stimuli in the external envi-
ronment such as on the skin, and the autonomic portion, which recognizes
changes in the internal environment, such as hormone or mineral concen-
trations in the bloodstream.
The somatic portion of the peripheral nervous system in humans consists
of twelve pairs of nerves which originate in the brain and which transmit
sensory input from the body. For example, nerve endings in the retina of
the eye transmit images to the brain; sensory fibers in the face transmit im-
pulses affecting the skin or teeth. An additional thirty-one pairs of nerves
emerge from the spinal cord, subdivide into branches, and innervate vari-
ous regions of the body.
The autonomic nervous system maintains homeostasis, or constancy,
within the body. For example, receptors measure heart rate, body tempera-
ture, and the activity of hormones within the bloodstream and tissues. Any
abnormality or change results in a signal sent to the brain.
The most notable of the functions of the autonomic nervous system oc-
cur in the sympathetic and parasympathetic systems. The sympathetic arm
of the system is primarily associated with the stimulation tissues and organs.
567
Psychology Basics
For example, during times of stress, hormones are released that increase the
heart rate, constrict blood vessels, and stimulate the sweat glands, a phe-
nomenon often referred to as “fight or flight.” By contrast, the parasympa-
thetic system counteracts these effects, decreasing the heart rate, dilating
blood vessels, and decreasing the rate of sweating.
Role of Neurotransmitters
Neurons communicate with one another through the release of neuro-
transmitters, chemical substances that transmit nerve impulses between
nerve cells. Numerous types of neurotransmitters have been identified.
Some of these transmitters act to excite neurons, while others inhibit
neuronal activity. The particular type of transmitter is synthesized within the
cell body of the neuron, travels along the axon, and is released into the
space between neurons, known as the synapse.
Among the most prominent neurotransmitters involved in the excitation
of neurons is acetylcholine. The same transmitter bridges the junctions be-
tween nerves and skeletal muscles as well as glandular tissues in the body. In
the brain, acetylcholine bridges the synapses between neurons throughout
the central nervous system. The amino acids glutamic acid and aspartic acid
are also known to be involved in excitation of some neurons within the
brain. The neurotransmitter serotonin is released mainly within the brain
stem, where it appears to regulate activities such as sleep, moods, and body
temperature.
Certain neurotransmitters serve in the inhibition of neuronal activity.
The most common of these is gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA), found
primarily in the diencephalon region of the brain. Here GABA acts to re-
duce the activity within the region. Antianxiety drugs such as valium or lib-
rium appear to work by enhancing the activity of GABA, resulting in the re-
laxation of skeletal muscles. Antidepression compounds such as Prozac and
Zoloft appear to function through blockage of serotonin uptake by neu-
rons.
Endorphins and the Placebo Effect

Persons who receive treatments with agents that possess no pharmacological
activity for various illnesses or conditions have often been known to show
improvement. Such a reaction is called the placebo effect. Whether the pla-
cebo effect is real has long been controversial. A 1955 study published in the
prestigious Journal of the American Medical Association was the first significant
report that the effect was real. More recent work has suggested the placebo
effect may be sometimes more myth than reality. Nevertheless, there is evi-
dence that such an effect may indeed occur and may be associated with
forms of neurotransmitters called endorphins (endogenous morphines)
and enkephalins. Endorphins and enkephalins represent a class of neuro-
transmitter-like chemicals called neuropeptides, small molecules which
consist of between two and forty amino acids.
568
Nervous System
Enkephalins, discovered in 1975, block pain impulses within the central

nervous system in ways similar to the drug morphine. The second class of
molecules, subsequently called endorphins, was discovered soon afterward.
They appear to act through suppression of pain impulses through suppres-
sion of a chemical called substance P. Substance P is released by neurons in
the brain, the result of pain impulses from receptors in the peripheral ner-
vous system. By inhibiting the release of substance P, these neuropeptides
suppress sensory pain mechanisms. In support of a physiological basis for
the placebo effect, patients treated with the endorphin antagonist naloxon
produced no discernable response to placebo treatment.
Endorphins have been shown to play a role in a wide variety of body func-
tions, including memory and learning and the control of sexual impulses.
Abnormal activity of endorphins has been shown to play a role in organic
psychiatric dysfunctions such as schizophrenia and depression. Deficits in
endorphin levels have been observed to correlate with aggressiveness; en-
dorphin replacement therapy results in the diminishment of such behavior.
Abnormal levels of endorphins in the blood have also been found in individ-
uals suffering from behavioral disorders such as anorexia or obesity.
Limbic System and Emotions

The limbic system is the label that applies to regions of the diencephalon
such as the thalamus and hypothalamus that are associated with behaviors
such as emotions, learning, and sexual behavior. Stimulation of various ar-
eas within the limbic system during surgery has resulted in the patient feel-
ing a variety of conflicting emotions, such as happiness and pleasure or fear
and depression, depending upon the area being tested.
Some of these emotions or behaviors are associated with survival. For ex-
ample, stimulation of certain areas results in feelings of rage or sexual ex-
citement. Such patterns of behavior, accompanied by increased heart rate
and blood pressure, have suggested that the limbic system plays a role in the
“fight or flight” phenomenon.
Neurotransmitters such as serotonin and dopamine are believed to play
roles in these behaviors. The effects of recreational drugs on behaviors and
emotions may in part be due to the similarity of action between these drugs
and neurotransmitters. For example, the high associated with amphetamine
use or abuse may result from stimulation of these neurotransmitters. Co-
caine blocks the movement of dopamine, resulting in the continual activa-
tion of neurons which use dopamine as a neurotransmitter. The addiction
associated with cocaine results from alterations in the affected neurons, re-
sulting in an increase in need for stimulation by these pathways.
The disorder schizophrenia may also be the result of impaired transmis-
sion of dopamine. The symptoms of schizophrenia—hallucinations or delu-
sions—may be decreased through the use of drugs which inhibit dopamine
release. Likewise, drugs which stimulate dopamine activity increase the se-
verity of symptoms.
569
Psychology Basics

Becker, J., S. Breedlove, and D. Crews. Behavioral Endocrinology. Cambridge,
Mass.: MIT Press, 2000. Emphasis is on the role of the endocrine system
and neurotransmitters on physiology of the nervous system, as well as ef-
fect on behaviors.
“The Brain.” Scientific American 241 (September, 1979). The issue was de-
voted entirely to the nervous system. Though new information has subse-
quently become available, the issue remains an excellent general source
for the subject. Excellent photographs and diagrams are included in the
articles.
Kolb, Bryan, and Ian Whishaw. An Introduction to Brain and Behavior. New
York: Worth, 2001. Textbook on the subject. In addition to thorough cov-
erage of brain structure and function, the authors describe the role of
neurophysiology and behavior.
Sherwood, Lauralee. Human Physiology: From Cells to Systems. Pacific Grove,
Calif.: Brooks/Cole, 2001. Drawing on recent experimentation, the au-
thor provides extensive background material for those chapters which
explain the function of the nervous system. The text includes extensive
details, but tables and diagrams clarify the material and provide numer-
ous examples.
Richard Adler
See also: Brain Structure; Endocrine System; Hormones and Behavior;

Neuropsychology; Sensation and Perception; Senses.
570
Neuropsychology
Fields of study: Behavioral and cognitive models; cognitive processes;
nervous system; organic disorders
Neuropsychology is the study of the relationship between the brain and behavior. It has
provided insights into the workings of the normal brain as well as innovations for di-
agnosing and assisting individuals with an injury to or disease of the brain.
Key concepts
• assessment
• cognition
• lesion
• norm
• rehabilitation
Neuropsychology is the study of the relationships between the brain and be-
havior. More fully, it is the study of both human and animal cerebral organi-
zation as it relates to behavior. Considerable attention is directed toward in-
vestigating the workings of both healthy and damaged neural systems;
specifically, there is interest in obtaining a more complete understanding of
disorders of language, perception, and motor action. The field of neuro-
psychology can be divided into a number of specialty areas. The discussion
which follows will concentrate on experimental neuropsychology and clini-
cal neuropsychology. While this distinction is not absolute, it serves to clas-
sify the types of work in which neuropsychologists are involved.
Brain Lesions
Clinical neuropsychology refers to the study of individuals who have lesions
of the brain. These lesions are often produced by tumors, cerebral vascular
accidents (strokes), or trauma (for example, an automobile crash). The
clinical neuropsychologist is heavily involved in the assessment of cognitive
deficits brought on by these brain lesions. By evaluating the patient’s perfor-
mance on a variety of paper-and-pencil tests, the neuropsychologist can
make valuable diagnostic inferences. The clinician can begin to develop hy-
potheses concerning the location, extent, and severity of the lesion.
Similarly, an attempt is made to discern the functional significance of the
brain lesion on the patient. Damage to the same part of the brain may affect
two individuals very differently. Because of this fact, it is vital that the clinical
neuropsychologist assess the effect of the lesion on the patient’s daily func-
tioning at work, at home, and in social contexts as well as the relatively artifi-
cial environment of the testing room. Furthermore, it is important that eval-
uation consider the patient’s current strengths in addition to weaknesses or
impairments. Intact abilities can assist the patient in coping and compensat-
ing for the loss of some other function.
571
Psychology Basics
Brain Batteries
A comprehensive neuropsychological test battery should assess the integrity
of the entire brain. To assure the thoroughness of the evaluation, the
neuropsychologist generally administers a large number of diverse tests to
the patient. The tests typically demand different mental or cognitive abili-
ties, which are subserved by different regions of the brain. These different
cognitive abilities are commonly referred to as cognitive domains and in-
clude functions such as attention, memory, perception, movement, lan-
guage, and problem solving. A number of comprehensive test batteries have
been created to assess the various cognitive domains. The Halstead-Reitan
and Luria-Nebraska are two such batteries that have been used to diagnose
the location and severity of brain damage in neurological patients.
These batteries consist of a variety of subtests that are believed to tap into
different cognitive abilities. For example, the Halstead-Reitan contains
subtests that have proved to be helpful in localizing brain damage. This is
done by first administering the Halstead-Reitan to a large number of pa-
tients with previously diagnosed brain damage. The researcher then looks at
those patients with damage to a particular region of the brain (for example,
right frontal) and observes which subtests gave them difficulty. By repeating
this process on each patient group (left frontal, right posterior, and so on),
the researcher can establish norms.
When a patient with suspected damage is tested with the battery, his or
her scores can be compared to those in each patient group. Thus, if he or
she performs similarly to the right-frontal norms, damage may be diagnosed
to this region. While this is an oversimplification, it provides a general
model of how test batteries are used in neuropsychology to evaluate patients
with suspected brain damage.
Experimental Neuropsychology
Experimental neuropsychology focuses on answering theoretical questions
rather than solving clinical or practical ones. Because of the invasive nature
of these questions, experimental neuropsychologists often use animals
rather than humans in their research. Typically, animals are used in the ini-
tial stages of a line of research. After the research procedure has been
proved to be safe and effective, however, it is then confirmed on a human
sample. Experimental neuropsychologists have shed light on a number of
cognitive functions and the parts of the brain involved in those functions.
The methods that experimental neuropsychologists use to study cogni-
tive abilities in humans can be quite creative. The tachistoscope is a device
that projects a visual image to either the right or the left half of the visual
field very quickly, so that the right or left hemisphere of the brain has prefer-
ential access to the visual image. Thus, the importance of the left or right
hemisphere of the brain in a given task can be identified.
While the daily routines of clinical and experimental neuropsychologists
are quite different, their work can be considerably intertwined. For exam-
572
Neuropsychology
ple, the insights of experimental neuropsychologists often improve clini-

cians’ ability to assess and treat individuals with neurological impairment.
Similarly, clinicians’ descriptions of interesting patients can often open the
road for further theoretical investigation by experimental neuropsycholo-
gists.
Practice and Theory

The fields of clinical and experimental neuropsychology have been useful
in solving a number of practical problems as well as more theoretical ones.
For example, clinical neuropsychological procedures have been applied in
the assessment and treatment of individuals suspected of having Alzhei-
mer’s disease. This disease is difficult to confirm unless a sample of brain is
removed and inspected microscopically, a procedure that is quite invasive
and is rarely attempted until after the patient’s death. Neuropsychological
test procedures have contributed dramatically to the accurate diagnosis of
Alzheimer’s disease without the use of invasive measures such as surgery.
Typically, a series of memory, language, perceptual, and problem-solving
tasks are given to the individual when the disease is first suspected. The pa-
tient is then tested serially at six-month intervals, and the overall pattern of
test scores across time is evaluated. If the patient tends to display a decre-
mental pattern of performance across two or more cognitive domains (for
example, memory and language), a diagnosis of dementia is supported.
Along with the measurement of various cognitive functions, neuropsy-
chology also seems particularly equipped to investigate other aspects of the
disease. While a patient’s performance on a test battery is helpful, other fea-
tures must be examined in diagnosing the disorder. For example, depres-
sion, hallucinations, delusions, and verbal or physical outbursts are often
common with the disease. Conversely, the appearance of certain other signs
or symptoms make a diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease unlikely. Because of
this diverse collection of psychological and behavioral symptoms, clinical
neuropsychology may be the best manager of services for these patients.
A second application of neuropsychological techniques concerns the re-
cent surge in rehabilitation efforts with the brain-injured. Many individuals
who have sustained an injury to or have a disease of the brain have great dif-
ficulty returning to their premorbid jobs or avocations. Neuropsychological
rehabilitation attempts to assist these patients with ongoing cognitive diffi-
culties as they reenter the work and home settings. Very often, people who
have brain injuries do not have problems with all cognitive domains but
rather with a select few (for example, attention or language). Because of this
selective impairment, clinical neuropsychologists can focus their efforts on
improving an individual’s attentional abilities or use of language.
A specific example of neuropsychological rehabilitation can be seen in
the case of an individual who has been involved in a motor vehicle accident.
These patients tend to sustain primary damage to the frontal aspects of the
brain because they withstand the initial impact. Damage to the frontal re-
573
Psychology Basics
gions normally produces individuals who are very unaware of their sur-
roundings. Furthermore, they typically lack appropriate social skills as well
as planning and organizational abilities. These abilities can be improved,
however, if the patient works with a neuropsychologist who knows what to
expect, based on the exact area of damage.
Generally, rehabilitation involves intensive exposure to the problematic
cognitive task. In the case of a patient with damage to the frontal area of the
brain, this might entail placement in a group situation in which the patient
practices social skills. Specific activities might include working on conversa-
tion skills, role-playing a job interview or asking for a date, or working on a
group project. Individual sessions with the patient might be better suited for
the treatment of the organizational and planning deficits experienced by
frontal patients. Here, the neuropsychologist might teach the patient to use
a diary to plan the week’s activities and learn to solve problems to get things
done.
While neuropsychologists often assist patients in acquiring compensa-
tion strategies to work around their particular difficulties, there are other ra-
tionales for rehabilitative efforts. Many researchers and psychologists be-
lieve that practicing the impaired function assists the repairing brain in
doing that task. There appears to be a six- to twelve-month period immedi-
ately after a brain injury when the brain is developing pathways around the
damaged tissue. Many believe that during this critical period, it is important
to engage the patient in activities that were most compromised by the injury.
Thus, if the injury took a major toll on memory abilities, the patient should
be exposed to exercises and activities that demand he or she remember
things.
In general, neuropsychology has tremendous applied value for persons
who have sustained a neurological insult such as a stroke or brain injury.
Furthermore, it is useful in the initial assessment and accurate diagnosis of a
given neurological disorder, as well as in the continued care and treatment
of individuals with known brain pathology.
Brain Study
Neuropsychology rapidly emerged as a separate branch of the neurosci-
ences in the 1970’s and 1980’s. During that time, there was an explosion of
training programs for neuropsychologists and scientific research concern-
ing the relationships between the brain and behavior. While the field has
only recently evolved, however, the discipline’s underpinnings can be traced
back thousands of years. Egyptian writings dating to 2500 b.c.e. describe
trauma to the brain and the behavior of the patient sustaining this damage.
A second early milestone occurred with the anatomical studies and illus-
trations of the 1800’s. In 1861, Paul Broca demonstrated that a lesion of the
left frontal lobe of the brain caused a disruption of the production of
speech. Soon after this revelation, researchers became quite consumed with
localizing all cognitive functions to some discrete part of the brain.
574
Neuropsychology
Those who believed that each function could be neatly contained in a

small region of the brain came to be known as localizationists. Those who
believed that all areas of the brain were equally involved in all cognitive abili-
ties were labeled equipotentialists. A third group known as interactionists
suggests that more basic cognitive functions are relatively localized but in-
teract to allow for more complex cognitive processes. This perspective was
derived from the late nineteenth century research of Hughlings Jackson in
his clinical work as a neurologist. In many ways, Jackson’s ideas were quite
advanced for his time and the available research methodology.
The twentieth century witnessed a steady accumulation of knowledge
concerning the relationships between the brain and behavior. These devel-
opments occurred primarily because of the need to assist soldiers who had
sustained wartime brain injuries. In the process of treating these individuals,
much was learned about the role of various brain regions in carrying out var-
ious behaviors. The systematic study of brain-injured persons by Aleksandr
Luria contributed tremendously to the process of assessing and localizing
brain dysfunction.
This new awareness provided psychology with a better understanding of
how the physical brain can produce very atypical behaviors. Before this
time, it was believed that behavioral disturbance was universally caused by
disruption of the nonphysical “mind.” The new knowledge has given clinical
psychologists much more sophisticated answers about how best to treat pa-
tients with behavioral difficulties. It has also served to remove some of the
stigma attached to mental illness or dysfunction. The lay public seems more
willing to tolerate atypical behavior from an individual with physical damage
to the brain than from a patient labeled as being mentally ill.
The future of neuropsychology appears to be full of promise. It is ex-
pected that investigators will continue to conduct research that sheds light
on the workings of the healthy brain as well as assisting those with neurologi-
cal damage. Furthermore, it appears that neuropsychology will continue to
advance the larger field of psychology by providing physiological explana-
tions for behaviors and disorders that now have only hypothetical ones.

Beaumont, J. Graham. Introduction to Neuropsychology. New York: Guilford
Press, 1983. An accessible reference for the student who is new to the
field. Particularly helpful in describing the methods used to investigate
experimental neuropsychological phenomena.
Ellis, Andrew W., and Andrew W. Young. Human Cognitive Neuropsychology.
Rev. ed. Hillsdale, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum, 1996. Presents ideas and re-
search from the mid-1980’s on the integrated workings of the brain. Par-
ticularly helpful in establishing a theoretical framework that assists the
student in integrating the often divergent research findings in a more ho-
listic manner.
Kolb, Bryan, and Ian Q. Whishaw. Fundamentals of Human Neuropsychology.
575
Psychology Basics
4th ed. New York: W. H. Freeman, 1996. A comprehensive textbook that

fully covers the fields of clinical and experimental neuropsychology.
Lengthy but clear and well written. Best suited to the student who has
read an introductory work on the topic.
Ledoux, Joseph. Synaptic Self: How Our Brains Become Who We Are. New York:
Viking Press, 2002. Written for a lay audience, explains the neuroscience
of personality and the brain. Focuses on the working of the synapses in
the brain’s communication system.
Luria, Aleksandr Romanovich. The Working Brain: An Introduction to Neuro-
psychology. New York: Basic Books, 1973. Considered by many to be the
seminal work in the field. Presents many of Luria’s most dramatic insights
about normal and damaged brains. Although the title suggests this is an
introduction, the ideas presented in this source are often highly com-
plex.
Sacks, Oliver. The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat. New York: Harper-
Perennial Library, 1990. Sacks is a gifted writer as well as successful neu-
rologist, and he displays the best of both these talents in this work. Reads
more like a novel than a textbook. Based on actual neurological cases
seen by Sacks.
Jeffery B. Allen
See also: Alzheimer’s Disease; Brain Structure; Cognitive Psychology; De-

mentia; Nervous System; Parkinson’s Disease.
576
Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder
Field of study: Anxiety disorders
Obsessions and compulsions are the cardinal features of a chronic anxiety disorder
known as obessive-compulsive disorder. The identification of repetitive, anxiety-
provoking thoughts known as obsessions and of associated compulsive, ritualistic be-
haviors is critical in the diagnosis and assessment of this debilitating condition.
Key concepts
• anxiety
• checking ritual
• cleaning ritual
• compulsions
• fear of contamination
• obsessions
• response prevention
Obsessive thinking and urges to engage in ritualistic compulsive behaviors

are common phenomena that most individuals experience to some extent
throughout their lives. It is not uncommon, for example, for a person to
reexperience in his or her mind involuntary, anxiety-provoking images of
circumstances surrounding a traumatic accident or embarrassing moment.
Similarly, behaviors such as returning home to make sure the iron is turned
off or refusing to eat from a spoon that falls on a clean floor represent mild
compelling rituals in which many persons engage from time to time. It is
when these patterns of obsessive thinking and behaving become either too
frequent or too intense that they may escalate into a distressing clinical con-
dition known as obsessive-compulsive disorder.
According to the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statis-
tical Manual of Mental Disorders: DSM-IV-TR (rev. 4th ed., 2000), the primary
feature of this disorder is the presence of distressing obsessions or severe
compulsive behaviors that interfere significantly with a person’s daily func-
tioning. Although diagnosis requires only the presence of either obsessions
or compulsions, they typically are both present in obsessive-compulsive dis-
order. In most cases, persons with this diagnosis spend more time, on a daily
basis, experiencing obsessive thinking and engaging in ritualistic behaviors
than other constructive activities, including those pertaining to occupa-
tional, social, and family responsibilities. Therefore, it is not uncommon for
obsessive-compulsive patients also to experience severe vocational impair-
ment and distraught interpersonal relationships.
Obsessions
The word “obsession” comes from the Latin word obsidere (“to besiege”) and
can be defined as a recurrent thought, impulse, idea, or image that is intru-
577
Psychology Basics
sive, disturbing, and senseless. Among the most common types are themes
of violence (for example, images of killing a loved one), contamination (for
example, thoughts of catching a disease from a doorknob), and personal in-
jury or harm (for example, impulses to leap from a bridge). Obsessional
doubting is also characteristic of most patients with obsessive-compulsive
disorder, which leads to indecisiveness in even the most simple matters such
as selecting a shirt to wear or deciding what to order at a restaurant. The basic
content of obsessive thinking distinguishes it from simple worrying. Worrying
involves thinking about an event or occurrence that may realistically result
in discomfort, embarrassment, or harm and has a probability of occurring;
obsessive thinking is typically recognized by the patient as being senseless
and not likely to occur. An example of a worry is thinking about an event
that possesses a strong likelihood of occurring, such as failing a test when
one has not studied. Repeatedly imagining that one might leap from the
third-floor classroom during the exam, a highly unlikely event, is considered
an obsession. Furthermore, because the obsessive-compulsive patient is
aware that these intrusive thoughts are senseless and continuously attempts
to rid the thought from his or her mind, obsessive thinking is not delusional
or psychotic in nature. Although both delusional and obsessive patients may
experience a similar thought (for example, that they have ingested tainted
food), the obsessive patient recognizes that the thought is unlikely and is a
product of his or her mind and struggles to get rid of the thought. The delu-
sional patient adheres to the belief with little to no struggle to test its validity.
Compulsions
Most obsessive-compulsive patients also exhibit a series of repetitive, inten-
tional, stereotyped behaviors known as compulsions, which serve to reduce
the anxiety experienced from severe obsessive thinking. The most common
forms include counting (for example, tapping a pencil three times before
laying it down), cleaning (for example, hand washing after shaking another
person’s hand), checking (for example, checking pilot lights several times a
day), and ordering (for example, arranging pencils from longest to shortest
before doing homework). Compulsions are different from simple habits in
that attempts to resist urges to engage in them result in a substantial in-
crease in anxiety, eventually forcing the patient to engage in the compelling
behavior to reduce the tension. Urges to engage in simple habits, on the
other hand, can often be resisted with minimal discomfort. Furthermore,
most habits result in deriving some degree of pleasure from the activity (for
example, shopping, gambling, drinking), while engaging in compulsive be-
haviors is rarely enjoyable for the patient. Compulsions must also be distin-
guished from superstitious behaviors, such as an athlete’s warm-up ritual or
wearing the same “lucky” shoes for each sporting event. In contrast to super-
stitious people, who employ their rituals to enhance confidence, obsessive-
compulsive patients are never certain their rituals will result in anxiety re-
duction. This typically forces these patients continually to expand their rep-
578
ertoire of ritualistic behaviors, searching for new and better ways to elimi-
nate the anxiety produced by obsessive thinking.
It is estimated that approximately 2 percent of the adult population in
the United States—a larger percentage than was once believed—has at
some time experienced obsessive-compulsive symptoms severe enough to
warrant diagnosis. Typically, obsessive-compulsive symptoms begin in ado-
lescence or early adulthood, although most patients report symptoms of
anxiety and nervousness as children. Regarding early developmental histo-
ries, many obsessive-compulsive patients report being raised in very strict,
puritanical homes. The disorder occurs equally in males and females, al-
though cleaning rituals occur more frequently among women. While the
course of the disorder is chronic, the intensity of symptoms fluctuates
throughout life and occasionally has been reported to remit spontaneously.
Because of the unusual nature of the symptoms, obsessive-compulsive pa-
tients often keep their rituals hidden and become introverted and with-
drawn; as a result, the clinical picture becomes complicated by a coexisting
depressive disorder. It is typically the depression which forces the patient to
seek psychological help.
Etiology and Treatments

Because of the distressing yet fascinating nature of the symptoms, several
theoretical positions have attempted to explain how obsessive-compulsive
disorder develops. From an applied perspective, each theoretical position
has evolved into a treatment or intervention strategy for eliminating the
problems caused by obsessions and compulsions. According to psychoana-
lytic theory, as outlined by Sigmund Freud in 1909, obsessive-compulsive rit-
uals are the product of overly harsh toilet training which leaves the patient
with considerable unconscious hostility, primarily directed toward an au-
thoritarian caregiver. In a sense, as uncomfortable and disconcerting as the
obsessions and compulsive behaviors are, they are preferable to experienc-
ing the intense emotions left from these childhood incidents. Obsessions
and compulsions permit the patient to avoid experiencing these emotions.
Furthermore, obsessive-compulsive symptoms force the patient to become
preoccupied with anxiety-reduction strategies which prevent them from
dealing with other hidden impulses, such as sexual urges and desires. Based
upon the psychoanalytic formulation, treatment involves identifying the
original unconscious thoughts, ideas, or impulses and allowing the patient
to experience them consciously. In his classic case report of an obsessive pa-
tient, Freud analyzed a patient known as the “rat man,” who was plagued by
recurrent, horrifying images of a bucket of hungry rats strapped to the but-
tocks of his girlfriend and his father. Although periodic case reports of psy-
choanalytic treatments for obsessive-compulsive disorder exist, there is very
little controlled empirical work suggesting the effectiveness of this treat-
ment approach.
Behavioral theorists, differing from the psychoanalytic tradition, have
579
Psychology Basics
DSM-IV-TR Criteria for Obsessive-Compulsive

Disorder (DSM code 300.3)
Either obsessions or compulsions
Obsessions defined by all of the following:
• recurrent and persistent thoughts, impulses, or images experienced, at
some time during disturbance, as intrusive and inappropriate and cause
marked anxiety or distress
• thoughts, impulses, or images not simply excessive worries about real-
life problems
• attempts made to ignore or suppress thoughts, impulses, or images, or
to neutralize them with some other thought or action
• recognition that thoughts, impulses, or images are product of his or her
own mind (not imposed from without, as in thought insertion)
Compulsions defined by both of the following:
• repetitive behaviors (hand washing, ordering, checking) or mental acts
(praying, counting, repeating words silently) that individual feels driven
to perform in response to an obsession or according to rules that must
be applied rigidly
• behaviors or mental acts aimed at preventing or reducing distress or pre-
venting some dreaded event or situation; behaviors or mental acts either
are not connected in a realistic way with what they are designed to neu-
tralize or prevent or are clearly excessive
At some point, individual recognizes obsessions or compulsions as exces-
sive or unreasonable; this does not apply to children
Obsessions or compulsions cause marked distress, are time-consuming, or
interfere significantly with normal routine, occupational or academic func-
tioning, or usual social activities or relationships
If another Axis I disorder is present, content of obsessions or compulsions
not restricted to it
Disturbance not due to direct physiological effects of a substance or gen-
eral medical condition
Specify if with Poor Insight (most of the time during current episode, obses-
sions and compulsions not recognized as excessive or unreasonable)
proposed that obsessive-compulsive disorder represents a learned habit that

is maintained by the reinforcing properties of the anxiety reduction that oc-
curs following ritualistic behaviors. It is well established that behaviors that
are reinforced occur more frequently in the future. In the case of compul-
sive behaviors, the ritual is always followed by a significant reduction in anxi-
ety, therefore reinforcing the compulsive behavior as well as the preceding
obsessive activity. Based upon the behavioral perspective, an intervention
strategy called response prevention, or flooding, was developed to facilitate
580
the interruption of this habitually reinforcing cycle. Response prevention

involves exposing the patient to the feared stimulus (for example, a door-
knob) or obsession (for example, an image of leaping from a bridge) in or-
der to create anxiety. Rather than allowing the patient to engage in the sub-
sequent compulsive activity, however, the therapist prevents the response
(for example, the patient is not permitted to wash his or her hands). The pa-
tient endures a period of intense anxiety but eventually experiences habitu-
ation of the anxiety response. Although treatments of this nature are anxiety
provoking for the patient, well-controlled investigations have reported sig-
nificant reductions in obsessive thinking and ritualistic behavior following
intervention. Some estimates of success rates with response prevention are
as high as 80 percent, and treatment gains are maintained for several years.
Theories emphasizing the cognitive aspects of the obsessive-compulsive
disorder have focused on information-processing impairments of the pa-
tient. Specifically, obsessive-compulsive patients tend to perceive harm (for
example, contamination) when in fact it may not be present and to perceive
a loss of control over their environment. While most individuals perceive a
given situation as safe until proved harmful, the obsessive-compulsive pa-
tient perceives situations as harmful until proved safe. These perceptions of
harm and lack of control lead to increased anxiety; the belief that the pa-
tient controls his or her life or the perception of safety leads to decreased
anxiety. Accordingly, compulsive rituals represent a patient’s efforts to gain
control over his or her environment. Cognitive interventions aim to in-
crease the patient’s perception of control over the environment and to
evaluate realistically environmental threats of harm. While cognitive ap-
proaches may serve as a useful adjunct to behavioral treatments such as re-
sponse prevention, evidence for their effectiveness when used in treating
obsessions and compulsions is lacking.
Finally, biological models of obsessive-compulsive disorder have also been
examined. There is some indication that brain electrical activity during in-
formation processing, particularly in the frontal lobes, is somewhat slower
for obsessive-compulsive patients in comparison to other people. For exam-
ple, metabolic activity of the frontal brain regions measured using positron
emission tomography (PET) scans differentiates obsessive-compulsive pa-
tients both from normal people and depressive patients. Further, a deficiency
in certain neurotransmitters (for example, serotonin, and norepinephrine)
has been implicated in the etiology of the disorder. Several interventions
based upon the biological model have been employed as well. Pharmaco-
therapy, using antidepressant medications that primarily act to facilitate
neurotransmitter functioning (for example, clomipramine), has been shown
to be effective in treating from 20 percent to 50 percent of obsessive-
compulsive patients. More drastic interventions such as frontal lobotomies
have been reported in the most intractable cases, with very limited success.
Among the interventions employed to rid patients of troublesome obses-
sions and compulsions, response prevention holds the most promise. Be-
581
Psychology Basics
cause of the intensity of this treatment approach, however, the cost may be
substantial, and many patients may not immediately respond. A number of
predictors of poor treatment response to behavioral interventions (charac-
teristic of those most refractory to treatment) have been identified. These
include a coexisting depression, poor compliance with exposure/response-
prevention instructions, the presence of fears that the patient views as realis-
tic, and eccentric superstition. In these cases, alternative forms of treatment
are typically considered (for example, pharmacotherapy).
Prevalence and Research

Obsessions and compulsions represent human phenomena that have been
a topic of interest for several centuries; for example, William Shakespeare’s
characterization of the hand-washing Lady Macbeth has entertained audi-
ences for hundreds of years. Prior to the first therapeutic analysis of obses-
sive-compulsive disorder, then called a neurosis—Freud’s description of the
“rat man”—obsessive thoughts were commonly attributed to demoniac in-
fluence and treated with exorcism. Freud’s major contribution was deliv-
ering the phenomenon from the spiritual into the psychological realm.
Although initial case reports employing psychoanalysis were promising, sub-
sequent developments using behavioral and pharmacological formulations
have more rapidly advanced the understanding of the phenomenology and
treatment of this unusual condition. In addition, with the public revelation
that certain prominent individuals, such as the aircraft designer and film
producer Howard Hughes, suffered from this condition, the prevalence es-
timates of this disorder have steadily increased. Although a number of pa-
tients have sought help for this debilitating disorder since the time it was
first clinically described, it has been confirmed that this problem is far more
prevalent than initially thought. The increase is probably related not to an
actual increase in incidence but to individuals becoming more willing to
seek help for the problem. Because of the increasing number of individuals
requesting help for problems relating to obsessions and compulsions, it is
becoming more and more important to foster the maturation of appropri-
ate treatment strategies to deal with this disorder.
Further, it has become increasingly important to understand the manifes-
tation of obsessions and compulsions from a biological, psychological, and
socio-occupational level. Ongoing investigations are examining the biologi-
cal makeup of the nervous systems peculiar to this disorder. Research exam-
ining the specific information-processing styles and cognitive vulnerabilities
of obsessive-compulsive patients is also being conducted. Both response-
prevention and biochemical-intervention strategies (for example, clomipra-
mine) are deserving of continued research, primarily in the examining
characteristics of obsessive-compulsive patients that predict treatment effi-
cacy with either form of intervention. Finally, early markers for this condi-
tion, including childhood environments, early learning experiences, and bi-
ological predispositions, require further investigation so that prevention
582
efforts can be provided for individuals who may be at risk for developing ob-
sessive-compulsive disorder. With these advances, psychologists will be in a
better position to reduce the chronic nature of obsessive-compulsive disor-
der and to prevent these distressing symptoms in forthcoming generations.

American Psychiatric Association. Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Disor-
ders: DSM-IV-TR. Rev. 4th ed. Washington, D.C.: Author, 2000. The DSM-
IV-TR provides specific criteria for making psychiatric diagnoses of obses-
sive-compulsive disorder and other anxiety disorders. Brief summaries of
research findings regarding each condition are also provided.
Emmelkamp, Paul M. G. Phobic and Obsessive Compulsive Disorders: Theory, Re-
search, and Practice. New York: Plenum Press, 1982. A somewhat dated but
classic work outlining the importance of behavioral strategies in over-
coming obsessive-compulsive, as well as phobic, conditions.
Jenike, Michael A., Lee Baer, and William E. Minichiello. Obsessive-Compul-
sive Disorders: Theory and Management. 3d ed. St. Louis: Mosby, 1998. A
comprehensive overview of the topic that does not burden the reader
with intricate details of analysis. Readable by the layperson. Covers the
topic thoroughly.
Mavissakalian, Matig, Samuel M. Turner, and Larry Michelson. Obsessive-
Compulsive Disorders: Psychological and Pharmacological Treatment. New York:
Plenum Press, 1985. An exceptionally well written text based upon a sym-
posium held at the University of Pittsburgh. Issues pertaining to etiology,
assessment, diagnosis, and treatment are covered in detail.
Rachman, S. J. “Obsessional-Compulsive Disorders.” In International Hand-
book of Behavior Modification and Therapy, edited by Alan S. Bellack, Michel
Hersen, and Alan E. Kazdin. 2d ed. New York: Plenum Press, 1990.
Rachman’s work using behavioral strategies with obsessive-compulsive
patients is unparalleled. No bibliography would be complete without a
contribution from Rachman, one of the most respected authorities in the
field.
Steketee, Gail, and Andrew Ellis. Treatment of Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder.
New York: Guilford Press, 1996. A comprehensive resource for mental
health professionals. Covers behavioral and cognitive approaches, bio-
logical models, and pharmacological therapies.
Turner, S. M., and L. Michelson. “Obsessive-Compulsive Disorders.” In Be-
havioral Theories and Treatment of Anxiety, edited by Samuel M. Turner. New
York: Plenum Press, 1984. Summarizes information regarding diagnostic
issues, assessment strategies, and treatment interventions for obsessive-
compulsive disorder. Provides an excellent review of intervention efforts
employing response prevention and clomipramine.
Kevin T. Larkin and Virginia L. Goetsch
See also: Anxiety Disorders; Cognitive Therapy; Drug Therapies.

583
Parkinson’s Disease
Fields of study: Nervous system; organic disorders
Parkinson’s disease is a chronic, progressive, neurodegenerative disorder of the ner-

vous system. Patients are typically in their sixties when they experiences the onset of the
disease. Characteristic symptoms include tremor, rigidity, and slowness of movement.
Although the exact causes are not known, both genetic and environmental factors are
implicated.
Key concepts
• akinesia
• bradykinesia
• dementia
• depression
• dopamine
• levodopa
• rigidity
• substantia nigra
• transplantation of dopamine neurons
• tremor
Parkinson’s disease is one of the most common neurological disorders, af-

fecting one person in every thousand. James Parkinson, in 1817, aptly de-
scribed some of the classic symptoms in his book An Essay on the Shaking
Palsy. Parkinson reported the patients as having a chronic and progressive
disorder of the nervous system that had a late-age onset, with the first mild
symptoms not appearing until middle age. He also noted a tremor or shak-
ing which typically appeared in the hand or one side and later spread to the
other side. The disease progressed for a variable number of years, eventually
leading to disability and death. A significant contribution was his ability to
recognize the disorder as a disease distinct from previously described dis-
eases.
Although Parkinson’s disease is thought of as a disease with its onset in
middle age, there is a considerable variation in the age of onset, and there
are other forms of the disease in addition to the classical form. The average
age of onset is somewhere in the sixties. About 15 percent of patients de-
velop symptoms between the ages of twenty-one and forty years of age. An
extremely rare form of the disease, juvenile Parkinsonism, begins before the
age of twenty-one. In addition to the severe neuromuscular symptoms, de-
mentia may occur in some patients. In addition to tremors, other major
symptoms are muscle stiffness or rigidity and bradykinesia, or slow move-
ment, and even a difficulty in starting movement. Akinesia, an impairment
of voluntary activity of a muscle, also occurs. A number of other symptoms
584
may appear as a consequence of the major symptoms, such as difficulties

with speech, bowel and bladder problems, and a vacant, masklike facial ex-
pression. There are striking variations among patients in the number and
severity of the symptoms and the timing of the progression.
Clinical Features
The disease that subsequently became known as Parkinson’s disease was
called “shaking palsy” by Parkinson. The shaking refers to the tremor which,
although it is thought by many people to be invariably associated with Par-
kinson’s disease, may be completely absent, or present to a minor degree, in
some patients. Four symptoms which are present in many patients are a pro-
gressive tremor, bradykinesia and even akinesia, muscular rigidity, and loss
of postural reflexes. There still is no specific test that can be used to diag-
nose Parkinson’s disease. No biochemical, electrophysiologic, or radiologic
test has been found to be completely reliable. As a result, misdiagnosis and
underdiagnosis have been common with the disease. The situation is com-
plicated further as a number of other diseases and conditions share some of
the same symptoms, including Wilson’s disease, familial Alzheimer’s dis-
ease, Huntington’s disease, and encephalitis, as well as responses to certain
drugs. Symptoms of Parkinson’s disease may also develop consequent to
trauma to the brain.
A slight tremor in the hands may indicate the first symptoms of Parkin-
son’s disease, and the tremor may or may not also be found in the legs, jaws,
and neck. An interesting symptom that may appear in later stages of the dis-
ease is seborrhea, or acne. Intellectual functioning usually remains normal,
but approximately 20 percent of the patients experience dementia and have
a progressive loss of intellectual abilities and impairment of memory. It is
not yet clear how the dementia of Parkinson’s disease is related to the de-
mentia associated with Alzheimer’s disease. Depression also may occur in
patients, with approximately one-third of them having depression at any
one time. The depression may be directly related to the disease, or it may be
a reaction to some of the medication.
It has been convenient to divide the progression of symptoms of Parkin-
son’s disease into five stages, according to the severity of the symptoms and
the degree of disability associated with them. Stage 1 is marked by mild
symptoms. In this stage, the symptom that brings the patient to a physician is
likely to be a mild tremor, usually limited to one hand or arm. The tremor
usually is reduced or disappears during activity, but it may increase during
periods of emotional stress. During this early stage of the disease, mild
akinesia of the affected side and mild rigidity may be evident. Overall, many
of these changes are subtle enough that the patient is not aware of them or
does not complain of them. Usually, symptoms are confined to one side, but
as the disease progresses, it becomes bilateral in most patients in one or two
years. In Stage 2, there is bilateral involvement. Postural changes lead to the
patient having a stooped posture and a shuffling walk, with little extension
585
Psychology Basics
of the legs. All body movements become slower and slower (bradykinesia).
The difficulty and slowness of movements may cause patients to curtail
many of their normal activities and, in many cases, may lead to depression.
Stage 3 is characterized by an increase in the postural changes and move-
ments, leading to retropulsion, a tendency to walk backward, and to propul-
sion, a tendency when walking forward to walk faster and faster with shorter
and shorter steps. As the disease progresses, movements occur more and
more slowly, and there are fewer total movements. By Stage 4, symptoms
have become so severe as to lead to significant disability, and the patient usu-
ally needs constant supervision. The course of the disease leads to Stage 5, a
period of complete disability in which the patient is confined to a chair or
bed. Interestingly, the tremor which is so characteristic of the initial onset of
Parkinson’s disease tends to lessen considerably during the later stages of
the disorder. In addition to the dementia associated with aging, patients
with Parkinson’s disease show an increased risk of dementia, occurring six
to seven times more frequently compared to age-matched controls.
Causes
The most striking pathological change noted in Parkinson’s disease is a loss
of nerve cells in a region of the brain known as the substantia nigra, a layer
of deeply pigmented gray matter located in the midbrain. The region con-
tains nerve cells that produce dopamine, a neurotransmitter associated with
the control of movement. The levels of dopamine are normally in balance
with another neurotransmitter, acetylcholine. In Parkinson’s disease, the
loss of dopamine-producing cells causes a decrease in the levels of dopa-
mine, with a consequent imbalance with acetylcholine. This leads to the
symptoms of Parkinson’s disease.
The factors that lead to an upset of the dopaminergic system in the dis-
ease are complex. The disease is found throughout the world and occurs in
nearly equal frequency in men and women, with slightly more men being af-
fected than women. Parkinson’s disease is found in all ethnic groups, al-
though there are some striking ethnic differences. The disease is relatively
high among whites and relatively low among African blacks and Asians. Eth-
nic differences may reflect genetic and environmental differences. Ameri-
can blacks have a higher incidence than African blacks, indicating a likely
role of local environmental factors.
The role of genetics in Parkinson’s disease has been difficult to establish.
A family history of Parkinson’s disease appears to be a strong indicator of an
increased risk of the disease. As part of its comprehensive genetic profiling
of its entire population, Iceland has gathered an immense amount of data
on genetic diseases, including Parkinson’s disease. In the study of late-onset
Parkinson’s disease, the risk ratio increased with degree of relatedness, with
a 2.7 greater probability of developing the disease for nephews and nieces of
patients, 3.2 for children of patients, and 6.7 for brothers and sisters of pa-
tients. Much research remains to be done to determine whether single
586
genes are playing a major causative role or whether the disorder is multifac-
torial, involving genetic and environmental factors.
Treatment
Once it became known that dopamine was depleted in patients with Parkin-
son’s disease, a rationale opened for a potential treatment. Levodopa was
the first drug to be used to treat Parkinson’s disease successfully and is still
the most effective treatment available. Dopamine can pass from the blood
into the brain, and levodopa increases the synthesis of dopamine. The drug
does not cure the disease, but it is used in the attempt to control the symp-
toms. Although the effectiveness of levodopa may diminish somewhat after
several years, most patients continue to benefit from its use. It is necessary to
monitor patients closely to maintain proper dose levels as well as to register
the appearance of new symptoms, side effects, and other complications.
A number of other drugs, alone or in combination, are being used or be-
ing tested. Drugs that enhance the action of dopamine are dopaminergic
medications. Such drugs may increase dopamine release or may inhibit the
breakdown of dopamine. Other drugs are known as anticholinergic medica-
tions, and these inhibit the action of acetylcholine.
Surgery has also been used to treat symptoms of Parkinson’s disease, but
results have been somewhat mixed. Surgical techniques include thalamot-
omy, a procedure producing a lesions in the thalamus gland for relief of se-
vere unilateral tremor, and pallidotomy, the removal of part of the globus
palledus region of the brain, which is used to treat severe rigidity and
akinesia. More recently, transplantation of dopamine neurons from human
embryos directly into the brain of a patient with Parkinson’s disease has
been used. More trials are required, but results seem to indicate some im-
provement in symptoms, including bradykinesia and rigidity. The use of hu-
man tissue has raised many ethical issues because the tissue is taken from
aborted human fetuses. Attempts to use tissues from cultured cells are in
progress. None of the current treatments involving medication or surgery
have produced a complete reversal of the symptoms of Parkinson’s disease.

Cram, David L. Understanding Parkinson’s Disease: A Self-Help Guide. Omaha,
Nebr.: Addicus Books, 1999. A physician, Cram provides a well-written ac-
count of the symptoms and progression of the disease from his personal
perspective and also discusses present and future treatments.
Jahanshahi, Marian, and C. David Marsden. Parkinson’s Disease: A Self-Help
Guide. New York: Demos Medical Publishing, 2000. This book is an excel-
lent self-help guide. In addition to chapters on the basic medical facts
about Parkinson’s disease, there are chapters dealing with living and cop-
ing with the disease from the personal and family point of view.
Kondracks, Morton. Saving Milly: Love, Politics, and Parkinson’s Disease. New
York: Public Affairs, 2001. The author provides a moving memoir of his
587
Psychology Basics
life with his wife, Milly, and the development and impact of Parkinson’s
disease.
Lanad, Anthony E., and Andres M. Lozano. “Parkinson’s Disease: The First
of Two Parts.” The New England Journal of Medicine 339, no. 15 (1998):
1044-1052. Comprehensive review of Parkinson’s disease includes infor-
mation on diagnosis and clinical features, pathology, epidemiology, ge-
netics, and a list of ninety-three references.
__________. “Parkinson’s Disease: The Second of Two Parts.” The New En-
gland Journal of Medicine 339, no. 16 (1998): 1130-1143. The second part
of a two-part review on Parkinson’s disease. The article covers the patho-
physiology and various types of treatment and includes a list of 199 refer-
ences.
Weiner, William J., Lisa M. Shulman, and Anthony E. Land. Parkinson’s Dis-
ease: A Complete Guide for Patients and Families. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins
University Press, 2001. This book does an excellent job of giving current
information on the features and management of Parkinson’s disease and
also of providing valuable information on how families and patients can
deal with the practical and emotional aspects.
Donald J. Nash
See also: Alzheimer’s Disease; Brain Structure; Neuropsychology; Stress.
588
Pavlovian Conditioning
Date: 1890’s forward
Field of study: Pavlovian conditioning
Pavlovian conditioning is a basic process of learning that relates especially to reflexes
and emotional behavior. Interest in this form of learning has been long-standing and
continues to the present day. Pavlovian principles apply to a wide range of organisms,
situations, and events.
Key concepts
• conditioned emotional reaction (CER)
• discrimination
• extinction
• flooding
• second-signal system
• spontaneous recovery
• stimulus generalization
• systematic desensitization
Pavlovian conditioning, also known as respondent conditioning and classi-

cal conditioning (as distinguished from instrumental or operant condition-
ing), is an elementary learning process and has been of major interest to
psychologists ever since the Russian physiologist Ivan Petrovich Pavlov
(1849-1936) discovered that a dog could learn to salivate to a neutral stimu-
lus after the stimulus was paired repeatedly with food.
Pavlov’s early career focused on the study of heart circulation and diges-
tion in animals (usually dogs), for which he received the Nobel Prize in
Physiology or Medicine in 1904. By that time Pavlov had already turned his
attention to experiments on conditioned reflexes, from which flowed a new
psychological nomenclature.
Conditioning
The core of Pavlovian conditioning is the pairing (association) of stimuli
to elicit responses. Food (meat powder) placed in a dog’s mouth naturally
produces salivation. Pavlov called the food an unconditioned stimulus (US)
and salivation, elicited by the food, the unconditioned response (UR). When
a neutral stimulus—for example, a tone that does not naturally elicit saliva-
tion—is repeatedly followed by presentation of food, the tone alone eventu-
ally evokes salivation. Pavlov labeled the tone a conditioned stimulus (CS)
and the response (salivation) elicited by it the conditioned response (CR).
589
Psychology Basics
Pavlov’s formulation can be summarized as follows:

Before conditioning:
Food (US) elicits Salivation (UR)
Conditioning procedure:
Neutral Stimulus (Tone) plus Food (US) elicits Salivation (UR)
After conditioning:
Tone (CS) elicits Salivation (CR)
Pavlov believed that conditioned responses were identical to unconditioned
responses. That is usually not the case. For example, conditioned responses
may be less pronounced (weaker) or a bit more lethargic than uncondi-
tioned responses.
Several phenomena turn up in studies of Pavlovian conditioning. Extinc-
tion, generalization, and discrimination are among the most important. Ex-
tinction refers to the procedure as well the elimination of a CR. If the CS is
repeatedly presented without the US, extinction occurs: The dog stops sali-
vating to the tone. During the course of extinction, the CR may return from
time to time until it is finally extinguished. Pavlov called the occasional re-
turn of the CR “spontaneous recovery.”
Ivan Pavlov.
(The Nobel Foundation)
590
Stimulus generalization refers to responding not only to a particular CS

but also to different but similar stimuli. Further, the magnitude (amount of
salivation) of a generalized response tends to decline as stimuli become less
and less like the CS. For example, a dog trained to salivate to a 5,000-cycle-
per-second (cps) tone is likely to salivate also to 5,300 cps and 4,700 cps
tones without specific training to do so (stimulus generalization). Responses
tend to weaken in an orderly way as tones become more and more unlike the
CS. As the tones move away from the CS in both directions, say, to 4,400 cps
from 4,100 cps, and 5,600 cps to 5,900 cps, the flow of salivation becomes
less and less.
Stimulus generalization in effect extends the number of stimuli that elicit
a conditioned response. Discrimination procedures restrict that number by
conditioning a subject not to generalize across stimuli. The procedure in-
volves two processes: acquisition and extinction. The CS is paired repeatedly
with the US (acquisition) while the US is withheld as generalized stimuli are
presented repeatedly (extinction). If the dog now salivates to the CS and not
to the generalized stimuli, the dog has learned to discriminate or to act dis-
criminatingly. Pavlov reported that some dogs displayed a general break-
down in behavior patterns (experimental neurosis) when called upon to
make discriminations that were too difficult.
Pavlov’s work on what he called the second-signal system implies that con-
ditioning principles are relevant to human as well as to animal learning.
Once, say, a tone is established as a CS in first-order conditioning, the tone
can be paired with a neutral stimulus to establish a second-order CS. Thus,
in the absence of food, a light might precede the tone (CS) several times un-
til the light itself begins to function as a CS. Second-order conditioning ap-
pears to follow many of the same rules as first-order conditioning.
Pavlov’s work has clearly provided one way to study the learning process
in great detail. It has also provided the kind of data and theory that have af-
fected research in other areas of learning, such as instrumental condition-
ing and, subsequently, cognitive science and neuroscience.
Range of Pavlovian Conditioning

Pavlovian phenomena have been demonstrated with different kinds of or-
ganisms and a wide variety of stimuli and responses far beyond those studied
by Pavlov. Stimuli that precede such unconditioned stimuli as sudden loud
noises (leading to rapid heart rate), a puff of air delivered to the eye (evok-
ing blinking), or a large temperature increase (eliciting sweating) may be-
come conditioned stimuli, capable of eliciting conditioned responses on
their own. The idea of second-order (higher-order) conditioning is pro-
foundly important because it suggests how rewards such as money or words
of praise are established apart from primary (biologically necessary) re-
wards, such as food and water. It also may, in part, explain the power of films,
plays, novels, and advertisements to evoke strong emotion in the absence
of direct experience with primary (unconditioned) stimuli. Studies con-
591
Psychology Basics
cerned with conditioned emotional reactions (CER), especially fear and

anxiety in people—a subject much more complex than simple reflexes—
have been of special interest to researchers and therapists for many years.
Additional Research Findings

Studies of conditioning essentially look at how various unconditioned and
conditioned stimuli influence responses under different arrangements of
time and space. Following are a few general findings.
Pavlovian conditioning tends to be readily established when stimuli or re-
sponses or both are strong rather than weak. For example, in response to a
near-drowning experience, some people promptly learn to fear such condi-
tioned stimuli as the sights of water, boats, palm trees, bathing suits, and so
on. In such cases, relevant stimuli and responses (panic) are presumably
quite strong.
Conditioned stimuli are most likely to elicit conditioned responses when
unconditioned and conditioned stimuli are paired consistently. If a mother
always hums when she rocks her infant daughter to sleep, humming is likely
to become a potent and reliable CS which soothes and comforts her daugh-
ter. This outcome is less likely if mother hums only occasionally.
When several stimuli precede a US, the one most often paired with the
US will likely emerge as the strongest CS. If, for example, both parents
threaten to punish their young son, but only father always carries out the
threats, father’s threats are more likely than mother’s to evoke apprehen-
sion in the child.
For some responses, such as eye blinking, conditioned stimuli tend to be
strongest when they precede the US by about one-half second. The optimal
interval for other responses varies from seconds to fractions of seconds: A
neighbor’s dog barks immediately before little Sophie falls from her swing,
bumping her nose very hard. She cries. If the dog’s bark subsequently makes
Sophie feel uneasy, the bark is functioning as a CS. This outcome becomes
less and less likely as the bark and fall increasingly separate in time.
Conditioned responses are usually not established if a US and CS occur
together (simultaneous conditioning)—the potency of the UC overshadows
the potential CS—or when a neutral stimulus follows the US (backward con-
ditioning).
Some Practical Applications

In a widely cited study reported in 1920, American researchers John B. Wat-
son and Rosalie Rayner conditioned a phobic reaction in an eleven-month-
old infant named Albert. The researchers discovered that Albert feared
loud noises but seemed unafraid of a number of other things, including
small animals.
Watson and Rayner subsequently placed a white rat in Albert’s crib.
When Albert reached for it, the researchers struck a piece of resonate metal
with a hammer, making a “loud sound.” After a few such presentations, pre-
592
senting the rat alone elicited crying and various avoidance reactions. Albert
also showed signs of fear to similar things, such as a rabbit, a furry object,
and fluffy clumps of cotton (stimulus generalization). Thus, Watson and
Rayner provided early experimental evidence that Pavlovian principles are
involved in the acquisition of human emotional reactions.
While this study induced a phobic reaction in the subject, systematic de-
sensitization is a procedure designed to eliminate phobias and anxieties.
The procedure was largely developed and named by South African-born
therapist Joseph Wolpe. Noting that it is very difficult to have pleasant and
anxious feelings simultaneously, Wolpe fashioned a systematic technique to
teach clients to engage in behavior (relaxation) that competes with anxiety.
Therapy typically begins with an interview designed to identify specific
sources of the client’s fears. The therapist helps the client assemble a list of
items that elicit fear. Items associated with the least amount of fear are posi-
tioned at the bottom of the list; most feared items are placed near the top.
For example, if a client has a strong fear of dogs, the therapist and client
would develop a list of scenes that make the client fearful. Situations may
vary from hearing the word “dog” to seeing pictures of dogs, being in the vi-
cinity of a dog, hearing a dog bark, being close to dogs, and patting a dog.
The client is next taught to relax by tensing and releasing various groups
of muscles—shoulders, face, arms, neck, and so on. This phase of treatment
ends when the client has learned to relax fully on his or her own in a matter
of minutes.
The client and therapist now move on to the next phase of therapy. While
remaining fully relaxed, the client is asked to imagine being in the first situa-
tion at the bottom of the list. The image is held for several seconds. The client
then relaxes for about twenty seconds before imagining the same situation
again for several seconds. When the client is able to imagine an item and re-
main fully relaxed, the therapist presents a slightly more fearful situation to
imagine. This procedure continues until an image causes distress, at which
time the session ends. The next session begins with relaxation, followed by
the client slowly moving up the list. As before, the client stops at the point of
distress. Therapy is successful when the client can imagine all the items on
the list while remaining fully relaxed. The technique is less helpful when cli-
ents have difficulty identifying fearful situations or calling up vivid images.
In the hands of a skillful therapist, systematic desensitization is an effec-
tive technique for reducing a wide variety of fears. Its Pavlovian features in-
volve pairing imagined fearful scenes with relaxation. When relaxation suc-
cessfully competes with fear, it becomes a new CR to the imagined scenes. As
relaxation becomes sufficiently strong as a CR, anxiety is replaced by calm-
ness in the face of earlier aversive stimuli.
Extinction offers a more direct route to the reduction of fear than system-
atic desensitization. The technique called flooding makes use of extinction.
Flooding exposes the client to fear-arousing stimuli for a prolonged period
of time. Suppose a child is afraid of snakes. Although likely to increase the
593
Psychology Basics
fear initially, flooding would require the child to confront the snake directly
and continuously—to be “flooded” by various stimuli associated with the
snake—until the conditioned stimuli lose their power to elicit fear. Some
therapists think that the application of this technique is best left to profes-
sionals.
Some Everyday Examples

Pavlovian principles may be plausibly applied to daily life, as the following
examples illustrate.
Couples sometimes refer to a certain tune as “our song.” A plausible in-
terpretation is that Pavlovian conditioning has been at work. The favored
tune may have been popular and repeated often at the time of the couple’s
courtship and marriage. The tune has since become a CS that evokes a vari-
ety of pleasant feelings associated with initial love.
A baby-sitter notes that giving a young child a blue blanket in the absence
of his mother markedly reduces his irritability. Most likely, the blanket has
been sufficiently associated with the soothing actions of his mother (US)
and now functions as a calming stimulus (CS).
An adolescent steadfastly avoids the location where he was seriously in-
jured in an automobile crash. He says that just thinking about the highway
makes him nervous. The location doubtless contains a number of condi-
tioned aversive stimuli that now trigger unpleasant feelings (CR) and avoid-
ance.
After a bitter divorce, a woman finds that the sight of household items
(CS) associated with her former husband is terribly upsetting (CR). She re-
duces her resentment by getting rid of the offending items.
A wife often places flower arrangements in her husband’s den. The flowers
(CS) now bring him a measure of comfort (CR) when she is away on trips.
Respondent Conditioning and Reinforcement

Pavlovian behaviors are principally elicited by antecedent events (just as low
temperatures elicit shivering), while many behaviors are strengthened (in
reinforcement) or weakened (in punishment) by what follows behavior. In
Pavlovian conditioning, two stimuli are presented, one following another,
regardless of what a subject does. What follows behavior is usually not impor-
tant in this form of conditioning. In studying the role of reinforcement on
behavior (instrumental or operant conditioning), the consequences that
follow a person’s actions often determine what the person is likely to do un-
der similar circumstances in the future. What follows is important in this
type of conditioning.
The topic of reinforcement is introduced here because Pavlovian condi-
tioning and reinforcement are intricately related in that any Pavlovian con-
ditioning is likely to contain elements of instrumental conditioning and vice
versa. For example, if someone has a near-drowning experience and now
avoids bodies of water, it is plausible to say that conditioned stimuli associ-
594
ated with the experience evoke unsettling feelings. The person reduces the
unpleasant feelings by avoiding bodies of water. In this example, negative
feelings are conditioned according to Pavlovian principles. The avoidance
reaction is maintained by (negative) reinforcement and involves instrumen-
tal learning. Virtually all the previous examples can be analyzed similarly.

Baldwin, John D., and Janice I. Baldwin. Behavior Principles in Everyday Life.
4th ed. Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 2001. Written by two soci-
ologists, this book provides an overview of psychological principles of be-
havior, including many details about Pavlovian conditioning. The au-
thors provide hundreds of plausible and interesting examples of how
behavior principles show up in everyday life.
Hergenhahn, B. R., and Matthew Olson. Introduction to Theories of Learning.
6th ed. Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 2001. This book describes
the work of fifteen major figures in the area of learning. There are chap-
ters about associative theorists such as Ivan Pavlov and functionalist theo-
rists such as B. F. Skinner. A useful elementary survey of learning research
and theory, spanning one hundred years of development.
Rescorla, Robert A. “Pavlovian Conditioning: It’s Not What You Think It Is.”
American Psychologist 43, no. 3 (May, 1988): 151-160. A critical analysis of
Pavlovian conditioning by a leading researcher in the field. The author
questions orthodox descriptions of conditioning because they imply that
organisms form associations blindly. His view is that organisms actually
seek out information using logic and perception to form sophisticated
representations of the environment. Rescorla provides a sophisticated ex-
amination of the intricacies of conditioning, concentrating on the vari-
ous outcomes of conditioning and on the circumstances that create
them, while citing some of his own work in support of his position.
Watson, John B., and Rosalie Rayner. “Conditioned Emotional Reactions.”
Journal of Experimental Psychology 3 (1920): 1-14. Although this research
has been questioned on methodological and ethical grounds—for exam-
ple, concerns have been raised about the deliberate creation of a phobic
reaction in a young child—it is nonetheless a historically important experi-
ment that provided information about how human emotions are learned.
Wolpe, Joseph. The Practice of Behavior Therapy. 4th ed. New York: Pergamon,
1990. A significant book by the behavior therapist largely responsible for
the development of systematic desensitization. Wolpe discusses behavior
therapy as it applies to simple and complex cases of fear and anxiety. He is
highly critical of the view that therapy consists of little more than infor-
mation processing and cognitive correction.
Frank J. Sparzo
See also: Behaviorism; Conditioning; Habituation and Sensitization; Learned

Helplessness; Learning; Phobias; Reflexes.
595
Personal Constructs
George A. Kelly
Field of study: Behavioral and cognitive models
Personal construct theory examines the way each person thinks about the world; it at-
tempts to provide avenues for understanding and making use of one’s subjective expe-
riences. It demonstrates how cognitions change when one incorrectly predicts the future
on the basis of those cognitions.
Key concepts
• construct
• constructive alternativism
• dichotomy
• fixed role therapy
• fundamental postulate
• role
• Role Construct Repertory Test
Personal construct theory maintains that all people are motivated to reduce
uncertainty in their lives. In this manner, each person is like a scientist who is
attempting to solve complex problems. Instead of dealing with complex
equations in chemistry and physics, however, one is attempting to unravel
the complexities of one’s own life and the relationships that one has devel-
oped. Just as scientists are constantly making changes in their theories and
research claims based on the availability of new evidence, people change the
way they look at their subjective worlds on the basis of new evidence. That ev-
idence appears in the form of new interactions with significant others in
people’s lives, such as spouses, children, parents, and bosses. When new evi-
dence is made available, a person will alter his or her thought patterns in or-
der to reduce uncertainty in the future. This view forms the basis of George
A. Kelly’s principle of constructive alternativism—the view that people are
entitled to their own views of the world and that they will make use of those
views in order to reduce uncertainty in the future.
Kelly became involved in personal constructs theory late in his career.
Ironically, his early experiences as a psychologist did not even involve the
study of personality. It was only in 1955, twelve years prior to his death, that
he published The Psychology of Personal Constructs: A Theory of Personality. In
this work, he defined and discussed the concept of a construct. For Kelly, a
construct is a thought that a person has for the purpose of attempting to in-
terpret events; these interpretations may prove to be accurate or inaccurate.
In those situations in which a construct leads to an incorrect prediction of
an event, the person is likely to change the construct. All of Kelly’s con-
596
Personal Constructs: George A. Kelly
structs are dichotomous in nature; that is, they are made of pairs of polar op-
posites that cannot be simultaneously correct when referring to the same
person. For example, one cannot view one’s boss as both intelligent and un-
intelligent at the same time. Similarly, one’s boyfriend or girlfriend cannot
be seen as cruel and kind at the same moment.
Fundamental Postulate and Corollaries

Kelly claimed that constructs operate according to a fundamental postulate.
This postulate maintains that each person directs thoughts and cognitions
in a way that permits the most accurate prediction of future events. If a
woman has a personal construct which states that her boyfriend is a thought-
ful person, and he sends her flowers while she is in bed with the flu, her con-
struct would be regarded as an accurate one. If, however, that same boy-
friend used her illness as an opportunity to date other women and ignored
her illness in the process, it would be necessary to adjust her construction
system because it does not accurately predict her boyfriend’s behavior. This
process of changing one’s construction system in order to predict future
events more accurately is an ongoing one, designed to decrease uncertainty
in the future.
While the fundamental postulate is critical to Kelly’s attempts to predict
and explain behavior, it is not sufficient to cover all aspects of a person’s be-
havior and the choices that are made which cause that behavior. In order to
address this additional detail, Kelly provided a series of eleven corollaries to
his fundamental postulate. These corollaries are supporting statements that
provide a detailed analysis of thoughts and behaviors which cannot be di-
rectly derived from the fundamental postulate.
The construction corollary maintains that people continue to learn as
they are presented with similar events in life. For example, if a man’s mother
has given him a birthday present for the last thirty years, his prediction that
he will receive another present from her on his next birthday makes sense.
Similarly, if one has watched a particular television program at 11:30 p.m. on
weeknights for the past several years, one’s prediction that it will again be on
television at the same time next Monday night is a reasonable one.
Another important corollary to Kelly’s fundamental postulate is the di-
chotomy corollary. This states that all constructs consist of pairs of oppo-
sites. That is, a college course may be either interesting or uninteresting, but
it cannot be both at the same time. One important aspect of the dichotomy
corollary is that each construct must include three members or items, with
two of the members having the same characteristic and the third member
having the opposite characteristic. For example, breathing and not breath-
ing would not be a legitimate construct in evaluating three friends. Because
all of them breathe, the proposed construct would not tell how the three in-
dividuals are different as well as alike. Therefore, it would not reduce uncer-
tainty in the future.
A third corollary to Kelly’s system which is particularly important is the
597
Psychology Basics
range corollary. This maintains that a construct is only relevant in dealing

with a finite number of events. The events for which a construct is deemed
applicable is called its range of convenience. Terms such as “happy” and
“sad” would not be within the range of convenience in depicting the charac-
teristics of a tree or a book, while they might be critical in evaluating one’s
relatives.
Varying degrees of applicability can be found within a series of con-
structs. For example, the construct “kind versus cruel” would be more rele-
vant in evaluating a relative or girlfriend than it would be in considering the
qualities of an elevator operator one occasionally encounters. Kelly’s funda-
mental postulate and supporting corollaries provide considerable informa-
tion. The theory also provides some interesting applications in terms of per-
sonality assessment and therapeutic intervention.
Use with Career Goals

Kelly’s personal construct theory has been used to explain, predict, and at-
tempt to modify behavior in a wide range of circumstances. One interesting
application involves the use of personal constructs in formulating career
goals. A high school student, for example, may establish a goal of becoming
a successful surgeon in the future. The nature of her constructs can then be
examined to determine whether her constructs (as they relate to her own
characteristics) are likely to lead to a medical career. She currently views
herself as unintelligent rather than intelligent, dedicated to immediate grat-
ification rather than delayed gratification, and lazy rather than hardwork-
ing. If she is eventually to become a successful physician, she must reject
those constructs and develop a new construction system which is consistent
with her career goals. The application of Kelly’s theory to career choice is
important. While one does not expect first-grade children to examine their
own characteristics realistically in considering career options, much more is
required of high school and college students. It is not sufficient to state that
one wants to pursue a given career: The nature of one’s constructs must be
evaluated to determine if they are consistent with one’s career goals. In
those circumstances in which inconsistencies exist, either the constructs or
the career goals must change.
Role Construct Repertory Test

One of the most interesting applications of Kelly’s personal construct the-
ory involves the development of an assessment device, the Role Construct
Repertory Test. This test defines a role as a set of behaviors that are per-
formed by a person in response to the construction systems and behaviors of
others. The test itself determines the nature of a person’s system of con-
structs as it is related to the significant others in that person’s life. The test
can be used as a means of evaluating progress during psychotherapy or as a
vehicle for detecting changes in interpersonal relationships.
The test involves the creation of a grid in which the person’s significant
598
others are listed. Examples would be self, mother, spouse, boss, friend, and
successful person. The client then considers these individuals in groups of
three provided by the therapist. The client comes up with a word that typi-
fies two of these individuals, and a second word that is the opposite of the
first word but typifies the third person. This procedure is followed for a
group of twenty sorts, or sets of comparisons. This enables the therapist to
determine the behaviors and thoughts of the client concerning the signifi-
cant others in her life.
One of the determinations that can be made involves the flexibility of the
client in dealing with others. That is, in listing those individuals on the grid
who possess certain positive characteristics, the therapist would examine
whether the same individuals on the grid are given credit for all the positive
characteristics listed, while a second group is always viewed negatively. This
would indicate a lack of flexibility in the client and might offer an area for
needed change in the future.
Fixed Role Therapy

As an application of Kelly’s theory, the Role Construct Repertory Test is an
initial step in the therapeutic process. An interesting follow-up provided by
Kelly is fixed role therapy. This technique begins by asking the client to de-
velop an in-depth description of himself or herself, written in the third per-
son. This is called a self-characterization sketch. The third-person style is
used to produce greater objectivity than would be achieved with first-person
narratives. This gives the therapist a clear look at the client from the client’s
own perspective. The therapist then establishes a role for the client which is
directly opposite many of the characteristics in the self-characterization
sketch. The client is asked to act out that new role for a period of time. The
role would include positive characteristics not found in the self-characteriza-
tion sketch. The ultimate goal of the technique is to have the client maintain
many of those new positive characteristics on a long-term basis.
In evaluating applications of Kelly’s work, the emphasis must be placed
on the importance of knowing one’s own construction system and, when ap-
propriate, taking steps to change that system. While this may be handled
through formal techniques such as fixed role therapy, many therapists make
use of Kelly’s emphasis upon cognitive change without strictly employing his
terminology. To this extent, the influence of Kelly’s work should increase in
the future.
Kelly’s Career
Kelly did not begin his career with the intention of developing personal con-
struct theory. In fact, his initial training was not even in the field of personal-
ity psychology. Kelly’s original specialty in graduate school was physiological
psychology, and his dissertation was concerned with the areas of speech and
reading disabilities. Having received his degree around the time of the
Great Depression, however, Kelly came to the conclusion that the principles
599
Psychology Basics
and concepts contained within his areas of specialization offered little so-
lace to those who were emotionally and financially devastated in the after-
math of the Depression. He turned to clinical psychology, with an initial em-
phasis on the psychoanalytic approach. He noted that concepts such as the
id and the libido seemed of no use in dealing with victims of the Depression.
Kelly’s initial academic position was at Fort Hays State College in Kansas.
While at Fort Hays, he developed a series of traveling psychological clinics
designed to treat the emotional and behavioral problems of students. This
experience was crucial in the eventual formulation of personal construct
theory. Kelly tried numerous forms of treatment with the students and de-
termined that the optimal technique varied across cases. This led him to
conclude that any clinical technique that is successful should be retained,
while techniques that result in repeated treatment failure should be dis-
carded. This flexibility, reflected in his later theoretical claims regarding
constructive alternativism and his fundamental postulate, has made Kelly
unique among personality theorists. His willingness to respect subjective re-
ality as determined by each human being is reflective of his unwillingness to
commit himself totally to any one theoretical perspective. Although Kelly
was influenced by many theorists, he clearly traveled his own path in the de-
velopment of his psychology of personal constructs.

Bannister, Donald, and Fay Fransella. Inquiring Man: The Theory of Personal
Constructs. 3d ed. New York: Routledge, 1986. Provides an excellent intro-
duction to George A. Kelly’s theory. In addition, a wide range of applica-
tions are provided within the overall field of clinical psychology as well as
social psychology. The authors are dedicated advocates of Kelly’s perspec-
tive.
Bannister, Donald, and J. M. M. Mair, eds. The Evaluation of Personal Con-
structs. New York: Academic Press, 1968. This excellent work provides in-
sights into the types of theoretical and research efforts that have been un-
dertaken as a result of George A. Kelly’s contributions. Particularly
relevant because it was published shortly after Kelly’s death and therefore
provides an interesting analysis of his influence at that time.
Kelly, George Alexander. Clinical Psychology and Personality: The Selected Papers
of George Kelly. Edited by Brendan Maher. New York: John Wiley & Sons,
1969. This offering is unique in that it contains many of Kelly’s last pa-
pers. Includes papers that account for the origins of the theory and de-
picts Kelly’s analysis of his work shortly before his death. The presenta-
tion is accurate, and it faithfully depicts the essence of Kelly’s work.
__________. The Psychology of Personal Constructs: A Theory of Personality. New
York: W. W. Norton, 1955. This two-volume series, still in print after al-
most half a century, provides the essence of Kelly’s theory. Covers the the-
oretical basis for the theory by presenting an analysis of personal con-
structs, constructive alternativism, and the fundamental postulate as well
600
as the Role Construct Repertory Test and fixed role therapy. Kelly’s views
of the appropriate place of assessment in the therapeutic process are par-
ticularly interesting.
Neimeyer, Robert A. The Development of Personal Construct Psychology. Lincoln:
University of Nebraska Press, 1985. Looks at the origins, development,
and impact of George A. Kelly’s theory. Includes many relevant insights
into his early work, while including applications of the theory in areas
such as personality, clinical psychology, and social psychology.
Lawrence A. Fehr
See also: Abnormality: Psychological Models; Cognitive Psychology; Cogni-

tive Social Learning: Walter Mischel; Cognitive Therapy.
601
Personality Disorders
Fields of study: Personality assessment; personality disorders
The personality disorders are a cluster of psychological disorders characterized by in-

flexible and long-standing patterns of relating to others and the environment that cre-
ate significant impairment in functioning.
Key concepts
• antisocial personality disorder
• avoidant personality disorder
• borderline personality disorder
• dependent personality disorder
• histrionic personality disorder
• narcissistic personality disorder
• paranoid personality disorder
• personality
• obsessive-compulsive disorder
• schizoid personality disorder
• schizotypal personality disorder
Personality is a term used to describe long-standing patterns of thinking, be-

having, and feeling. A group of traits which are consistently displayed are
considered to be part of a person’s personality. A person’s mood, for exam-
ple, is considered to be a more fleeting expression of one’s overall personal-
ity. Personality comprises traits, attitudes, behaviors, and coping styles which
develop throughout childhood and adolescence. Developmental theorist
Erik Erikson (1902-1981) proposed that personality unfolds over the entire
life cycle according to a predetermined plan. Personality can be thought of
as a relatively consistent style of relating to others and the environment, de-
veloping as a result of genetic and environmental influences. Psychologists
have developed several theories to explain personality development. Aus-
trian psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) believed that personality
development originates in early childhood. Freud proposed that personality
emerges as a result of unconscious conflicts between unacceptable aggres-
sive and hedonistic instincts and societal mores. According to Freud, unre-
solved unconscious conflicts from childhood later influence personality de-
velopment. In contrast to Freud’s psychoanalytic theories about personality,
other researchers focused on specific traits as the building blocks of person-
ality development. Many classification systems have been developed in an at-
tempt to organize and categorize personality traits and styles. The Big Five
system proposes that five basic trait dimensions underlie personality struc-
ture: extroversion versus introversion, agreeableness versus disagreeable-
ness, conscientiousness versus impulsiveness, emotional stability versus neu-
602
roticism, and openness to experience versus rigidity. Personality disorders

may reflect extreme variants of these basic personality dimensions.
The personality disorders are a group of psychological disorders charac-
terized by inflexible and maladaptive patterns of relating to others that re-
sult in impairments in day-to-day functioning. The personality disorders are
reflected by personality traits which are significantly extreme or exagger-
ated, making it difficult to establish functional relationships with others. Ac-
cording to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders: DSM-IV-TR
(rev. 4th ed., 2000), the personality disorders are defined by an enduring
pattern of inner experience and behavior which is consistently dysfunc-
tional and creates impairment in functioning. Symptoms of personality dis-
orders are usually evident by early adulthood, coinciding with the develop-
mental period when personality patterns have become established in most
people. The DSM-IV-TR identifies ten major personality disorders: paranoid
personality disorder, schizoid personality disorder, schizotypal personality
disorder, borderline personality disorder, antisocial personality disorder,
narcissistic personality disorder, histrionic personality disorder, avoidant
personality disorder, dependent personality disorder, and obsessive-com-
pulsive personality disorder. The personality disorders are broken down
into three groups, or clusters, based upon similar symptomatology.
Cluster A
The personality disorders in Cluster A consist of paranoid personality disor-
der, schizoid personality disorder, and schizotypal personality disorder. The
behavior of people with a cluster A personality disorder is described as odd
or eccentric.
Paranoid personality disorder is characterized by a pervasive distrust of
others, chronic suspicion about others’ motives, and paranoid thinking.
Others often avoid individuals with paranoid personality disorder, which re-
inforces the individual’s mistrust of others. The suspicion is chronic and cre-
ates a difficulty in establishing and maintaining interpersonal relationships.
Paranoid personality disorder is more prevalent in males than females.
Schizoid personality disorder is characterized by a pervasive and long-
lasting indifference toward others. The term “schizoid” was initially chosen
to refer to the preliminary symptoms, or latent symptoms of schizophrenia.
A person with this disorder has little or no interest in interacting with others
and is viewed as a loner. People with schizoid personality disorder have little
interest in intimacy and tend to display a limited range of emotions. These
individuals often are dull and lack a sense of humor. They are perceived by
others as being aloof or apathetic and may appear disheveled or unkempt.
Schizotypal personality disorder is characterized by peculiar patterns of
behaving and thinking. A person with this disorder may express super-
stitious beliefs or may engage in fantasy-based thinking. Although their
thought processes might be unusual, their beliefs are not considered to be
of delusional proportions. Because the symptoms of cluster A personality
603
Psychology Basics
DSM-IV-TR General Criteria for a

Personality Disorder
Enduring pattern of inner experience and behavior deviating markedly
from expectations of individual’s culture
Manifested in two or more of the following areas:
• cognition (ways of perceiving and interpreting self, other people, and
events)
• affectivity (range, intensity, lability, and appropriateness of emotional
response)
• interpersonal functioning
• impulse control
Enduring pattern inflexible and pervasive across a broad range of personal
and social situations
Enduring pattern leads to clinically significant distress or impairment in so-
cial, occupational, or other important areas of functioning
Pattern stable and of long duration, and its onset can be traced back at least
to adolescence or early adulthood
Enduring pattern not better accounted for as manifestation or conse-
quence of another mental disorder
Enduring pattern not due to direct physiological effects of a substance or
general medical condition
DSM-IV-TR personality disorders:
• Cluster A: Paranoid; Schizoid; Schizotypal
• Cluster B: Antisocial; Borderline; Histrionic; Narcissistic
• Cluster C: Avoidant; Dependent; Obsessive-Compulsive
disorders resemble symptoms of schizophrenia, researchers believe these

disorders may be genetically related to schizophrenia.
Cluster B
The personality disorders of cluster B are borderline personality disorder,
antisocial personality disorder, narcissistic personality disorder, and histri-
onic personality disorder. The cluster B personality disorders are described
as dramatic, erratic, and emotional. The behavior of people with such a dis-
order creates significant impairment in establishing and maintaining inter-
personal relationships. Borderline personality disorder (BPD) is the most
prevalent personality disorder. It is diagnosed twice as often among women
as men and is characterized by a long-standing and inflexible pattern of
emotional instability and unstable personal relationships. Individuals with
BPD have an intense fear of abandonment and tend to form intense and un-
stable relationships with others. They tend to fluctuate between having posi-
604
tive and negative feelings about significant people in their lives. This behav-
ior is referred to as splitting and may contribute to the emotional instability
displayed by these people. People with BPD often engage in self-destructive
behavior, such as self-mutilation, suicidal acts, or drug abuse. Those with
BPD report chronic feelings of emptiness.
Antisocial personality disorder is exemplified by an enduring pattern of
behavior that disregards and violates the rights of others. The term “anti-
social” refers to behaviors that are antisociety. Antisocial personality disor-
der is preceded by conduct disorder in the adolescent stages of develop-
ment. People with antisocial personality disorder often appear initially to be
charming and intelligent yet are also manipulative and grandiose. They
lack a moral code which would disallow unacceptable or hurtful behav-
iors. Therefore, an individual with antisocial personality disorder is likely
to engage in criminal acts, manipulative behavior, and the exploitation of
others.
Freud coined the term “narcissistic personality disorder” in reference to
the Greek myth of Narcissus, who fell in love with his own reflection in a
pool of water, preventing him from forming relationships with others. The
essential feature of narcissistic personality disorder is an exaggerated sense
of self-importance. This disorder is characterized by a need to be the center
of attention and a preoccupation with fantasies of one’s success or power. A
person with narcissistic personality disorder has difficulty understanding
the feelings of others and constantly is demanding of attention. These gran-
diose behaviors typically mask feelings of insecurity.
Symptoms of histrionic personality disorder include excessive emotional-
ity and attention-seeking behavior. A person with histrionic personality dis-
order is overly dramatic and emotional and inappropriately seductive in or-
der to gain the attention of others. Histrionic personality disorder is more
prevalent among females than males.
Cluster C
Cluster C disorders include avoidant personality disorder, dependent per-
sonality disorder, and obsessive-compulsive personality disorder. The behav-
ior of people with a cluster C personality disorder is described as anxious or
fearful.
People with avoidant personality disorder display a pervasive pattern of
social discomfort and a fear of being disliked by others. Because of these
feelings, a person with this disorder avoids social interactions with others.
People with avoidant personality disorder are extremely shy and have great
difficulty establishing interpersonal relationships. They want to be liked by
others, but their social discomfort and insecurities prevent them from en-
gaging in interpersonal relationships.
Dependent personality disorder is characterized by a chronic pattern of
dependent and needy behavior, with an intense fear of being alone. People
with this disorder attempt to please other people in order to avoid potential
605
Psychology Basics
abandonment. They may say certain things just to be liked by others. They
have difficulty making their own decisions and are submissive with others.
Individuals with this disorder have difficulty separating from others.
Obsessive-compulsive personality disorder is characterized by an inflexible
and enduring need for control and order. People who suffer from obsessive-
compulsive personality disorder are so preoccupied with order and organi-
zation that they may lose sight of the main objective of an activity. People
with this disorder are usually excessively work-oriented and have little pa-
tience for leisure time. They are intolerant of indecisiveness or emotionality
in others and favor intellect over affect. People with this disorder are per-
ceived as difficult to get along with and unwilling to be a team player. Obses-
sive-compulsive personality disorder is different from obsessive-compulsive
disorder (OCD), which is categorized as an anxiety disorder and involves
obsessive thoughts and compulsive behaviors.
Diagnosis
A number of issues have created debate related to the difficulty in and reli-
ability of the diagnosis of personality disorders. The distinction between
“normal” personality characteristics and a personality disorder is not neces-
sarily clear in the clinical definition of a personality disorder. The DSM-IV-
TR notes that when personality traits are inflexible and create distress or im-
pairment in functioning, they constitute a personality disorder. Some argue
that there is considerable room for debate about the point at which a trait is
considered to create impairment.
The personality disorders have been the subject of criticism by research-
ers because of the difficulty in diagnosing them reliably. Individuals with a
personality disorder often display symptoms of other personality disorders.
For example, researchers have debated about the distinction between schiz-
oid personality disorder and avoidant personality disorder, as both disorders
are characterized by an extreme in social isolation. Individuals with person-
ality disorders are more likely than the general population to suffer from
other psychological disorders, such as depression, bulimia, or substance
abuse. This overlap of symptoms may lead to difficulty with diagnostic reli-
ability. The personality disorders occur so frequently with other types of psy-
chological disorders that it is challenging to sort through symptoms to de-
termine what is evidence of each disorder. It is difficult to estimate the
prevalence of personality disorders in the United States, as individuals with
these disorders do not recognize that they are dysfunctional and are there-
fore less likely to seek treatment.
Researchers have explored the problem of gender bias in the diagnosis of
personality disorders. It is believed that some of the symptoms of certain
personality disorders are more characteristic of one gender than the other.
For example, the aggression and hostility associated with antisocial person-
ality disorder may be traits associated more frequently with the average male
population, thus affecting the diagnosis among men compared to women.
606
This supposed gender bias is theorized to be related to the greater preva-

lence of borderline personality disorder and histrionic personality disorder
among women compared to men. Perhaps some of the diagnostic symptoms
of this disorder, such as emotionality or fears of abandonment, have been
behaviors more often associated with the female population than the male
population.
Causes
Various theories have been developed to explain the etiology of personality
disorders. The biological perspective examines the roles of genetics and
brain functioning in the development of personality disorders. Evidence
suggests that the cluster A disorders (paranoid, schizoid, and schizotypal
personality disorders) are more prevalent among first-degree relatives of in-
dividuals suffering from schizophrenia, suggesting a possible genetic com-
monality among those disorders.
The underlying symptoms of borderline personality disorder (impulsivity
and emotionality) are inherited. Much research confirms that borderline
patients are more likely to report a childhood family history that included
sexual abuse, domestic violence, and the early loss (either through death or
abandonment) of a parental figure. It is believed that this history may be re-
lated to the later development of borderline personality disorder. Accord-
ing to Erikson, a sense of basic trust during childhood is an essential compo-
nent of normal personality development. Erikson stated that a basic sense of
trust or mistrust in the self and the world develops in the first year of life.
The experience of being abandoned by a parent, then, would foster a sense
of mistrust in the world and would affect personality development. In the
1950’s, University of Wisconsin psychologist Harry Harlow (1905-1981) ex-
plored the effects of attachment on later personality development. Harlow
concluded that rhesus monkeys who were separated from their mothers
shortly after birth displayed abnormal behaviors later in life, such as un-
usual fear or aggression, difficulty engaging in mating behaviors, and diffi-
culty with parenting their offspring. Maternally deprived animals, there-
fore, were more likely to display dysfunction, as is seen in individuals with
disorders associated with maternal deprivation, such as borderline and anti-
social personality disorders.
Genetic factors may be influential in the development of antisocial person-
ality disorder, as children of biological parents who engage in criminal behav-
ior are more likely to engage in criminal behavior themselves. Learning theo-
rists propose that antisocial behaviors may be learned by mimicking parents
with similar behaviors. Individuals with antisocial personality disorder have
displayed an abnormally low arousal level, which might enable them to ig-
nore physiological cues that indicate danger or punishment. Research has
also suggested that the unusually low level of arousal may cause the antiso-
cial individual to engage in behaviors which increase physiological arousal,
or create a “rush.”
607
Psychology Basics
Treatment
Treatment of a personality disorder is difficult because of certain key issues
related to these disorders. People with personality disorders tend to lack in-
sight about their dysfunctional ways of interacting with others. Because they
do not see themselves as having a problem, they are unlikely to pursue treat-
ment. When a person with a personality disorder does seek treatment, it is
usually for some secondary issue, such as alcoholism or depression. People
suffering from personality disorders tend to end therapy prematurely, a re-
sult of their perception that their behavior is not the source of problems.
One of the central features of the personality disorders is an impaired ability
to maintain relationships with others; therefore, developing a relationship
with a therapist is difficult. When the opportunity for treatment does arise,
treatment approaches differ depending on the unique characteristics of
each of the personality disorders.
The treatment of borderline personality disorder has received much re-
search attention. American psychologist Marsha M. Linehan is credited with
the development of dialectical behavior therapy (DBT), a treatment ap-
proach for borderline personality disorder which integrates cognitive, be-
havioral, and Zen principles to help the patient to develop essential coping
skills. One of the basic tenets of DBT is that individuals with borderline per-
sonality disorder may react abnormally to a normal stimulus (such as an in-
teraction with another person) because of negative or traumatic past experi-
ences (such as sexual abuse). Such individuals may quickly display an
increase in emotion and may take a longer period of time to reduce their
emotional arousal. Treatment focuses on decreasing self-destructive behav-
iors and helping individual to regulate their emotions.
People with antisocial personality disorder who participate in treatment
usually are made to do so by the legal system. Efficacy of treatment interven-
tions for the person with antisocial personality disorder is often measured in
terms of the number of crimes committed by the person after treatment,
rather than by any significant change in personality characteristics. Treating
any substance abuse issues is an integral component of treatment of antiso-
cial personality disorder. Some believe that prevention is the most impor-
tant part of managing antisocial behavior.
Researchers have found that low levels of antipsychotic medications are
effective in alleviating some symptoms of schizotypal personality disorder.
Several studies suggest that antipsychotic medications such as haloperidol
may decrease symptoms of depression and impulsivity in the schizotypal in-
dividual. People with narcissistic personality disorder are more apt than
those with other personality disorders to seek out treatment, using the ther-
apist’s office as yet another stage to be the center of attention.

Claridge, Gordon. Origins of Mental Illness. 2d ed. Cambridge, Mass.: Malor
Books, 1996. The author explores the basic dimensions of personality,
608
personality theories, and basic research and treatment of mental disor-

ders.
Erikson, Erik H. Identity: Youth and Crisis. New York: W. W. Norton, 1968. A
compilation of Erikson’s notable essays about adolescent identity crisis.
Articles explore theories of personality development and intrapersonal
conflict.
Linehan, Marsha M. Cognitive-Behavioral Treatment of Borderline Personality Dis-
order. New York: Guilford Press, 1993. The author provides an overview of
the symptoms of borderline personality disorder followed by an extensive
description of an exploration of the foundations of dialectical behavioral
therapy. Specific treatment strategies are clearly described, and the book
contains several helpful charts and checklists.
Livesley, W. John, Marsha L. Schroeder, Douglas Jackson, and Kerry L. Jang.
“Categorical Distinctions in the Study of Personality Disorder—Implica-
tions for Classification.” Journal of Abnormal Psychology 103, no. 1 (1994): 6-
17. This article focuses on the foundation of the classification of person-
ality disorders and challenges some of the empirical evidence regarding
the effectiveness of classification.
Maxmen, Jerrold S., and Nicholas G. Ward. Essential Psychopathology and Its
Treatment. New York: W. W. Norton, 1995. The authors provide a compre-
hensive overview of the various forms of psychopathology and treatment
approaches.
Nathan, Peter E., Jack M. Gorman, and Neil J. Salkind. Treating Mental Disor-
ders: A Guide to What Works. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999. Out-
lines current standards of care for mental illnesses in a question-and-
answer format. Offers guides for further information.
Paris, Joel. “A Diathesis-Stress Model of Personality Disorders.” Psychiatric
Annals 29, no. 12 (1999): 692-697. The author explores the possible rela-
tionship between life stressors and the development of personality disor-
ders.
Widiger, Thomas A., and Paul T. Costa. “Personality and Personality Disor-
ders.” Journal of Abnormal Psychology 103, no. 1 (1994): 78-91. The authors
review the belief that personality disorders are representative of extreme
variants of normal personality traits. Using the five-factor model, the au-
thors explore the correlation between personality and personality disor-
ders.
Janine T. Ogden
See also: Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder; Schizophrenia: Background, Types,

and Symptoms.
609
Personality
Psychophysiological Measures
Field of study: Personality assessment
Psychophysiological studies comparing individuals with different personality traits

have sought to determine the physical characteristics of particular behavioral charac-
teristics. Such research can provide information that helps clarify the importance of
various personality types with regard to risk of psychological and physical disorders.
Key concepts
• anxiety sensitivity
• locus of control
• personality
• psychophysiology
• Type A behavior pattern
A broad definition of personality typically includes the dimensions of stabil-

ity, determinism, and uniqueness. That is, personality changes little over
time, is determined by internal processes and external factors, and reflects
an individual’s distinctive qualities. Personality also can be thought of as
unique, relatively stable patterns of behavior, multiply determined over the
course of an individual’s life. There are many theories for understanding
the development of these patterns of behavior.
Twin studies have provided evidence that biological factors help to shape
personality; such studies support Hans Eysenck’s theory that personality is
inherited. The psychodynamic perspective holds that personality is deter-
mined primarily by early childhood experiences. Some of the most influen-
tial contributions to this perspective came from Sigmund Freud. He argued
that unconscious forces govern behavior and that childhood experiences
strongly shape adult personality via coping strategies people use to deal with
sexual urges. B. F. Skinner, founder of modern behavioral psychology, as-
sumed that personality (or behavior) is determined solely by environmental
factors. More specifically, he believed that consequences of behavior are in-
strumental in the development of unique, relatively stable patterns of be-
havior in individuals. According to Albert Bandura’s social learning per-
spective, models have a great impact on personality development. That is,
patterns of behavior in individuals are influenced by the observation of oth-
ers. Finally, the humanistic perspective of Carl Rogers suggests that person-
ality is largely determined by the individual’s unique perception of reality in
comparison to his or her self-concept.
Personality Assessment
Assessment of personality can be accomplished from three domains: subjec-
610
Personality: Psychophysiological Measures
tive experience, behavior, and physiology. Traditional means for assessing

personality have included objective and projective paper-and-pencil or in-
terview measurements that tap the domain of subjective experience. Behav-
ioral assessment techniques such as direct observation of behavior, self-
monitoring (having the individual record occurrences of his or her own
behavior), self-report questionnaires, role-play scenarios, and behavioral
avoidance tests (systematic, controlled determination of how close an indi-
vidual can approach a feared object or situation) tap the domains of subjec-
tive experience and objective behavior. These techniques have been used in
clinical settings to aid in the diagnosis and treatment of deviant or abnormal
behavior patterns.
Although psychophysiological measurement of personality has not gained
popular use in clinical settings, it complements the techniques mentioned
above and contributes to understanding the nature and development of psy-
chological and physical disorders. Just as patterns of responding on tradi-
tional personality tests can indicate the possibility of aberrant behavior, so
too can tests of physiological patterns. Typical measures taken during this
type of assessment include heart rate, blood pressure, muscle tension (mea-
sured via electromyography), brain-wave activity (measured via electroen-
cephalography), skin temperature, and palmar sweat gland or electro-
dermal activity. These measures of physiological activity are sensitive to
“emotional” responses to various stimuli and have been instrumental in clar-
ifying the nature of certain psychological and physical conditions. One of
the fundamental assumptions of psychophysiology is that the responses of
the body can help reveal the mechanisms underlying human behavior and
personality.
Physiological responsivity can be assessed in a number of different ways.
Two primary methodologies are used in the study of the relations between
personality and physiology. The first method simply looks at resting or base-
line differences of various physiological measures across individuals who ei-
ther possess or do not possess the personality characteristic of interest. The
second method also assesses individuals with or without the characteristic of
interest but does this under specific stimulus or situational conditions
rather than during rest. This is often referred to as measuring reactivity to
the stimulus or situational condition. Resting physiological measures are re-
ferred to as tonic activity (activity evident in the absence of any known stimu-
lus event). It is postulated that tonic activity is relatively enduring and stable
within the individual while at rest, although it can be influenced by external
factors. It is both of interest in its own right and important in determining
the magnitude of response to a stimulus. On the other hand, phasic activity
is a discrete response to a specific stimulus. This type of activity is suspected
to be influenced to a much greater extent by external factors and tends to be
less stable than tonic activity. Both types of activity, tonic and phasic, are im-
portant in the study of personality and physiology.
Standard laboratory procedures are typically employed to investigate
611
Psychology Basics
tonic activity and phasic responses to environmental stimuli. For example, a

typical assessment incorporating both methodologies might include the fol-
lowing phases: a five-minute baseline to collect resting physiological mea-
sures, a five-minute presentation of a task or other stimulus suspected to dif-
ferentiate individuals in each group based on their physiological response
or change from baseline, and a five-minute recovery to assess the nature and
rate of physiological recovery from the task or stimulus condition. Investiga-
tions focusing on the last phase attempt to understand variations in recovery
as a response pattern in certain individuals. For example, highly anxious in-
dividuals tend to take much longer to recover physiologically from stimulus
presentations that influence heart rate and electrodermal activity than indi-
viduals who report low levels of anxiety.
Studies of physiological habituation—the decline or disappearance of re-
sponse to a discrete stimulus—also have been used to investigate personality
differences. Physiological responses to a standard tone, for example, even-
tually disappear with repeated presentations of the tone. The rate at which
they disappear varies across individuals; the disappearance generally takes
longer in individuals who tend to be anxious. Thus, individuals who tend to
have anxious traits may be more physiologically responsive, recover from
the response less rapidly, and habituate to repeated stimulation more slowly
than those who tend to be less anxious. Such physiological differences may
be an important characteristic that determines anxious behavior or results
from subjective feelings of anxiousness.
Relationship to Physiology and Health

Research has demonstrated that there is considerable variability across indi-
viduals in their physiological response patterns, both at rest and in response
to various situational stimuli or laboratory manipulations. Evidence indi-
cates that part of this variability across individuals may, in some cases, be at-
tributable to certain personality traits or characteristic patterns of behavior.
Furthermore, research suggests that these personality traits may also be re-
lated to the development of psychological or physical disorders. Although
the causal links are not well understood, a growing body of research points
to relations among personality, physiological measures, and psychopathology/
health.
Examples of these relationships are evident in the field of psychopath-
ology, or the study of abnormal behavior. Hans Eysenck proposed that the
general characteristics of introversion and extroversion lead individuals to
interact very differently with their environment. Some psychophysiological
studies support this notion and suggest that the behaviors characteristic of
these traits may be driven by physiological differences. Anxiety sensitivity
and locus of control are two personality traits that some suggest are related
to the development of anxiety disorders and depression, respectively. To
varying degrees, anxiety disorders and depression have been investigated in
the psychophysiology laboratory and have been found to differentiate indi-
612
viduals with high and low levels of the personality trait, based on their physi-
ological responses.
Introversion describes the tendency to minimize interaction with the en-
vironment; extroversion is characterized by the opposite behaviors, or the
tendency to interact more with the environment. Eysenck proposed that
such traits reflect physiological differences that are genetically determined
and reflected in the individual’s physiology. Introverted individuals are
thought to be chronically physiologically hyperaroused and thus to seek to
minimize their arousal by minimizing external stimulation. Extroverted in-
dividuals are believed to be chronically physiologically underaroused and to
seek a more optimal level of arousal through increased environmental stim-
ulation. It should be easy to confirm or disprove such a theory with psycho-
physiological studies of resting physiological activity in introverts and extro-
verts. Electroencephalograph (EEG) studies have produced contradictory
evidence about the validity of Eysenck’s theory, however; problems in EEG
methodology, experimental design, and measurement of the traits them-
selves have led to considerable confusion about whether the traits actually
do have a physiological basis.
Anxiety Sensitivity
Anxiety sensitivity describes the tendency for individuals to fear sensations
they associate with anxiety because of beliefs that anxiety may result in
harmful consequences. Research in the development and assessment of this
construct was pioneered by Steven Reiss and his associates in the late 1980’s.
They developed a sixteen-item questionnaire, the Anxiety Sensitivity Index
(ASI), to measure anxiety sensitivity and found it to be both reliable and
valid. Anxiety sensitivity has been most closely related to panic disorder, an
anxiety disorder characterized by frequent, incapacitating episodes of ex-
treme fear or discomfort. In fact, as a group, individuals with panic disorder
score higher on the ASI than individuals with any other anxiety disorder.
Furthermore, some researchers have demonstrated that individuals scoring
high on the ASI are five times more likely to develop an anxiety disorder af-
ter a three-year follow-up.
Research investigating responses to arithmetic, caffeine, and hyperventi-
lation challenges in the laboratory has demonstrated that individual differ-
ences in anxiety sensitivity levels are probably more closely related to the
subjective experience of anxiousness than to actual physiological changes.
Individuals high and low on anxiety sensitivity, however, have exhibited dif-
ferential heart-rate reactivity to a mental arithmetic stressor. That is, individ-
uals high on anxiety sensitivity show a greater acceleration in heart rate than
individuals low on anxiety sensitivity when engaging in an arithmetic chal-
lenge. Individuals scoring high on the ASI also more accurately perceive ac-
tual changes in their physiology when compared with their low-scoring
counterparts. Such heightened reactivity and sensitivity to physiological
change may partially explain how anxiety sensitivity influences the develop-
613
Psychology Basics
ment of anxiety disorders. Individuals high in anxiety sensitivity may be

more reactive to environmental threat; therefore, their increased sensitivity
may have a physiological basis. They also may be more likely to detect
changes in their physiology, which they are then more likely to attribute to
threat or danger.
On a more general note, cardiovascular and electrodermal measures can
differentiate between anxiety patients and other people at rest. The differ-
ences become greater under conditions of stimulation. Delayed habituation
rates in anxiety patients are also part of the pattern of physiological overarousal
typically seen in individuals with heightened anxiety. Indeed, heightened
physiological arousal is one of the hallmark characteristics of anxiety.
Locus of Control
Locus of control, made popular by Julian Rotter in the 1960’s, refers to indi-
viduals’ perceptions of whether they have control over what happens to
them across situations. This personality construct has been related to the de-
velopment of depression. Specifically, it is believed that individuals who at-
tribute failures to internal factors (self-blame) and successes to external fac-
tors (to other people or to luck) are more susceptible to developing feelings
of helplessness, often followed by despair and depression. Locus of control
also is hypothesized to have implications in the management of chronic
health-related problems.
In oversimplified categorizations, individuals are labeled to have an “in-
ternal” or “external” locus of control. “External” individuals, who believe
they have little control over what happens to them, are said to be more reac-
tive to threat, more emotionally labile, more hostile, and lower in self-es-
teem and self-control. Psychophysiological assessment studies have revealed
heart-rate acceleration and longer electrodermal habituation for “exter-
nals” in response to the presentation of tones under passive conditions.
When faced with no-control conditions in stress situations such as inescap-
able shock, “internals” show elevated physiological arousal, while findings
for “externals” are mixed. Thus, the locus of control has varying effects on
physiology, depending on the circumstances. Such effects may play a role in
psychological disorders such as depression and anxiety. Heightened physio-
logical reactivity may also inhibit recovery from acute illness or affect the
course of chronic health problems such as hypertension.
In addition to the relevance of personality to physiological reactivity and
psychopathology, research has demonstrated that certain personality types
may be risk factors or serve protective functions with regard to physical
health. Type A behavior pattern and hardiness are two examples. Type A be-
havior pattern is characterized by competitiveness, time urgency, and hostil-
ity. It has been identified as a potential risk factor for the development of
coronary heart disease. Psychophysiological studies have suggested that, un-
der certain laboratory conditions, males who exhibit the Type A pattern are
more cardiovascularly responsive. This reactivity is the proposed mecha-
614
nism by which Type A behavior affects the heart. More recent research has
suggested that not all components of the Type A pattern are significantly as-
sociated with heightened cardiovascular reactivity. Hostility seems to be the
most critical factor in determining heightened reactivity. Males who re-
spond to stress with hostility tend to show greater heart-rate and blood-pres-
sure increases than individuals low in hostility. Some research suggests that
hostility is also a risk factor for heart disease in women.
In contrast to hostility, hardiness is proposed to buffer the effects of stress
on physiology. Hardy individuals respond to stressors as challenges and be-
lieve that they have control over the impact of stressors. They also feel com-
mitment to their life, including work and family. Psychophysiological stud-
ies have supported the buffering effect of hardiness. Individuals who are
more hardy tend to be less physiologically responsive to stressors and to re-
cover from stressors more rapidly. Again, the construct of hardiness seems
to be more relevant for males, partially because males have been studied
more often.
These studies show that various personality types can be distinguished to
varying degrees by psychophysiological measurement. The implications of
such findings include possible physiological contributions to the develop-
ment of various psychological problems as well as personality contributions
to the development or course of physical disease.
Evolution of Research
Although the sophisticated techniques and instruments that have enabled
psychologists to study physiological events were not developed until the
twentieth century, the notion that physiology and psychology (body and
mind) are linked dates back as far as ancient Greece. Hippocrates, for exam-
ple, described four bodily humors or fluids thought to influence various psy-
chological states such as melancholy and mania. Although the link between
mind and body has received varying degrees of emphasis in scientific think-
ing across the centuries, it regained prominence in the mid-1900’s with the
development of the field of psychosomatic medicine, along with the wide-
spread influence of Sigmund Freud’s theories of personality.
Psychosomatic medicine embraced the notion that personality and physi-
ology are intertwined. Psychosomatic theorists believed that certain dis-
eases, such as diabetes, asthma, and hypertension, were associated with
particular personality characteristics. They suggested that personality influ-
enced the development of specific diseases. Although much of this theoriz-
ing has been disproved, these theorists did return the focus to investigat-
ing the interactive nature of a person’s psychological and physiological
makeup.
Psychophysiologists acknowledge the influence of personality character-
istics on physiology and vice versa, and they are working to characterize
these relationships. Future work will better measure particular personality
constructs and will clarify the interaction of gender with personality and
615
Psychology Basics
physiology. Psychophysiologists also must be concerned with the external

validity of the data they obtain in the laboratory. It has not been satisfactorily
demonstrated that physiological responses measured in a given individual
in the laboratory are at all related to that individual’s response in the natural
environment. Thus, in order to establish fully the usefulness of laboratory
findings, psychophysiologists must also study individuals in their natural en-
vironments. Recent technological advances will enable ongoing physiologi-
cal measurement, which should achieve this goal and further establish the
relations among personality, physiology, and behavior.

Cacioppo, John T., Louis G. Tassinary, and Gary G. Berntson, eds. Handbook
of Psychophysiology. 2d ed. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2000. A
general guidebook, aimed at advanced students and professionals.
Eysenck, Hans J. The Biological Basis of Personality. Springfield, Ill.: Charles C
Thomas, 1967. This older book provides a thorough, in-depth discussion
of Eysenck’s theories of the relations between neuroticism, introversion,
and extroversion with physiology.
Stern, Robert Morris, William J. Ray, and Karen S. Quigley. Psychophysio-
logical Recording. 2d ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 2001. The au-
thors provide an excellent, readable introduction to basic principles of
psychophysiology. Part 2, the main body of the text, covers physiology of
and recording procedures for the brain, muscles, eyes, respiratory sys-
tem, gastrointestinal system, cardiovascular system, and skin. Illustrations
depicting typical recordings and a glossary of psychophysiological terms
are helpful additions.
Surwillo, Walter W. Psychophysiology for Clinical Psychologists. Norwood, N.J.:
Ablex, 1990. This text provides basic knowledge of psychophysiology and
highlights some areas of application. Surwillo also incorporates helpful
diagrams and relevant references for research in the area.
Weiten, Wayne, Margaret A. Lloyd, and R. L. Lashley. “Theories of Personal-
ity.” In Psychology Applied to Modern Life: Adjustment at the Turn of the Century.
6th ed. Belmont, Calif.: Wadsworth, 1999. This text, written for under-
graduate students, contains a very readable chapter on personality and
theories of personality development. Other chapters highlight the dy-
namics of adjustment, interpersonal factors, developmental transitions,
and the impact that personality and styles of coping can have on psycho-
logical and physical health.
Virginia L. Goetsch and Lois Veltum
See also: Emotions; Nervous System; Neuropsychology.
616
Personality Theory
Field of study: Personality theory
Personality theories seek to describe and explain the characteristics of thought, feeling,
and behavior that differ among individuals and the coherence of these characteristics
within a single individual. Personality theories describe approaches to human nature
and provide the foundation for psychological therapies.
Key concepts
• attribution theory
• humanistic theory
• personality trait
• psychoanalytic theory
• social learning theory
Psychologists who study personality are interested in explaining both the co-
herence of an individual’s behavior, attitudes, and emotions, and how that
individual may change over time. To paraphrase Clyde Kluckhohn, person-
ality theorists seek to describe and explain how each individual is unique,
how groups of people meaningfully differ from one another, and how all
people share some attributes. In developing answers to these questions,
theorists use widely varying definitions of personality that may differ from
the way the term “personality” is used in everyday language. Indeed, if
there is a single overriding basic issue in personality theory, it is: What is per-
sonality?
Personality and Essence

Theorists agree that people have an internal “essence” that determines who
they are and that guides their behavior, but the nature of that essence differs
from theory to theory. Psychoanalytic theory such as Sigmund Freud’s see
the essence of personality as arising from conflict among internal psychic
processes. For Freud, the conflict is viewed as occurring among the urges for
instinctual gratification (called the id), the urges for perfection (the super-
ego), and the demands of reality (the ego).
Humanistic theories such as those of Carl Rogers and Abraham Maslow
also see people as often engaged in conflict. For these theorists, however,
the conflicts are between an internal self, which is striving for positive ex-
pression, and the constraints of a restrictive external social world. In gen-
eral, the humanists have a much more optimistic outlook on human nature
than do psychoanalytic theorists.
Still other theorists are more neutral with respect to human nature.
George A. Kelly’s cognitive personality theory, for example, views people as
scientists, developing and testing hypotheses to understand themselves
617
Psychology Basics
better and to predict events in their world. Social learning theorists such as
Walter Mischel, Albert Bandura, and Julian Rotter see people as developing
expectations and behavioral tendencies based on their histories of rewards
and punishments and their observations of others.
To some extent, the question of “essence” is also the question of motiva-
tion. Psychoanalytic theorists view people as trying to achieve a balance be-
tween instinctual urges and the demands of reality. In contrast, humanistic
theorists view people as motivated toward personal growth rather than
homeostatic balance. Social learning theorists view people as motivated to
avoid punishments and obtain rewards.
Related to the question of the “essence” of personality is the notion of
whether part, or all, of the personality can be hidden from the individual.
Psychoanalytic theorists believe that the driving forces of the personality are
in the unconscious and thus are not directly accessible to the person except
under exceptional circumstances such as those which arise in therapy. Hu-
manists are much more optimistic about the possibility of people coming to
know their inner selves. According to Rogers, parts of the self which were
once hidden can, when the individual receives acceptance from others, be-
come expressed and incorporated into self-awareness. Social learning theo-
ries do not place much weight on hidden personality dynamics. From the so-
cial learning perspective, people are viewed as unable to verbalize easily
some of their expectations, but no special unconscious processes are hy-
pothesized.
Personality Change
Theories also differ in the degree to which a person’s personality is seen as
changing over time. Most personality theories address the development of
personality in childhood and the possibility for change in adulthood. Psy-
choanalytic theorists believe that the most basic personality characteristics
are established by the age of five or six, although there are some minor fur-
ther developments in adolescence. While the person may change in adult-
hood in the course of psychotherapy and become better able to cope with
the conflicts and traumas experienced during the early years, major person-
ality transformations are not expected. Again, humanists are more optimis-
tic than psychoanalytic theorists about personality change, although hu-
manists, too, see the childhood years as important. For example, Rogers
suggests that during childhood the parents may communicate their ap-
proval of some of the child’s feelings and their disapproval of others, leaving
the child with a distorted self-concept. Yet, from the humanistic point of
view, the person’s true inner self will constantly strive for expression. Thus,
positive personality change is always seen as possible. Social learning theo-
rists also see personality as changeable. Behaviors learned in childhood may
later be changed by direct training, by altering the environment, or by revis-
ing one’s expectations.
A final issue is the relationship between personality and behavior. For so-
618
Personality Theory
cial learning theorists, behaviors and related expectations are personality. A

person’s behaviors are taken as a sample of a full behavioral repertoire
which forms who the person is. Both psychoanalytic and humanistic theo-
rists view behavior as a symptom or sign of underlying, internal personality
dynamics rather than a sample of the personality itself. According to this
viewpoint, a person’s behaviors reflect personality only when interpreted in
the light of the underlying traits they reveal. Diverse behaviors may thus be
related to a single internal characteristic.
Personality Measures
The study of personality is a scientific discipline, with roots in empirical re-
search; a philosophical discipline, seeking to understand the nature of peo-
ple; and the foundation for the applied discipline of psychological therapy.
While these three aspects of personality often support and enrich one an-
other, there are also tensions as the field accommodates specialists in each
of these three areas.
The approach which focuses on personality as a scientific discipline has
produced an array of methods to measure personality characteristics. They
range from projective tests, such as having people tell stories inspired by am-
biguous pictures, to more standardized paper-and-pencil personality tests in
which people respond on bipolar numerical or multiple-choice scales to
questions about their attitudes or behaviors. Methodologically, personality
testing is quite sophisticated; however, people’s scores on personality tests
often are rather poor predictors of behavior. The poor record of behavioral
prediction based on personality traits, coupled with evidence that suggests
that behavior does not have the cross-situational consistency that one might
expect, has led Walter Mischel and many other personality specialists to
question the utility of most traditional personality theories. Social learning
approaches, which emphasize the power of the situation in determining a
person’s behavior, tend to fare better in these analyses.
Predicting Behavior
Research has found circumstances under which people’s behavior can be
predicted from knowledge of their underlying personality characteristics. If
one classifies personality characteristics and behaviors at a very general
level, combining observations and predicting to a group of behaviors, pre-
diction improves. For example, predictions would be more accurate if sev-
eral measures of a person’s conscientiousness were combined, and then
used to predict an overall level of conscientious behavior in a variety of situa-
tions, than if one measured conscientiousness with a single scale and then
attempted to predict behavior in one specific situation. Prediction on the
basis of personality traits also improves when the situations in which one
seeks to predict behaviors allow for individual variation, as opposed to be-
ing highly constrained by social norms. Five basic personality traits often
emerge in investigations: extroversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness,
619
Psychology Basics
emotional stability, and culture (high scores on culture reflect characteris-

tics such as intelligence and refinement). Some researchers view these trait
terms as accurately describing consistent personality differences among
people, while others view them as reflecting the “eye of the beholder” more
than the core of personality.
Ultimately, people’s personality traits and situations interact to produce
behavior. Situations may often determine behavior, but people choose to
place themselves in specific situations that elicit their traits. A child with a
predisposition to aggression may provoke others and thus set the stage for
the expression of aggression; one who is highly sociable may seek out others
in cooperative situations. The relation between personality and behavior is
very complex, and it is difficult to describe fully using standard research
methods.
Research is highly unlikely to answer philosophical questions concern-
ing human nature; however, considering people from the different points
of view offered by various theories can be an enriching experience in itself.
For example, a Freudian perspective on former United States president
Lyndon Johnson might see his leadership during the Vietnam War as
guided by aggressive instincts or even sublimated sexual instincts. On the
other hand, a humanist might look at Johnson’s presidency and find his
decisions to be guided by the need for self-fulfillment, perhaps citing his
vision of himself as the leader of the “Great Society” as an example of self-
actualization. Social learning theorists would view Johnson’s actions as presi-
dent as determined by the rewards, punishments, and observational learn-
ing of his personal learning history, including growing up relatively poor in
Texas and accruing power and respect during his years in the U.S. Senate, as
well as by the reinforcements and punishments Johnson perceived to be
available in the situations in which he found himself during his presidency.
In the final analysis, none of these interpretations could be shown to be bla-
tantly false or absolutely true. Historians, biographers, and others might
find each to be an enriching viewpoint from which to consider this complex
individual.
Therapy
Multiple points of view also characterize the therapies derived from theories
of personality. Most therapists take an eclectic approach, sampling from the
ideas of various theories to tailor their treatment to a specific client. Each
therapist, however, also may have her or his own biases, based on a particular
theoretical orientation. For example, a client who often feels anxious and
seeks help from a psychoanalytic therapist may find that the therapist en-
courages the client to explore memories of childhood experiences to dis-
cover the unconscious roots of the anxiety. Slips of the tongue, dreams, and
difficulty remembering or accepting therapeutic interpretations would be
viewed as important clues to unconscious processes. The same client seek-
ing treatment from a humanistic therapist would have a different experi-
620
Personality Theory
ence. There, the emphasis would be on current experiences, with the thera-
pist providing a warm and supportive atmosphere for the client to explore
feelings. A behavioral therapist, from the social learning orientation, would
help the client pinpoint situations in which anxiety occurs and teach the cli-
ent alternative responses to those situations. Again, no one form of therapy
is superior for all clients. Successes or failures in therapy depend on the
combination of client, therapist, and mode of treatment.
Theories and Experimentation

While people have long speculated on the causes and types of individual dif-
ferences in personality, the theory of Sigmund Freud was the first and most
influential psychological personality theory. All subsequent theories have
directly or indirectly addressed the central concerns of motivation, develop-
ment, and personality organization first proposed by Freud. Psychoanalytic
theorists such as Carl Jung and Alfred Adler, while trained by Freud, dis-
agreed with Freud’s emphasis on sexual instincts and developed their own
theories, emphasizing different motivations. Similarly, Karen Horney, Erich
Fromm, and others developed theories placing greater emphasis on the ego
and its interaction with society than did Freud’s.
Psychoanalytic theory has had somewhat less of an influence in the
United States than it did in Europe. Personality psychology in the United
States is relatively more research-oriented, practical, and optimistic. In the
United States, Gordon Allport developed one of the first trait approaches to
personality. The humanistic theories of Carl Rogers and Abraham Maslow,
social learning theories of Albert Bandura and Julian Rotter, and cognitive
theory of George A. Kelly flourished in the 1950’s and 1960’s and continue
to have their advocates. Modern personality psychologists, however, are
much more likely to confine themselves to personality measurement and re-
search than to propose broad theories of personality.
Many have questioned personality’s status as a scientific subdiscipline of
psychology. In 1968, Walter Mischel’s Personality and Assessment, arguing that
the consistency and behavior-prediction assumptions inherent in all person-
ality theories are unsupported by the evidence, was published. At the same
time, attribution theories in social psychology were suggesting that person-
ality traits are largely in the “eye of the beholder” rather than in the person
being observed. For example, Edward Jones and Richard Nisbett argued
that people are more inclined to see others as possessing personality traits
than they are to attribute traits to themselves. The continued existence of
personality as a subdiscipline of scientific psychology was debated.
The result has been a refined approach to measurement and personality
analysis. Current research on personality does not boldly assert the influ-
ence of internal personality characteristics on behavior. There are no new
theories purporting to explain all of personality or the nature of all people.
Rather, attention is paid to careful assessment of personality and to the com-
plex interactions of persons and situations. For example, research on loneli-
621
Psychology Basics
ness has found that people who describe themselves as lonely often lack so-
cial skills and avoid interactions with others, thus perpetuating their feelings
of loneliness. All personality characteristics, including loneliness, are most
meaningfully seen as the product of a complex interrelationship between
the person and the environment.

sonality. 4th ed. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1998. A classic textbook de-
scribing personality theories. Personality research is mentioned but not
discussed in detail. Includes particularly readable, thorough, and accu-
rate descriptions of psychoanalytic theories. Chapter 1 introduces the
topic of personality theories and describes many dimensions upon which
theories can be contrasted.
Hampden-Turner, Charles. Maps of the Mind. New York: Collier Books, 1982.
Presents brief descriptions and pictorial representations (termed “maps”)
of basic psychological and philosophical concepts. The organization
and presentation are a bit idiosyncratic; the summaries are very good
and the diagrams helpful in synthesizing complex information. Descrip-
tions and maps relevant to the theories of Sigmund Freud, Carl Jung,
Erich Fromm, Rollo May, Hans Eysenck, Carl Rogers, Harry Stack Sulli-
van, and Erik Erikson are particularly relevant to basic issues in personal-
ity theory.
Mischel, Walter. Introduction to Personality. 6th ed. Fort Worth, Tex.: Harcourt
Brace Jovanovich, 1999. A college-level personality textbook with an em-
phasis on modern issues and research. Each major orientation to person-
ality—psychodynamic, trait, phenomenological (humanistic), and be-
havioral—is presented with thorough discussions of measurement and
research. The reader may find that this text alone is incomplete in its de-
scription of personality theories per se, but it makes an excellent com-
panion reading to Hall, Lindzey, and Campbell’s Theories of Personality
(above). Mischel’s approach to social learning theory is presented.
__________. Personality and Assessment. 1968. Reprint. Hillsdale, N.J.: Ana-
lytic Press, 1996. The text that inspired debate about the utility of tradi-
tional personality theories. Readable but detailed; primarily of historical
importance.
Pervin, Lawrence A., and Oliver John, eds. Handbook of Personality: Theory
and Research. 2d ed. New York: Guilford Press, 2001. A compilation of per-
sonality theory and research for the sophisticated reader. Chapters by
Walter Mischel (“Personality Dispositions Revisited and Revised: A View
After Three Decades”), David Magnusson (“Personality Development
from an Interactional Perspective”), and Bernard Weiner (“Attribution
in Personality Psychology”) may be of particular interest.
Storr, Anthony. Churchill’s Black Dog, Kafka’s Mice, and Other Phenomena of the
Human Mind. New York: Grove Press, 1988. This fascinating book demon-
622
Personality Theory
strates how personality theories can be used to interpret lives. Storr de-
scribes the creative process in general and the lives of Winston Churchill,
Franz Kafka, and others from his psychological point of view, primarily
psychoanalytic in orientation. The perspectives of Sigmund Freud, Carl
Jung, and Erik Erikson are featured.
Susan E. Beers
See also: Analytical Psychology: Carl Jung; Cognitive Social Learning: Wal-
ter Mischel; Humanistic Trait Models: Gordon Allport; Psychoanalytic Psy-
chology; Psychoanalytic Psychology and Personality: Sigmund Freud; Social
Learning: Albert Bandura.
623
Personology
Henry A. Murray
Fields of study: Humanistic-phenomenological models; personality
theory
Murray’s study of personality, or personology, as he preferred to call it, highlights the

uniqueness of the individual and the interaction between individual needs and envi-
ronmental constraints. His theory precipitated the in-depth study of human needs and
provided an instrument for assessing human personality.
Key concepts
• alpha press
• beta press
• need
• need for achievement
• press
• thematic apperception test (TAT)
Henry A. Murray was born into a wealthy family in New York City in 1893.
His early life was unremarkable, and unlike numerous other personality the-
orists, he experienced no major traumas that obviously influenced his the-
ory. He was not trained in psychology (in fact, he greatly disliked psychology
classes); rather, he studied biology and later received his Ph.D. in biochemis-
try from the University of Cambridge. His interest in psychology and per-
sonality processes was ignited during a three-week stay with Carl Jung, the
eminent Swiss psychoanalyst. This meeting led to a change in career aspira-
tions, whereupon Murray was brought to Harvard University to engage in
personality research and establish the Harvard Psychological Clinic.
Murray’s biomedical training is reflected in his belief that personality
processes are dependent on brain functioning. He did not believe that per-
sonality actually existed; he believed that descriptions of personality were
shorthand methods of describing various aspects of individuals and their be-
haviors. He thought that personality helped explain and predict an individ-
ual’s actions, drives, needs, goals, and plans. He stated that his system of per-
sonality, “personology,” was a tentative theory, as psychologists did not yet
know enough to capture completely the essence of each individual.
As opposed to personality theorists who developed their ideas in the
clinic, working with emotionally disturbed individuals, Murray believed that
the best way to investigate personality was to study normal individuals in
their natural environments. While at Harvard, he undertook an intensive
study of fifty-one male undergraduates during a six-month period. The un-
dergraduates were examined by a council of twenty-eight specialists of vari-
624
Personology: Henry A. Murray
ous training and expertise so that the personalities of the students might be
fully understood.
From these studies, Murray developed his ideas about human needs. He
believed that these needs helped individuals focus their attention on certain
events and guided their behaviors to meet those needs. There are primary
needs that originate from internal bodily processes (for example, air, water,
food, and sex) and secondary needs that are concerned with mental and
emotional satisfaction (for example, achievement, dominance, understand-
ing, and affiliation). He proposed a hierarchy of needs, a concept later elab-
orated on by Abraham Maslow, in which the most basic needs, such as that
for food, must be met before others can be addressed. Murray originally
proposed a list of twenty basic human needs, although this list was later re-
vised and expanded by his students and followers.
“Press” Concept
Although Murray’s elaboration and description of human needs was one of
his major contributions to psychology, his focus on the situational context
for behavior foreshadowed psychology’s future emphasis on environmental
events. He proposed the concept of “press,” or forces provided by situations
or events in the environment. These forces may help or hinder individuals
in reaching their goals. For example, a student may have a need for achieve-
ment that would result in her attending college and receiving a degree. En-
vironmental conditions such as poverty, however, may hinder her progress
or pressure her away from these goals and necessitate that she take a job to
support her family. In this situation, Murray also distinguished between “al-
pha press,” or actual pressure resulting from environmental situations, and
“beta press,” or subjective pressure that results from individual interpreta-
tion of the events. In the example of going to college given above, alpha
press might be the college board scores or the money necessary to go to cer-
tain colleges. These are real, and they involve little interpretation. Beta press
might be the interpretation that if the student does not get into a certain col-
lege, she will be viewed as an embarrassment and a failure. This type of pres-
sure comes from an internal evaluation of environmental events.
Use of the TAT

A final major contribution of Murray’s personology theory comes from the
device he used to determine individual needs and more generally measure
personality. Along with Christiana Morgan, Murray developed the Thematic
Apperception Test (TAT), which continues to be a widely used instrument
for assessing human personality. The TAT consists of thirty ambiguous
black-and-white pictures for which an individual is instructed to make up a
story. The test subject is asked to tell what led up to the event in the picture,
what is happening in the picture, including how the characters are thinking
and feeling, and what will happen to the characters in the future. Murray’s
idea was that test subjects will project their needs into the picture, much as
625
Psychology Basics
individuals who are on a diet will notice food in most situations that they en-
counter. It is similar to the children’s game of identifying the shapes of
clouds. Children may identify clouds with children’s themes of dragons,
monsters, or dinosaurs. Adolescents may view these same clouds as other
boys and girls, cars, or sports figures. Murray hypothesized that certain
themes would emerge from individuals’ responses to the figures and that
themes and expectations for the future would become evident. Mental
health professionals continue to use the TAT for this purpose.
Achievement Need
Henry A. Murray’s theoretical focus was to catalog all possible human
needs. This led to a wide range of understanding; however, it was left to later
researchers to add depth to the understanding of needs. One of the best re-
searched of the secondary needs is the need for achievement. This need of
individuals to overcome obstacles and accomplish what often are very dif-
ficult tasks has been investigated in detail by David McClelland and his
colleague John Atkinson. They developed a system for scoring individuals’
responses to TAT cards to abstract achievement-oriented themes. They ob-
served that individuals who had a high need for achievement completed
more tasks under competitive conditions, were more productive in their jobs,
and tended to get better grades. They used this information and measuring
system to develop a training program for industry that has been shown to in-
crease employees’ need for achievement and job productivity. Their system
was found to be working even two years after the program was begun. Inter-
esting questions remain, however; for example, at what level does the need
for achievement become unproductive? At some point it will lead to unreal-
istic expectations, unnecessary stress, and related health problems.
One of the fascinating things about the McClelland and Atkinson method
of assessing an individual’s need for achievement is that it is not restricted to
measuring responses from TAT cards. Their scoring system can be used with
any written material; therefore, it can be adapted to a vast amount of liter-
ary, historical, and biographical information. McClelland conjectured that
he could predict the economic growth and decline of a country from the
number of achievement themes evident in its children’s stories. He looked
at the economic conditions of twenty-three nations from 1929 to 1950 and
scored their children’s stories from the prior decade (1920-1929). While it is
apparent that children’s stories are not the only factor related to economic
well-being, McClelland did discover that those countries with a higher num-
ber of achievement themes in the children’s stories experienced the most
economic growth.
Gender Differences in Achievement

Another example of the importance of Murray’s pioneering work on the
need for achievement comes from research on how this need is demon-
strated differently by men and women. It had been evident for many years
626
that the expression of achievement was more acceptable for men than for
women. It has only been in recent years that the issues surrounding the
achievement of women have been investigated. It is clear that these issues, in
general, have been experienced much differently by women from the way
they have been experienced by men. The paths for understanding and ex-
pressing ideas of achievement for men and women clearly differ very early
in life. A series of studies supports the idea that women with a high need for
achievement come from relatively stressful and difficult home lives, whereas
men with a similar level of achievement strivings come from supportive,
nonstressful homes. Additionally, girls tend to evidence their needs for
achievement because of a desire for adult approval, while boys do not dem-
onstrate this motivation.
One of the more interesting, as well as distressing, findings regarding sex
differences in the need for achievement comes from the research of Matina
Horner. She found that women experience considerable conflict and dis-
tress when faced with their need to achieve, whereas men do not experience
a similar state. She proposed that the “smart girl” faced the prospect of con-
siderable loss of social status and peer rejection as a result of her strivings to
achieve. This may result in the behavior of acting “dumb” in order to pros-
per socially. Horner elaborated on Sigmund Freud’s original idea that
women actually may fear success because of its social consequences.
In a famous study by Horner, she had men and women write a story after
being given an opening line. The women were to write a story about a
woman who found herself at the top of her medical school class after the
first semester. The men had the same story, except that it was a man who was
at the top of the class. Far more women wrote stories of the unappealing and
sometimes tragic consequences for the smart woman in class. They wrote
about possible rejections and losses of friends and indicated that she would
have a poorer chance of getting married. Many of the women came up with
situations related to removing the student from the conflict situation, such
as dropping out of medical school or settling for becoming a nurse. Finally,
some of the students even indicated that she might receive bodily harm as a
result of her stellar performance.
The conflicting messages of society regarding achievement for women
are clearly shown by this study. It is apparent that women face considerable
struggles in their attempts to compete and achieve equally with men. The
factors that will alleviate this internal distress and aid women in the full
expression of their abilities await further investigation. It was Murray’s
pioneering study of human needs that laid the groundwork for these types
of investigation, which have the potential to inspire long-overdue social
changes.
Theoretical Contributions
Murray’s theory of personology was a unique contribution to the early years
of personality theorizing. His system differed from those before it (for ex-
627
Psychology Basics
ample, Freud’s psychoanalytic theory) in that it was not developed in a clinic

as a result of working with clients. Murray studied normal individuals in
great detail and gained knowledge from experts in a number of disciplines.
This gave personality theory a certain degree of academic respectability it
had not had previously acquired. Murray was also a highly influential
teacher, with many students who made significant contributions to psy-
chology.
Murray’s description of “needs” was a major contribution to the psycho-
logical study of motivation. His research spurred many investigations of in-
dividual human needs. Additionally, his complementary emphasis on envi-
ronmental events (that is, “press”) was later to become a major shift in
American psychology. The behavioral school of psychology, with its leaders
John B. Watson and B. F. Skinner, was to become the dominant force for
many years. Their focus on the manipulation of environmental events (for
example, rewards and punishments) was to have a major influence on edu-
cation, therapy, and childrearing. The subjective interpretation of environ-
mental events (that is, “beta press”) also was a precursor to a major shift in
theory. The cognitive school of psychology now focuses on these mental re-
arrangements of events and makes predictions based on individuals’ expec-
tations and fears. Murray’s emphasis on the fact that the idiosyncratic per-
ception of an event is not always the same as what actually happened is the
foundation for this approach.
Finally, Murray’s development of the TAT (with Christiana Morgan) was
an early and influential contribution to the area of personality assessment. It
and similar tests, such as the Rorschach inkblot test and the incomplete sen-
tences blank, are frequently used for gathering personality information in
the clinic. Even the weaknesses of the TAT (for example, different investiga-
tors may score it very differently) led to the development of more objective
personality tests with standardized questions and scoring. Murray’s influ-
ence, both in the classroom and in the clinic, was substantial.

Anderson, James W. “Henry A. Murray’s Early Career: A Psychobiographical
Exploration.” Journal of Personality 56, no. 1 (1988): 139-171. An interest-
ing presentation of the factors that led Henry Murray to become a psy-
chologist and of how his experiences interacted with his theory. An excel-
lent example of how one’s life cannot be extricated from one’s beliefs
about human nature.
Boring, Edwin G., and Gardner Lindzey, eds. A History of Psychology in Autobi-
ography. Vol. 5. New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1967. In an autobio-
graphical essay in volume 5 of this survey, Henry Murray presents a de-
tailed view of his concepts and the influence of his work.
sonality. 4th ed. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1998. A definitive reference
for information on most personality theorists. A thorough book that gives
628
a detailed explanation of most of Murray’s concepts. Not recommended

for the casual reader.
Schultz, Duane P. Theories of Personality. 5th ed. Belmont, Calif.: Brooks/
Cole, 1994. A review of the major aspects of Henry Murray’s theory in an
easy-to-read format. Provides substantial biographical information about
Murray and how this influenced his theory.
Smith, M. B., and J. W. Anderson. “Henry A. Murray (1893-1988).” American
Psychologist 44 (1989): 1153-1154. This obituary is a personal account of
Murray’s career and his impact on his students as well as on psychology.
Covers not only the facts of Murray’s work but also his perceptions of his
work.
Brett L. Beck
See also: Aggression; Psychoanalytic Psychology.
629
Phobias
Field of study: Anxiety disorders
Phobias are exaggerated, unjustified fears of everyday objects or situations, such as
fear of certain types of animals or fears of doing things in front of other people. Though
many people experience irrational fears or phobias, few seek treatment; as a result, they
suffer emotional pain and may find their lives limited by their phobias.
Key concepts
• instrumental conditioning
Phobias are a type of anxiety disorder characterized by a persistent, exagger-

ated, irrational fear of certain objects or situations and by efforts to avoid
the object or situation. In many cases, the distress and the avoidance efforts
significantly interfere with an individual’s daily life. Phobias are common in
the general population; approximately one person in ten suffers from mild
phobias, and severe, disabling phobias are found in one person in five hun-
dred.
The three major types of phobias are agoraphobia (a fear of situations in
which escape is perceived to be difficult or assistance unavailable), social
phobias, and specific (or “simple”) phobias. In social phobias, being ob-
served by others may elicit anxiety and the desire to avoid such situations.
The person fears doing something which will lead to embarrassment or hu-
miliation, such as being unable to speak or showing nervousness through
trembling hands or other signs. Persons with specific phobias avoid a certain
type of object or situation or suffer extreme anxiety when in the presence of
these objects or situations. Some examples of common specific phobias are
acrophobia, fear of heights; arachnophobia, fear of spiders; claustrophobia,
fear of being in small, enclosed spaces; pathophobia, fear of diseases and
germs; and xenophobia, fear of strangers.
In the presence of the feared object or situation, the severely phobic per-
son’s experience and reaction differ dramatically from the average person’s.
Physiologically, changes in the body cause an increase in heart rate and
blood pressure, tensing of muscles, and feelings of fear. In many cases, a
panic state develops, characterized by muscular trembling and shaking,
rapid, shallow breathing, and feelings of unbearable anxiety and dizziness.
Behaviorally, the person will stop or redirect whatever activity in which he or
she is engaged, then try to escape from or avoid the phobic object or situa-
tion. Cognitively, a phobic person at a distance from the object or situation
630
Phobias
can recognize it as posing little actual danger; but upon approaching it, fear
rises, and the estimation of risk increases.
The many theories which attempt to explain how phobias develop can be
grouped under three general headings: those which stress unconscious
emotional conflicts, those which explain phobias based on the principles of
learning, and those which consider biological factors. For Sigmund Freud,
phobias represented the external manifestation of unconscious internal
emotional conflicts which had their origin in early childhood. These con-
flicts typically involved the inhibition of primitive sexual feelings.
Learning-theory explanations of phobias are based on Pavlovian condi-
tioning, instrumental conditioning, and social learning theory. According
to a Pavlovian conditioning model, phobias result when a neutral stimu-
lus—a dog, for example—is paired with an unconditioned stimulus (US),
for example, a painful bite to the leg. After this event, the sight of the dog
has become a conditioned stimulus (CS) which elicits a conditioned re-
sponse (CR), fear; thus, a dog phobia has been learned. Instrumental condi-
tioning (the modification of behavior as a result of its consequences) has
been combined with Pavlovian conditioning in the two-factor model of pho-
bias. After the establishment of the phobia by Pavlovian conditioning, as
above, a person will attempt to escape from or avoid the phobic object or sit-
uation whenever it is encountered. When this is successful, the fear subsides.
The reduction in fear is a desirable consequence which increases the likeli-
hood of escape/avoidance behavior in the future (that is, the escape/avoid-
ance behavior is reinforced). The two-factor model thus accounts for both
the development and maintenance of phobias. Social learning theory sug-
gests that human learning is based primarily on the observation and imita-
tion of others; thus, fears and phobias would be acquired by observing oth-
ers who show fearful behavior toward certain objects or situations. This
learning occurs primarily during childhood, when children learn many be-
haviors and attitudes by modeling those of others.
Two theories suggest that inherited biological factors contribute to the
development of phobias. The preparedness theory suggests that those stim-
uli which are most easily conditioned are objects or situations which may
have posed a particular threat to humans’ early ancestors, such as spiders,
heights, small spaces, thunder, and strangers. Thus, people are genetically
prepared to acquire fear of them quickly. Similarly, people vary in suscep-
tibility to phobias, and this is also thought to be based at least partly on an
inherited predisposition. A phobia-prone person may be physiologically
highly arousable; thus, many more events would reach a threshold of fear
necessary for conditioning.
Stressful life situations, including extreme conflict or frustration, may
also predispose a person to develop a phobia or exacerbate an existing pho-
bia. Further, a sense of powerlessness or lack of control over one’s situation
631
Psychology Basics
DSM-IV-TR Criteria for Phobias

Specific Phobia (DSM code 300.29)
Marked and persistent fear that is excessive or unreasonable and cued by
presence or anticipation of specific object or situation (flying, heights, ani-
mals, receiving an injection, seeing blood)
Exposure to phobic stimulus almost invariably provokes immediate anxiety
response, which may take the form of situationally bound or situationally pre-
disposed panic attack; in children, anxiety may be expressed by crying, tan-
trums, freezing, or clinging
Person recognizes fear as excessive or unreasonable; in children, this fea-
ture may be absent
Phobic situation(s) avoided or endured with intense anxiety or dis-
tress
Avoidance, anxious anticipation, or distress in feared situation(s) interferes
significantly with normal routines, occupational (or academic) functioning,
or social activities or relationships, or marked distress about phobia present
In individuals under age eighteen, duration of at least six months
Anxiety, panic attacks, or phobic avoidance associated with specific object or
situation not better accounted for by another mental disorder, such as Obsessive-
Compulsive Disorder, Post-traumatic Stress Disorder, Separation Anxiety Disor-
der, Social Phobia, Panic Disorder with Agoraphobia, or Agoraphobia With-
out History of Panic Disorder
Specify:
• Animal Type
• Natural Environment Type (such as heights, storms, water)
• Blood-Injection-Injury Type
• Situational Type (such as airplanes, elevators, enclosed places)
• Other Type (such as phobic avoidance of situations that may lead to
choking, vomiting, or contracting an illness; in children, avoidance of
loud sounds or costumed characters)
may increase susceptibility; this may partly explain why phobias are more
common in women than in men, as these feelings are reported more often
by women than by men. Once initiated, phobias tend to persist and even
worsen over time, and the fear may spread to other, similar objects or situa-
tions. Even phobias which have been successfully treated may recur if the
person is exposed to the original US, or even to another US which produces
extreme anxiety. Thus, many factors—unconscious, learned, and biologi-
cal—may be involved in the onset and maintenance of phobias. As every
person is unique in terms of biology and life experience, each phobia is also
unique and represents a particular interaction of the factors above and pos-
sibly other, unknown factors.
632
Phobias
Social Phobia (DSM code 300.23)

Marked and persistent fear of one or more social or performance situations
involving exposure to unfamiliar people or to possible scrutiny by others; indi-
vidual fears that he or she will act in a way (or show anxiety symptoms) that will
be humiliating or embarrassing
In children, evidence requires the capacity for age-appropriate social rela-
tionships with familiar people and anxiety must occur in peer settings, not just
in interactions with adults
Exposure to feared social situation almost invariably provokes anxiety,
which may take the form of situationally bound or situationally predisposed
panic attack; in children, anxiety may be expressed by crying, tantrums, freez-
ing, or shrinking from social situations with unfamiliar people
Person recognizes fear as excessive or unreasonable; in children, this fea-
ture may be absent
Feared social or performance situations avoided or endured with intense
anxiety or distress
Avoidance, anxious anticipation, or distress in feared social or perfor-
mance situation(s) interferes significantly with normal routines, occupational
(academic) functioning, or social activities or relationships, or marked distress
about phobia present
In individuals under age eighteen, duration of at least six months
Fear or avoidance not due to direct physiological effects of a substance or
general medical condition
Not better accounted for by another mental disorder such as Panic Disor-
der with or Without Agoraphobia, Separation Anxiety Disorder, Body Dys-
morphic Disorder, a Pervasive Developmental Disorder, or Schizoid Personal-
ity Disorder
If general medical condition or another mental disorder present, fear un-
related to it
Specify if Generalized (fears include most social situations)
Case Studies and Therapy Techniques

The following two case studies of phobias illustrate their onset, develop-
ment, and the various treatment approaches typically used. These studies
are fictionalized composites of the experiences of actual clients.
Ellen P. entered an anxiety disorders clinic requesting large amounts of
tranquilizers. She revealed that she wanted them to enable her to fly on air-
planes; if she could not fly, she would probably lose her job as a sales repre-
sentative. Ellen described an eight-year history of a fear of flying, during
which she had simply avoided all airplane flights and had driven or taken a
train to distant sales appointments. She would sometimes drive through the
night, keep her appointments during the day, then again drive through the
633
Psychology Basics
night back to the home office. As these trips occurred more often, she be-
came increasingly exhausted, and her work performance began to decline
noticeably.
A review of major childhood and adolescent experiences revealed only
that Ellen was a chronic worrier. She also reported flying comfortably on
many occasions prior to the onset of her phobia but remembered her last
flight in vivid detail. She was flying to meet her husband for a honeymoon
cruise, but the plane was far behind schedule because of poor weather. She
began to worry that she would miss the boat and that her honeymoon, and
possibly her marriage, would be ruined. The plane then encountered some
minor turbulence, and brief images of a crash raced through Ellen’s mind.
She rapidly became increasingly anxious, tense, and uncomfortable. She
grasped her seat cushion; her heart seemed to be pounding in her throat;
she felt dizzy and was beginning to perspire. Hoping no one would notice
her distress, she closed her eyes, pretending to sleep for the remainder of
the flight. After returning from the cruise, she convinced her husband to
cancel their plane reservations and thus began her eight years of avoiding
flying.
Ellen’s psychologist began exposure therapy for her phobia. First she was
trained to relax deeply. Then she was gradually exposed to her feared stim-
uli, progressing from visiting an airport to sitting on a taxiing plane to
weekly flights of increasing length in a small plane. After ten weeks of ther-
apy and practice at home and the airport, Ellen was able to fly on a commer-
cial airliner. Two years after the conclusion of therapy, Ellen met her psy-
chologist by chance and informed her that she now had her own pilot’s
license.
In the second case, Steve R. was a high school junior who was referred by
his father because of his refusal to attend school. Steve was described as a
loner who avoided other people and suffered fears of storms, cats, and now,
apparently, school. He was of above-average intelligence and was pressured
by his father to excel academically and attend a prestigious college. Steve’s
mother was described as being shy, like Steve. Steve was her only child, and
she doted on him, claiming she knew what it felt like to be in his situation.
When interviewed, Steve sat rigidly in his chair, spoke in clipped sen-
tences, and offered answers only to direct questions. Questioning revealed
that Steve’s refusal to attend school was based on a fear of ridicule by his
classmates. He would not eat or do any written work in front of them for fear
he was being watched and would do something clumsy, thus embarrassing
himself. He never volunteered answers to teachers’ questions, but in one
class, the teacher had begun to call on Steve regularly for the correct answer
whenever other students had missed the question. Steve would sit in a near-
panic state, fearing he would be called on. After two weeks of this, he refused
to return to school.
Steve was diagnosed as having a severe social phobia. His therapy in-
cluded a contract with his teachers in which it was agreed that he would not
634
Phobias
be called upon in class until therapy had made it possible for him to answer
with only moderate anxiety. In return, he was expected to attend all his
classes. To help make this transition, a psychiatrist prescribed an antianxiety
drug to help reduce the panic symptoms. A psychologist began relaxation
training for use in exposure therapy, which would include Steve volunteer-
ing answers in class and seeking social interactions with his peers. Steve fin-
ished high school, though he left the state university at the end of his first se-
mester because of a worsening of his phobias. His therapy was resumed, and
he graduated from a local community college, though his phobias contin-
ued to recur during stressful periods in his life.
These cases illustrate many of the concepts related to the study of pho-
bias. In both cases, it is possible that a high emotional reactivity predisposed
the person to a phobia. In Ellen’s case, the onset of the phobia was sudden
and appeared to be the result of Pavlovian conditioning, whereas in Steve’s
case, the phobia likely developed over time and involved social learning:
modeling of his mother’s behavior. Steve’s phobia may also have been inad-
vertently reinforced by his mother’s attention; thus, instrumental condition-
ing may have been involved as well. Ellen’s phobia could be seen to involve a
sense of lack of control, combined with a possibly inherited predisposition
to fear enclosed spaces. Steve’s phobia illustrated both a spreading of the
phobia and recurrence of the phobia under stress.
Historical Variations in Perspectives

As comprehensive psychological theories of human behavior began to
emerge in the early 1900’s, each was faced with the challenge of explaining
the distinct symptoms, but apparently irrational nature, of phobias. For ex-
ample, in 1909, Sigmund Freud published his account of the case of “Little
Hans,” a young boy with a horse phobia. Freud hypothesized that Hans had
an unconscious fear of his father which was transferred to a more appropri-
ate object: the horse. Freud’s treatment of phobias involved analyzing the
unconscious conflicts (through psychoanalysis) and giving patients insight
into the “true” nature of their fears.
An alternative explanation of phobias based on the principles of Pavlov-
ian conditioning was proposed by John B. Watson and Rosalie Rayner in
1920. They conditioned a fear of a white rat in an infant nicknamed “Little
Albert” by pairing presentation of the rat with a frightening noise (an un-
conditioned stimulus). After a few such trials, simply presenting the rat
(now a conditioned stimulus) produced fear and crying (the conditioned
response).
Experimental Models
As B. F. Skinner’s laboratory discoveries of the principles of instrumental
conditioning began to be applied to humans in the 1940’s and 1950’s, ex-
perimental models of phobias in animals were developed. In the 1950’s, Jo-
seph Wolpe created phobia-like responses in cats by shocking them in ex-
635
Psychology Basics
perimental cages. He was later able to decrease their fear by feeding them in
the cages where they had previously been shocked. Based on this counter-
conditioning model, Wolpe developed the therapy procedure of systematic
desensitization, which paired mental images of the feared stimulus with
bodily relaxation.
Social learning theory as advanced by Albert Bandura in the 1960’s was
also applied to phobias. Bandura conducted experiments showing that
someone might develop a phobia by observing another person behaving
fearfully. It was later demonstrated that some phobias could be treated by
having the patient observe and imitate a nonfearful model. Cognitive ap-
proaches to phobias were also developed in the 1970’s and 1980’s by thera-
pists such as Albert Ellis and Aaron T. Beck. These theories focus on the role
of disturbing thoughts in creating bodily arousal and associated fear. Ther-
apy then consists of altering these thought patterns.
Applications to Psychology
Phobias can thus be seen as providing a testing ground for the major theo-
ries of psychology. Whether the theorist adopts a psychodynamic, learning/
behavioral, or cognitive perspective, some account of the development and
treatment of phobias must be made. No one theory has been shown to be
completely adequate, so research continues in each area. The study of pho-
bias also illustrates the importance to psychology of animal research in help-
ing psychologists to understand and treat human problems. For example,
Susan Mineka has used monkeys to demonstrate the relative importance of
social learning versus biology in the development of phobias. Future re-
search will also likely consider the interactions among the various models of
phobias and the conditions that might predict which models would be most
effective in explaining and treating specific cases of phobias. As the models
mature and are integrated into a comprehensive theory of phobias, this
knowledge can then be applied to the prevention of phobias.

Beck, Aaron T., and Gary Emery. Anxiety Disorders and Phobias: A Cognitive Per-
spective. Reprint. New York: Basic Books, 1990. Though cognitive explana-
tions and treatments for phobias are stressed, this book considers other
perspectives as well, and it could serve as an introduction to the topic for
the interested high school or college student.
Bourne, Edmund. The Anxiety and Phobia Workbook. 3d ed. Oakland, Calif.:
New Harbinger, 2000. An excellent self-help book for those who suffer
from an anxiety disorder. Also an accessible introduction to the causes
and treatments of phobias for high school and college students. Contains
self-diagnostic and therapy exercises as well as other resources for the
phobia sufferer.
Gold, Mark S. The Good News About Panic, Anxiety, and Phobias. New York: Ran-
dom House, 1989. For a general audience. Outlines many biological fac-
636
Phobias
tors which may be associated with phobias. Presents a one-sided ap-

proach, heavily promoting a biopsychiatric view of phobias and their
treatment.
Marks, Issac Meyer. Fears, Phobias, and Rituals. New York: Oxford University
Press, 1987. With more than five hundred pages and a bibliography with
more than two thousand references, this text provides comprehensive
coverage of all aspects of phobias. Written for the professional and re-
searcher but accessible to college students who are interested in pursuing
some aspect of phobias in detail.
Mineka, Susan. “Animal Models of Anxiety-Based Disorders: Their Useful-
ness and Limitations.” In Anxiety and the Anxiety Disorders, edited by A.
Hussain Tuma and Jack Maser. Hillsdale, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum, 1985.
The phobia portion of this chapter reviews the major experiments done
with animals which demonstrate the many similarities between human
phobias and experimental phobias in animals. Clearly illustrates the rele-
vance of animal research to human behavior. Difficult yet indispensable
for a thorough understanding of phobias.
Wilson, R. Reid. Breaking the Panic Cycle: Self-Help for People with Phobias.
Rockville, Md.: Anxiety Disorders Association of America, 1987. A publi-
cation of a nonprofit organization which is dedicated to disseminating in-
formation and providing help to phobia sufferers. The ADAA also pub-
lishes the National Treatment Directory, which lists treatment programs
throughout the country.
David S. McDougal
See also: Anxiety Disorders; Conditioning; Learning; Nervous System; Pav-

lovian Conditioning; Reflexes.
637
Psychoanalysis
Type of psychology: Developmental psychology; psychological
methodologies; psychotherapy
Fields of study: Classic analytic themes and issues; general constructs
and issues; humanistic-phenomenological models; humanistic
therapies; models of abnormality; motivation theory; personality
theory; psychodynamic and neoanalytic models; psychodynamic
therapies; thought
Psychoanalysis is a form of intensive psychotherapy to treat emotional suffering, based
on the concept that people are often unaware of what determines their emotions and be-
havior. By talking freely, while in an intensive relationship with the psychoanalyst, a
person is able to overcome worries that may have limited his or her choices in life. Psy-
choanalysis is also a comprehensive theory of the mind and a method for understand-
ing everyday behavior.
Key concepts
• anxiety
• certification
• countertransference
• depression
• free association
• inhibitions
• psychoanalyst
• psychoanalytic institutes
• psychoanalytic psychotherapy
• psychotherapy
• symptoms
• transference
• unconscious
Psychoanalysis began as a method for treating emotional suffering. Sig-

mund Freud (1856-1939), the founder of psychoanalysis, made many dis-
coveries by studying patients with symptoms such as excessive anxiety (fear
that is not realistic) or paralysis for which no physical cause could be found.
He became the first psychoanalyst (often called analyst) when he developed
the method of free association, in which he encouraged his patients to say
whatever came to mind about their symptoms and their lives. He found that
by talking in this way, his patients discovered feelings and thoughts they had not
known they had. When they became aware of these unconscious thoughts
and feelings, their symptoms lessened or disappeared.
Psychoanalysis as a form of psychotherapy continues to be an effective
method for treating certain forms of emotional suffering, such as anxieties
and inhibitions (inner constraints) that interfere with success in school,
638
Psychoanalysis
work, or relationships. It is based on the understanding that each individual

is unique, that the past shapes the present, and that factors outside people’s
awareness influence their thoughts, feelings, and actions. As a comprehen-
sive treatment, it has the potential to change many areas of a person’s func-
tioning. Although modern psychoanalysis is different in many ways from
what was practiced in Freud’s era, talking and listening remain important.
Psychoanalytic psychotherapy is a modified form of psychoanalysis, usually
with less frequent meetings and more modest goals.
From the beginning, psychoanalysis was more than just a treatment. It
was, and continues to be, a method for investigating the mind and a theory
to explain both everyday adult behavior and child development. Many of
Freud’s insights, which seemed so revolutionary at the beginning of the
twentieth century, are now widely accepted by various schools of psychologi-
cal thought and form the basis for several theories of psychological motiva-
tion, most theories of child development, and all forms of psychodynamic
psychotherapy. Some of Freud’s ideas, such as his theories about women,
turned out to be wrong and were revised by other psychoanalysts during the
1970’s and 1980’s. Other ideas, such as those about the nature of dreams, al-
though rejected by some scientists during the 1980’s and 1990’s, were revis-
ited by other scientists by the beginning of the twenty-first century. Psycho-
analytic ideas and concepts are used in communities to solve problems such
as bullying in schools and can be applied in many other fields of study.
In the early years of psychoanalysis, Freud trained most psychoanalysts.
Later, different schools of psychoanalytic thought branched out from this
original source. Groups of psychoanalysts joined together in organizations,
and each organization developed its own standards for training psychoana-
lysts. There were no nationally accepted standards for psychoanalytic train-
ing in the United States until the beginning of the twenty-first century, when
several of these groups joined together to establish an Accreditation Coun-
cil of Psychoanalytic Education. This council agreed to core standards for
psychoanalytic institutes (schools that train psychoanalysts). Psychoanalytic
psychotherapy, while practiced by trained psychoanalysts, is also practiced
by psychotherapists, who are not trained as psychoanalysts.
Psychoanalytic Treatment
Psychoanalysis is a method for helping people with symptoms that result
from emotional conflict. Common symptoms in the modern era include
anxiety (fear that is not realistic), depression (excessive sadness that is not
due to a current loss), frequent unhealthy choices in relationships, and
trouble getting along well with peers or family members. For example, some
people may feel continuously insecure and worried about doing well in
school or work despite getting good grades or reviews. Other people may be
attracted to sexual and emotional partners who treat them poorly. Others
may experience loneliness and isolation because of fears about close rela-
tionships. Others may sabotage their success by always changing direction
639
Psychology Basics
before reaching their goals. Children may have tantrums beyond the age
when these are normal or be afraid of going to sleep every night or feel un-
happy with their maleness or femaleness.
The same symptom can have several different causes, an etiology Freud
termed overdetermination. For example, depression may be caused by inner
emotional constraints that prevent success, by biological vulnerability, or by
upsetting events (such as the death of a loved one), or it may result from a
combination of these. Therefore, most psychoanalysts believe in meeting with
a person several times before deciding upon the best treatment. Psychoanal-
ysis is not for everyone who has a symptom. Sometimes psychoanalysis is not
needed because the problems can be easily helped using other, less inten-
sive forms of therapy. Sometimes biological problems or early childhood ex-
periences leave a person too vulnerable to undertake the hard work of psy-
choanalysis. When psychoanalysis is not necessary, or not the best treatment
for a particular person, a psychoanalyst may recommend psychoanalytic psy-
chotherapy, a treatment that is based on the same principles as psychoanaly-
sis but with less ambitious goals and, usually, less frequent sessions.
Psychoanalysis can treat specific emotional disorders, as described in the
Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders: DSM-IV-TR (rev. 4th ed.,
2000) and can also help with multiple sets of problematic symptoms, behav-
iors, and personality traits (such as being too perfectionistic or rigid). Be-
cause psychoanalysis affects the whole person rather than just treating symp-
toms, it has the potential to promote personal growth and development. For
adults, this can mean better relationships or marriages, jobs that feel more
satisfying, or the ability to enjoy free time when this was difficult before.
Children may do better in school after fears about competition and success
diminish, or they may have more friends and get along better with parents
after they begin to feel better about themselves.
Because psychoanalysis is a very individual treatment, the best way to de-
termine whether it would be beneficial for an individual is through consult-
ing an experienced psychoanalyst. In general, people who benefit from psy-
choanalysis have some emotional sturdiness. They tend to be capable of
understanding themselves and learning how to help themselves. Usually,
they have had important accomplishments in one or more areas of their life
before seeking psychoanalytic treatment. Often, they have tried other forms
of treatment that may have been helpful but have not been sufficient to deal
with all their difficulties. Sometimes they are people who work with others
(therapists, rabbis, teachers) whose emotions have been interfering with
their ability to do their jobs as well as possible. Psychoanalysts understand
such problems in the context of each individual’s strengths, vulnerabilities,
and life situation.
Method of Treatment in Psychoanalysis

A person who goes to a psychoanalyst for consultation usually meets with the
analyst at least three times face-to-face before the analyst recommends psy-
640
Psychoanalysis
choanalysis. Sometimes the patient and analyst meet for several weeks,
months, or years in psychoanalytic psychotherapy; they decide upon psycho-
analysis if they identify problems that are unlikely to be solved by less inten-
sive treatment.
Once they begin psychoanalysis, the analyst and patient usually meet four
or five times per week for fifty-minute sessions, as this creates the intensive
personal relationship that plays an important role in the therapeutic pro-
cess. The frequent sessions do not mean that the patient is very sick; they are
necessary to help the patient reach deeper levels of awareness. (People with
the severest forms of mental illness, such as schizophrenia, are not usually
treated with psychoanalysis.) Often the adult patient lies on a couch, as this
may make it easier to speak freely. The couch is not essential, and some pa-
tients feel more comfortable sitting up.
By working together to diminish obstacles to free expression in the treat-
ment sessions, the analyst and patient come to understand the patient’s wor-
ries and learn how the patient’s mind works. The patient learns about
thoughts and feelings he or she has kept out of awareness or isolated from
one another. Through the intensity that comes from frequent meetings with
the analyst, the patient often experiences the analyst as if the analyst were a
parent or other important person from the past. This is called transference.
Eventually, the patient has a chance to see these feelings from a more mature
point of view. Although the patient may experience intense emotions within
the analytic sessions, the anxieties and behaviors that brought him or her to
treatment gradually diminish and feel more under control. The patient
feels freer and less restricted by worries and patterns that belong to the past.
For example, a patient may be very fearful of angry feelings and avoid
telling the analyst about them, expecting punishment or rejection. As a re-
sult, the patient may turn the anger on himself or herself in a form of self-
sabotage. Often this is the way the patient dealt with angry feelings toward
significant people while growing up. Over time, as the patient and analyst
understand this behavior, the patient feels freer to express angry feelings di-
rectly and eventually feels less need to sabotage or self-punish.
Gradually, in the course of the intensive analytic relationship, the patient
learns more about his or her maladaptive ways of dealing with distressing
thoughts and feelings that have developed during childhood. By under-
standing them in adulthood or (for a child) at a later age, the patient gains a
different perspective and is able to react in a more adaptive way. Rigid per-
sonality traits that had been used to keep the childhood feelings at a dis-
tance are no longer necessary, and the patient is able to react to people and
situations in a more flexible way.
During the course of the treatment, the analyst will often have strong feel-
ings toward the patient, called countertransference. Well-trained analysts
are required to undergo psychoanalysis themselves before treating patients.
In their own analysis, they learn how to cope with their countertransference
feelings in ways that will not hurt the patient. For example, they learn not to
641
Psychology Basics
take the patient’s expressions of anger personally but to help the patient ex-
press the emotion more fully and understand where it originates.
Children and adolescents can be treated with psychoanalysis or psycho-
analytic psychotherapy by using methods suitable for their ages. Most chil-
dren play with toys, draw, or explore the room, in addition to talking, during
their sessions with the analyst, and these activities provide ways to explore in-
ner thoughts and feelings. The analyst meets with the parents before the
treatment starts and continues to do so regularly during the course of the
child’s therapy or analysis. Adolescents usually sit face-to-face or draw or
write about their feelings and worries. Occasionally, older adolescents want
to lie on the couch. Adolescents often prefer that the analyst not meet with
the parents on a regular basis. Instead, the analyst and adolescent usually de-
velop some way to keep the parents informed about what they might need to
know about the treatment.
Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy
Psychoanalytic psychotherapy is more varied than psychoanalysis. It may be
very intensive, or it may be focused on a specific problem, such as a recent
loss or trouble deciding about a job. In psychoanalytic psychotherapy, the
patient and therapist usually sit face-to-face and approach the patient’s
problems, whatever they are, in a more interactive way. Most often, patient
and therapist meet twice per week in fifty-minute sessions. Once per week is
also common but not considered to be as helpful. More frequent meetings
(three to five times per week) may be necessary if the patient is in crisis or
has chronic problems that are not treatable with psychoanalysis.
Although psychoanalysts are well trained to practice psychoanalytic psy-
chotherapy, this treatment is also practiced by psychotherapists who are not
psychoanalysts. Some of these therapists have taken courses at psychoana-
lytic institutes.
Medication and Confidentiality Issues

In the early days of psychoanalysis, analysts believed that treatment with
medication would interfere with psychoanalysis. Most modern psychoana-
lysts believe that, although medicine can sometimes interfere, there are
times when it can be used in a helpful way in combination with psychoana-
lytic psychotherapy or even with psychoanalysis.
“Confidentiality” is the term used to describe the privacy necessary for in-
dividuals to be able to speak freely about all their thoughts and feelings. Re-
sponsible psychoanalysts and psychotherapists agree to keep private every-
thing about their patients, including the fact that the patient has come for
treatment, unless the patient gives permission to release some specific infor-
mation. One exception is when patients are at risk for hurting themselves or
someone else. In Jaffe v. Redmond, an important case decided by the U.S. Su-
preme Court in 1995, the Supreme Court confirmed that confidentiality is
necessary for the patient to speak freely in psychotherapy.
642
Psychoanalysis
Training and Qualifications for Psychoanalysts

The International Psychoanalytic Association (IPA), formed during Freud’s
lifetime, is a worldwide organization of psychoanalysts that remained in
place throughout the twentieth century. The American Psychoanalytic Asso-
ciation (APsA) was founded in 1911 and grew to three thousand members
during the course of the twentieth century. All its members also belonged to
the IPA. Many schools for psychoanalysts, or psychoanalytic institutes, were
accredited (examined and found to meet a set of standards) by APsA over
the years. APsA also developed an examination called certification to test
graduate psychoanalysts.
Because the first psychoanalysts in the United States believed that psycho-
analysis would be more highly valued if connected with the medical profes-
sion, the APsA initially only accepted psychiatrists (who are medical doc-
tors) as members. Exceptions were made for professionals who applied to
train as researchers. This contrasted with the practice in Europe, where
many nonmedical psychoanalysts became members of the IPA. Nonmedical
professionals, such as psychologists and social workers, who wanted to be-
come psychoanalysts in the United States often trained in psychoanalytic in-
stitutes not recognized by the APsA. Some were recognized by the IPA and
later banded together under the name of the International Psychoanalytic
Societies (IPS). Other institutes developed outside both organizations,
sometimes creating their own standards for training. By the last quarter of
the twentieth century, nonmedical mental health professionals (such as psy-
chologists and social workers) were accepted as members of APsA and grew
in numbers, becoming a large proportion of the membership.
Because the title “psychoanalyst” was not protected by federal or state law
in the twentieth century, anyone, even untrained persons, could call them-
selves a psychoanalyst in the United States. Many institutes developed in
large cities, such as New York and Los Angeles, that were not connected with
APsA or IPS and admitted trainees with varying backgrounds and quali-
fications. Some of these defined psychoanalysis in their own way, so that
arguments developed about the dividing line between psychoanalysis and
psychoanalytic psychotherapy. The American Psychological Association even-
tually developed its own examination to qualify a psychologist as a psycho-
analyst.
Training in the Twenty-first Century

Because, by the beginning of the twenty-first century, no laws were yet in
place in the United States to define who could practice psychoanalysis, it re-
mained difficult for the public to tell who was qualified. In the late 1990’s,
several national organizations of the core mental health disciplines came to-
gether in a coalition called the Consortium for Psychoanalysis. By the turn
of the century, they had agreed upon baseline standards that would be used
to develop a national organization to accredit psychoanalytic institutes.
These organizations were the American Psychoanalytic Association, the divi-
643
Psychology Basics
sion of psychoanalysis of the American Psychological Association, the Na-

tional Membership Committee on Psychoanalysis in Clinical Social Work,
and the American Academy of Psychoanalysis.
Trained psychoanalysts in the twenty-first century who meet these stan-
dards already have a mental health degree, except in unusual cases, before
becoming psychoanalysts. Once accepted for training at a psychoanalytic in-
stitute, these mental health professionals study many more years to become
qualified psychoanalysts. They take courses and treat patients while super-
vised by experienced psychoanalysts. In addition, they are required to un-
dergo psychoanalysis themselves in order to gain enough self-knowledge to
keep their own problems from interfering with the treatment of patients.
Psychoanalysis as a Theory
All psychoanalytic theories are based on the idea that people are motivated
by thoughts and feelings outside their awareness, that the past influences
the present, and that each individual is unique. Because so much change
and growth has occurred since Freud’s era, psychoanalysis is no longer a sin-
gle theory but encompasses many different theories. All psychoanalytic the-
ories are theories of motivation (what makes people do what they do), theo-
ries of development (how people get to be the way they are), and theories of
change (how psychoanalytic treatment works). Psychoanalytic theories are
usually also theories of personality development (who people are) and per-
sonality disturbance.
Most theories emphasize the complexity of each person’s symptoms
and behavior and take into account many different influences. For exam-
ple, the psychoanalytic theory called ego psychology describes development
as a complex interaction of biology (inborn factors) and experience over
time. Early childhood experiences are especially important because they
influence the way a person’s ability to cope with the world (ego function-
ing) develops. Each person adapts to the environment in a unique way that
gradually becomes more consistent by the time the person grows to adult-
hood.
Psychoanalytic theories are comprehensive theories of mental function-
ing and disorder. For this reason, they originally formed the basis for the di-
agnosis and classification of mental disorders in the United States. The
American Psychiatric Association published its Diagnostic and Statistical Man-
ual of Mental Disorders (DSM) in 1952 and the second edition (DSM-II) in
1968. Many changes and developments took place in psychoanalytic theory
during the second half of the twentieth century. The greatest changes took
place in theories about psychotic illness, female psychology, homosexuality,
and the nature of the patient/analyst relationship. By the turn of the twenty-
first century, it was unusual to find, in real life, the silent analysts who were
still sometimes depicted in films and cartoons.
Because of their complexity, psychoanalytic theories are more difficult to
study and test than other theories. For example, Freud believed that dreams
644
Psychoanalysis
have meaning and are based on the fulfillment of unconscious wishes.

Neuroscientists dismissed this theory for many years because it could not be
demonstrated. Behavioral psychologists, who based their theories on ob-
servable behavior, did not consider thoughts and feelings outside a person’s
awareness to be important. Because of the emphasis on experimental test-
ing and the increasing public expectation for quick cures during the last
quarter of the twentieth century, psychoanalytic theories became less popu-
lar. The DSM-III, the third edition of the diagnostic manual for mental dis-
orders which came out in 1980, was based on categories of symptoms and be-
haviors, without any reference to underlying theory. The categories of
mental disturbance in DSM-III (and in later editions) were described in a
way that would be easy to test in controlled experiments. People, and partic-
ularly insurance companies, became more interested in medicines and
short-term treatments for symptoms and were less willing to pay for treat-
ments like psychoanalysis that address the whole person.
Toward the end of the twentieth century and the beginning of the twenty-
first, cognitive scientists (scientists who study the way people think) and
neuroscientists (scientists who study the way the brain works) began to make
discoveries that proved psychoanalytic theory to be correct in some impor-
tant areas. For example, cognitive scientists proved that much of mental
functioning goes on outside a person’s awareness. Mark Solms, a neuro-
scientist, proved that dreams are formed in the part of the brain that deals
with motivation and emotional meaning. Psychoanalysts began a dialogue
with neuroscientists and cognitive scientists. Although some psychoanalysts
thought psychoanalysis could not be studied experimentally in the same way
as shorter-term therapies, others began to publicize studies demonstrating
the effectiveness of psychoanalysis and psychoanalytic psychotherapy. Oth-
ers began to develop further ways to study psychoanalytic theory and treat-
ment.
Psychoanalytic Theory Applications

Psychoanalytic ideas have been applied in many fields of study. For example,
psychoanalytic theories about loss and mourning have been used to help in-
ner-city children cope with their reactions to losses in mourning groups. Psy-
choanalytic ideas about power and helplessness have been used in schools to
decrease violence by changing the atmosphere in which bullies can thrive.
Psychoanalytic ideas led to the concept of social and emotional learning
whereby educators have demonstrated that intelligence is not just based on
the ability to think but includes emotions and social abilities. Psychoanalytic
ideas have been used in the study of literature to understand characters such
as Hamlet or Othello. They have been used in the study of culture to under-
stand terrorists and the societies that support them. Psychoanalysts apply
psychoanalytic theories in the help they offer to day-care centers, busi-
nesses, diplomats, police officers, firefighters, rabbis, priests, and others.
645
Psychology Basics

Brenner, Charles. An Elementary Textbook of Psychoanalysis. Rev. ed. Garden
City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1974. This book introduces interested readers to
the fundamentals of psychoanalysis, explaining core psychoanalytic con-
cepts in clear language. Although originally written in 1955 (so it does
not deal with some modern developments), it remains a good resource
for understanding the basics from the point of view of ego psychology.
Gabbard Glenn. Psychodynamic Psychiatry in Clinical Practice. 3d ed. Washing-
ton, D.C.: American Psychiatric Press, 2000. A textbook that approaches
the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (rev. 4th ed., 2000)
from a psychoanalytic point of view. It includes an introductory section
describing psychodynamic principles and sections describing Axis I and
Axis II disorders from a psychodynamic perspective.
Gay, Peter. Freud: A Life for Our Times. New York: W. W. Norton, 1988. This is a
biography of Sigmund Freud, written by his physician. It describes the
history of psychoanalysis during Freud’s lifetime.
Vaughan, Susan. The Talking Cure: The Science Behind Psychotherapy. New York:
Henry Holt, 1998. This book is written for people who may want to visit a
psychoanalyst or who want to learn about models of mind and brain that
integrate psychoanalytic theories with other scientific theories. It in-
cludes several descriptions of what happens when patients visit psychoan-
alysts.
Wallerstein, R. S. The Talking Cures: The Psychoanalyses and the Psychotherapies.
New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1995. This book provides a
comprehensive history of psychoanalytic thought, including a detailed
view of trends and developments in psychoanalysis from the 1940’s on-
ward. It describes conflicting and compatible psychoanalytic theories and
the debate about the dividing line between psychoanalysis and psycho-
therapy.
Judith M. Chertoff
See also: Analytic Psychology: Jacques Lacan; Analytical Psychology: Carl

Jung; Analytical Psychotherapy; Ego Psychology: Erik Erikson; Individual
Psychology: Alfred Adler; Personality Theory; Psychoanalytic Psychology;
Psychoanalytic Psychology and Personality: Sigmund Freud; Social Psycho-
logical Models: Erich Fromm; Social Psychological Models: Karen Horney;
Women’s Psychology: Sigmund Freud.
646
Psychoanalytic Psychology
Type of psychology: Origin and definition of psychology
Fields of study: Psychodynamic and neoanalytic models; psychodynamic
therapies
Psychoanalytic and neoanalytic schools of thought provide explanations of human
and neurotic behavior. Each of these models contributes to the understanding of per-
sonality development and psychological conflict by presenting unique theoretical
conceptualizations, assessment techniques, research methodologies, and psychothera-
peutic strategies for personality change.
Key concepts
• analytic psychology
• dynamic cultural schools of psychoanalysis
• individual psychology
• neoanalytic psychology
• psychoanalytic psychology
• psychosocial theory
One grand theory in psychology that dramatically revolutionized the way in

which personality and its formation were viewed is psychoanalysis. Ortho-
dox psychoanalysis and later versions of this model offer several unique per-
spectives of personality development, assessment, and change.
The genius of Sigmund Freud (1856-1939), the founder of psychoanaly-
sis, is revealed in the magnitude of his achievements and the monumental
scope of his works. Over the course of his lifetime, Freud developed a theory
of personality and psychopathology (disorders of psychological functioning
that include major as well as minor mental disorders and behavior disor-
ders), a method for probing the realm of the unconscious mind, and a ther-
apy for dealing with personality disorders. He posited that an individual is
motivated by unconscious forces that are instinctual in nature. The two ma-
jor instinctual forces are the life instincts, or eros, and the death instinct, or
thanatos. Their source is biological tension whose aim is tension reduction
through a variety of objects. Freud viewed personality as a closed system
composed of three structures: the id, ego, and superego. The irrational id
consists of the biological drives and libido, or psychic energy. It operates ac-
cording to the pleasure principle, which seeks the immediate gratification
of needs. The rational ego serves as the executive component of personality
and the mediator between the demands of the id, superego, and environ-
ment. Governed by the reality principle, it seeks to postpone the gratifica-
tion of needs. The superego, or moral arm of personality, consists of the
conscience (internalized values) and ego ideal (that which the person as-
pires to be).
According to Freud, the origins of personality are embedded in the first
seven years of life. Personality develops through a sequence of psychosexual
647
Psychology Basics
stages which each focus upon an area of the body (erogenous zone) that
gives pleasure to the individual; they are the oral, anal, phallic, latency, and
genital stages. The frustration or overindulgence of needs contributes to a
fixation, or arrest in development at a particular stage.
Freud also developed a therapy for treating individuals experiencing per-
sonality disturbances. Psychoanalysis has shown how physical disorders have
psychological roots, how unbearable anxiety generates conflict, and how
problems in adulthood result from early childhood experiences. In therapy,
Freud surmounted his challenge to reveal the hidden nature of the uncon-
scious by exposing the resistances and transferences of his patients. His
method for probing a patient’s unconscious thoughts, motives, and feelings
was based upon the use of many clinical techniques. Free association, dream
interpretation, analyses of slips of the tongue, misplaced objects, and humor
enabled him to discover the contents of an individual’s unconscious mind
and open the doors to a new and grand psychology of personality.
Responses to Freudian Theory

The theory of psychosocial development of Erik Erikson (1902-1994) occu-
pies a position between orthodox psychoanalysis and neoanalytic schools of
thought. His theory builds upon the basic concepts and tenets of Freudian
psychology by illustrating the influential role of social and cultural forces in
personality development. Erikson’s observations of infants and investiga-
tions of the parent-child relationship in various societies contributed to his
development of the model of the eight stages of human development. He
proposes that personality unfolds over the entire life cycle according to a
predetermined plan. As an individual moves through this series of stages, he
or she encounters periods of vulnerability that require him or her to resolve
crises of a social nature and develop new abilities and patterns of behavior.
Erikson’s eight psychosocial stages not only parallel Freud’s psychosexual
ones but, more important, have contributed immensely to recent thought
in developmental psychology.
Several other schools of thought arose in opposition to Freudian ortho-
doxy. Among the proponents of these new psychoanalytic models were Carl
Jung (1875-1961), Alfred Adler (1870-1937), Karen Horney (1885-1952),
and Harry Stack Sullivan (1892-1949). These theorists advocated revised
versions of Freud’s psychoanalytic model and became known as the neo-
analysts.
Jung’s Approach
Carl Jung’s analytical psychology stresses the complex interaction of oppos-
ing forces within the total personality (psyche) and the manner in which
these inner conflicts influence development. Personality is driven by gen-
eral life process energy, called libido. It operates according to the principle
of opposites, for example, a contrast between conscious and unconscious.
An individual’s behavior is seen as a means to some end, whose goal is to
648
create a balance between these polar opposites through a process of self-

realization. Personality is composed of several regions, including the ego (a
unifying force at the center of consciousness), the personal unconscious
(experiences blocked from consciousness), and the collective unconscious
(inherited predispositions of ancestral experiences). The major focus of
Jung’s theory is the collective unconscious, with its archetypes (primordial
thoughts and images), persona (public self), anima/animus (feminine and
masculine components), shadow (repulsive side of the personality), and self
(an archetype reflecting a person’s striving for personality integration).
Jung further proposed two psychological attitudes that the personality
could use in relating to the world: introversion and extroversion. He also
identified four functions of thought: sensing, thinking, feeling, and intuit-
ing. Eight different personality types emerge when one combines these atti-
tudes and functions. Like Freud, Jung proposed developmental stages:
childhood, young adulthood, and middle age. Through the process of in-
dividuation, a person seeks to create an inner harmony that results in self-
realization. In conjunction with dream analysis, Jung used painting therapy
and a word-association test to disclose underlying conflicts in patients. Ther-
apy helped patients to reconcile the conflicting sides of their personalities
and experience self-realization.
Adler’s Approach
The individual psychology of Alfred Adler illustrates the significance of so-
cial variables in personality development and the uniqueness of the individ-
ual. Adler proposed that an individual seeks to compensate for inborn feel-
ings of inferiority by striving for superiority. It is lifestyle that helps a person
achieve future goals, ideals, and superiority. Adler extended this theme of
perfection to society by using the concept of social interest to depict the hu-
man tendency to create a productive society. He maintained that early child-
hood experiences play a crucial role in the development of a person’s unique
lifestyle. An individual lacking in social interest develops a mistaken lifestyle
(for example, an inferiority complex). Physical inferiority, as well as spoiling
or pampering and neglecting children, contributes to the development of
faulty lifestyles. Adler examined dreams, birth order, and first memories to
trace the origins of lifestyle and goals. These data were used in psychother-
apy to help the patient create a new lifestyle oriented toward social interest.
Horney’s Approach
Karen Horney’s social and cultural psychoanalysis considers the influence
of social and cultural forces upon the development and maintenance of
neurosis. Her theory focuses upon disturbed human relationships, espe-
cially between parents and children. She discussed several negative factors,
such as parental indifference, erratic behavior, and unkept promises, which
contributed to basic anxiety in children. This basic anxiety led to certain de-
fenses or neurotic needs. Horney proposed ten neurotic needs that are used
649
Psychology Basics
to reestablish safety. She further summarized these needs into three catego-
ries that depicted the individual’s adjustment to others: moving toward peo-
ple (compliant person), moving against people (aggressive person), and
moving away from people (detached person). Horney believed that neuro-
sis occurs when an individual lives according to his or her ideal rather than
real self. She also wrote a number of articles on feminine psychology that
stressed the importance of cultural rather than biological factors in person-
ality formation. Like Freud, she used the techniques of transference, dream
analysis, and free association in her psychotherapy; however, the goal of
therapy was to help an individual overcome his or her idealized neurotic self
and become more real as he or she experienced self-realization.
Sullivan’s Approach
Harry Stack Sullivan’s interpersonal theory examines personality from the
perspective of the interpersonal relationships that have influenced it, espe-
cially the mother-infant relationship. Sullivan believed that this relationship
contributed to an individual’s development of a “good me,” “bad me,” or
“not me” personification of self. He also proposed six stages of develop-
ment: infancy, childhood, juvenile epoch, preadolescence, early adoles-
cence, and late adolescence. These stages illustrate an individual’s experi-
ences and need for intimacy with significant others. Overall, his theory
emphasizes the importance of interpersonal relations, the appraisals of oth-
ers toward an individual, and the need to achieve interpersonal security and
avoid anxiety.
Use of Case Studies

Psychoanalytic psychology and its later versions have been used to explain
normal and abnormal personality development. Regardless of their per-
spectives, psychologists in all these schools have relied upon the case study
methodology to communicate their theoretical insights and discoveries.
The theoretical roots of orthodox psychoanalysis may be traced to the fa-
mous case of “Anna O.,” a patient under the care of Josef Breuer, Freud’s
friend and colleague. Fascinated with the hysterical symptoms of this young
girl and with Breuer’s success in using catharsis (the talking cure) with her,
Freud asked Breuer to collaborate on a work titled Studien über Hysterie
(1895; Studies in Hysteria, 1950) and discuss his findings. It was the world’s
first book on psychoanalysis, containing information on the unconscious,
defenses, sexual cause of neurosis, resistance, and transference. Freud’s own
self-analysis and analyses of family members and other patients further con-
tributed to the changing nature of his theory. Among his great case histories
are “Dora” (hysteria), “Little Hans” (phobia), the “Rat Man” (obsessional
neurosis), the “Schreiber” case (paranoia), and the “Wolf Man” (infantile
neurosis). His method of treatment, psychoanalysis, is also well documented
in later cases, such as the treatment for multiple personality described in the
book Sybil (1974).
650
Josef Breuer, Sigmund

Freud’s close associate.
In his classic work Childhood and Society (1950), Erikson discussed the ap-
plicability of the clinical method of psychoanalysis and the case-history tech-
nique to normal development in children. His case analyses of the Sioux
and Yurok Indians and his observations of children led to the creation of a
psychosocial theory of development that emphasized the significant role
played by one’s culture. Moreover, Erikson’s psychohistorical accounts,
Young Man Luther: A Study in Psychoanalysis and History (1958) and Gandhi’s
Truth on the Origins of Militant Nonviolence (1969), illustrated the applications
of clinical analyses to historical and biographical research so prominent to-
day.
The founders of other psychoanalytic schools of thought have similarly
shown that their theories can best be understood in the context of the thera-
peutic situations and in the writings of case histories. Harold Greenwald’s
Great Cases in Psychoanalysis (1959) is an excellent source of original case his-
tories written by Freud, Jung, Adler, Horney, and Sullivan. Jung’s case of
“The Anxious Young Woman and the Retired Business Man” clarifies the dif-
ferences and similarities between his theory and Freud’s psychoanalytic
model. In “The Drive for Superiority,” Adler uses material from several cases
651
Psychology Basics
to illustrate the themes of lifestyle, feelings of inferiority, and striving for su-
periority. Horney’s case of “The Ever Tired Editor” portrays her use of the
character analysis method; that is, she concentrates upon the way in which a
patient characteristically functions. Sullivan’s case of “The Inefficient Wife”
sheds some light on the manner in which professional advice may be given
to another (student) practitioner. In retrospect, all these prominent theo-
rists have exposed their independent schools of thought through case histo-
ries. Even today, this method continues to be used to explain human behav-
ior and to enhance understanding of personality functioning.
Evolution of Study
Historically, the evolution of psychoanalytic psychology originated with
Freud’s clinical observations of the work conducted by the famous French
neurologist Jean-Martin Charcot and his collaborations on the treatment of
hysteria neurosis with Breuer. The publication of Studies in Hysteria marked
the birth of psychoanalysis because it illustrated a theory of hysteria, a ther-
apy of catharsis, and an analysis of unconscious motivation. Between 1900
and 1920, Freud made innumerable contributions to the field. His major
clinical discoveries were contained in the publications Die Traumdeutung
(1900; The Interpretation of Dreams, 1913) and Drei Abhandlungen zur Sexual-
theorie (1905; Three Contributions to the Sexual Theory, 1910; also translated as
Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality, 1949) as well as in various papers on
therapy, case histories, and applications to everyday life. During this time,
Freud began his international correspondence with people such as Jung.
He also invited a select group of individuals to his home for evening discus-
sions; these meetings were known as the psychological Wednesday society.
Eventually, these meetings led to the establishment of the Vienna Psycho-
analytical Society, with Adler as its president, and the First International
Psychoanalytical Congress, with Jung as its president. In 1909, Freud, Jung,
and others were invited by President G. Stanley Hall of Clark University to
come to the United States to deliver a series of introductory lectures on
psychoanalysis. This momentous occasion acknowledged Freud’s achieve-
ments and gave him international recognition. In subsequent years, Freud
reformulated his theory and demonstrated how psychoanalysis could be ap-
plied to larger social issues.
Trained in psychoanalysis by Anna Freud, Erikson followed in Sigmund
Freud’s footsteps by supporting and extending his psychosexual theory of
development with eight stages of psychosocial identity. Among the members
of the original psychoanalytic group, Adler was the first to defect from the
Freudian school, in 1911. Protesting Freud’s theory of the Oedipus com-
plex, Adler founded what he called individual psychology. Two years later, in
1913, Jung parted company with Freud to establish analytical psychology; he
objected to Freud’s belief that all human behavior stems from sex. With
Horney’s publications New Ways in Psychoanalysis (1939) and Our Inner Con-
flicts: A Constructive Theory of Neurosis (1945), it became quite clear that her
652
ideas only remotely resembled Freud’s. Objecting to a number of Freud’s

major tenets, she attributed the development of neurosis and the psychol-
ogy of being feminine to social, cultural, and interpersonal influences. Simi-
larly, Sullivan extended psychoanalytic psychology to interpersonal phe-
nomena, arguing that the foundations of human nature and development
are not biological but rather cultural and social.
Accomplishments and Influence

The accomplishments of Freud and his followers are truly remarkable. The
creative genius of each theorist spans a lifetime of effort and work. The mag-
nitude of their achievements is shown in their efforts to provide new per-
spectives on personality development and psychopathology, theories of
motivation, psychotherapeutic methods of treatment, and methods for de-
scribing the nature of human behavior. Clearly, these independent schools
of thought have had a profound influence not only upon the field of psy-
chology but also upon art, religion, anthropology, sociology, and literature.
Undoubtedly, they will continue to serve as the foundations of personality
theory and provide the basis for new and challenging theories of tomor-
row—theories that seek to discover the true nature of what it means to be
human.

Adler, Alfred. Social Interest: A Challenge to Mankind. Translated by John Lin-
ton and Edward Vaughan. New York: Capricorn Books, 1964. An excel-
lent summary of Adler’s theories of human nature and social education,
incorporating his ideas on lifestyle, inferiority and superiority complexes,
neurosis, childhood memories, and social feelings. Also contains a chap-
ter on the consultant and patient relationship and a questionnaire for un-
derstanding and treating difficult children.
Erikson, Erik Homburger. Identity, Youth, and Crisis. New York: W. W. Nor-
ton, 1968. An impressive summation of Erikson’s theories of human
nature and development and the importance of societal forces. Erikson
discusses his clinical observations, the life cycle and the formation of
identity, and case histories to illustrate identity confusion and other rele-
vant issues. This book carries forward concepts expressed in Childhood
and Society (1963).
Freud, Sigmund. A General Introduction to Psychoanalysis. New York: W. W.
Norton, 1977. An easy-to-read account of Freud’s complete theory of psy-
choanalysis. Freud presents twenty-eight lectures to reveal major aspects
of his theory, essential details in his method of psychoanalysis, and the re-
sults of his work. He also examines the psychology of errors, dream analy-
sis technique, and general theory of neurosis.
Greenwald, Harold, ed. Great Cases in Psychoanalysis. Reprint. New York:
Aronson, 1973. An outstanding source of case histories written by the the-
orists themselves. Greenwald uses these case histories to portray the his-
653
Psychology Basics
torical context of the psychoanalytic movement. These original case stud-

ies provide insight into therapeutic methods used by the great analysts as
well as their assessments. Included are Sigmund Freud, Alfred Adler, Carl
Jung, Karen Horney, and Harry Stack Sullivan.
Horney, Karen. The Neurotic Personality of Our Time. New York: W. W. Norton,
1937. This classic work contains Horney’s portrayal of the neurotic per-
sonality and the relevance of cultural forces in the etiology of psycho-
logical disturbances. This post-Freudian document examines Horney’s
theoretical conceptualizations, including basic anxiety, neurotic trends,
methods of adjustment, and the role played by culture.
Mitchell, Stephen A. Freud and Beyond: A History of Modern Psychoanalytic
Thought. New York: Basic Books, 1996. A short overview of psychoanalysis,
with chapters devoted to Sigmund Freud, Harry Stack Sullivan, Melanie
Klein, and other important thinkers.
Sullivan, Harry Stack. The Interpersonal Theory of Psychiatry. New York: W. W.
Norton, 1953. A classic work on human development from an interper-
sonal perspective. Sullivan provides a comprehensive overview of his the-
ory by describing his key concepts and developmental stages. He further
illustrates the application of his theory by focusing upon inappropriate
interpersonal relationships.
Joan Bartczak Cannon
See also: Analytical Psychology: Carl Jung; Dreams; Ego Psychology: Erik
Erikson; Individual Psychology: Alfred Adler; Psychoanalysis; Psychoanalytic
Psychology and Personality: Sigmund Freud; Social Psychological Models:
Erich Fromm; Social Psychological Models: Karen Horney; Women’s Psy-
chology: Karen Horney; Women’s Psychology: Sigmund Freud.
654
Psychoanalytic Psychology and
Personality
Sigmund Freud
Fields of study: Classic analytic themes and issues; personality theory;
Freud’s theory of personality, emphasizing unconscious motivation, sexual instincts,

and psychological conflict, is one of the most profound and unique contributions in
psychology. Freud described both the normal and abnormal personality, and he pro-
posed a therapy for the treatment of mental problems.
Key concepts
• anal stage
• ego
• genital stage
• id
• instincts
• latency
• Oedipal conflict
• oral stage
• phallic stage
• superego
Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) saw people as engaged in a personal struggle

between their instinctual urges and the requirements of society. According
to Freud, this conflict often takes place outside one’s awareness, in the un-
conscious, and affects all aspects of people’s lives. The instinctual energy
which fuels the mind has its source in the unconscious. It is highly mobile
and once engaged must achieve expression, however disguised the expres-
sion might be.
Freud said that most of the mind is below the level of awareness—in the
unconscious—just as most of the mass of an iceberg is below the surface of
the water. The id, the most primitive structure in the mind, is in the uncon-
scious. The id is composed of the instincts (psychological representations of
biological needs and the source of all psychological energy), including the
sexual and other life instincts and the aggressive and other death instincts.
For Freud, the sexual instincts were particularly important. They take a long
time to develop, and society has a large investment in their regulation.
The instincts press for gratification, but the id itself cannot satisfy them,
because it has no contact with reality. Therefore, the ego, which contacts the
id in the unconscious but also is partly conscious, develops. The ego can per-
ceive reality and direct behavior to satisfy the id’s urges. To the extent that
655
Psychology Basics
the ego can satisfy the id’s instincts, it gains strength, which it can then use to
energize its own processes, perceiving and thinking. It is important that the
ego can also use its energy to restrict or delay the expression of the id. The
ego uses psychological defense mechanisms to protect the individual from
awareness of threatening events and to regulate the expression of the in-
stincts. For example, a strong ego can use the defense mechanism of subli-
mation to direct some sexual energy into productive work rather than sex-
ual activity itself.
In the course of a child’s development, the superego develops from the
ego. The ego attaches energy to the significant people in the child’s world—
the caregivers—and their values are then adopted as the child’s own ideal
and conscience. This process becomes particularly significant during the
phallic stage, between the ages of four and six. At that time, the child be-
comes sexually attracted to the opposite-sex parent. In giving up that pas-
sion, the child adopts the characteristics of the same-sex parent; this process
shapes the child’s superego. The superego is mostly unconscious, and it
strives for perfection. Throughout life, the id will strive for instinctual grati-
fication, and the superego will strive for perfection. It is the task of the ego
to mediate between the two, when necessary, and to chart a realistic life
course.
Importance of Childhood Years

Freud considered the childhood years particularly significant, not only be-
cause during these years the ego and superego develop from energy cap-
Sigmund Freud, shown here with his daughter, psychiatrist Anna Freud. (Library of
Congress)
656
Psychoanalytic Psychology and Personality: Sigmund Freud
tured from the id but also because during this time the sexual instincts mani-
fest themselves in a variety of forms. The sexual instincts become focused on
particular erogenous zones of the child’s body in a set order. This produces
a series of psychosexual stages, each characterized by instinctual urges, soci-
etal response, conflict, and resolution. During the course of this process,
lasting personality traits and defenses develop. At first, the sexual energy is
focused on the mouth. In this, the oral stage, conflicts may surround feed-
ing. At approximately age two, the anal stage begins. The sexual instincts fo-
cus on the anus, and conflicts may occur around toilet training. The phallic
stage, in which the child is attracted to the opposite-sex parent, follows. Ac-
cording to Freud, for boys this Oedipal conflict can be severe, as they fear
castration from their father in retribution for their attraction to their
mother. For girls, the conflict is somewhat less severe; in Freudian psychol-
ogy, this less severe conflict means that in adulthood women will have less
mature personalities than men. At approximately age six, the sexual in-
stincts go into abeyance, and the child enters a period of latency. In adoles-
cence, the sexual instincts again come to the fore, in the genital stage, and
the adolescent has the task of integrating the impulses from all the eroge-
nous zones into mature genital sexuality.
Psychological problems occur when the psychosexual stages have left the
instinctual urges strongly overgratified or undergratified, when the instincts
are overly strong, when the superego is overly tyrannical, or when the ego
has dealt with childhood traumas by severe repression of its experiences
into the unconscious. Undergratification or overgratification of the in-
stincts during childhood can result in fixations, incomplete resolutions of
childhood conflicts. For example, a person who is severely toilet trained can
develop an “anal character,” becoming either excessively neat, miserly, or
otherwise “holding things inside.” If the id urges are too strong, they may
overwhelm the ego, resulting in psychosis. An overly strong superego can
lead to excessive guilt. If the ego represses childhood trauma, relegating it
to the unconscious, that trauma will persist, outside awareness, in affecting a
person’s thoughts and behaviors.
Freud believed that no one could escape the conflicts inherent in the
mind but that one could gain greater familiarity with one’s unconscious
and learn to direct instinctual energies in socially appropriate ways. This
was the task of psychoanalysis, a form of therapy in which a client’s uncon-
scious conflicts are explored to allow the individual to develop better ways
of coping.
Impact on Western Society

Freud’s theory has had a dramatic impact on Western society, strongly influ-
encing the ways people view themselves and their interactions with others.
Terms such as “Freudian slip,” “Oedipus complex,” and “unconscious” are
part of everyday language. Emotions may be seen as “buried deep,” and
emotional expression may be called therapeutic. Assumptions about the un-
657
Psychology Basics
conscious influence both popular and professional conceptions of mental

life.
The assumption that the expression of emotion is healthy and the repres-
sion of emotion is unhealthy may be traced to Freud. To some extent, this
idea has received support from research which suggests that unresolved an-
ger may contribute to physical health problems. Unfortunately, the release
of anger in verbal or physical aggression may cause those aggressive behav-
iors to increase rather than decrease. The vicarious experience of aggres-
sion via watching television or films may also teach aggression rather than
reduce the urge to act aggressively.
Role of Dreams
Freud believed that dreams were one vehicle of unconscious expression. He
viewed dreams as expressing the fulfillment of a wish, generally of a sexual
nature. During sleep, the ego relaxes its restrictions on the id; instinctual
wishes from the id, or repressed material from the unconscious, may be
manifested in a dream. The bizarre sense of time and the confusing combi-
nations of people and odd incidents in dreams reflect that the unconscious
is without a sense of time, logic, or morality.
In dreams, the ego transforms material from the id to make it less threat-
ening. Once one awakens, the ego disguises the true meaning of the dream
further. Important points will be repressed and forgotten, and distortions
will occur as the dream is remembered or told. For this reason, it is virtually
impossible, according to Freud, to interpret one’s own dreams accurately. A
psychoanalyst interprets dreams by asking a patient to free associate—to say
whatever comes to mind—about the dream content. In this fashion, the cen-
soring of the ego may be relaxed, and the true meaning will be revealed to
the therapist.
Revealing unconscious material is at the center of Freudian psychother-
apy. Since Freud, many have viewed psychological problems as the result of
childhood conflicts or traumas. Once the source is revealed, the patient is
expected to improve. The nature of treatment is considerably more compli-
cated than this might suggest, because the patient’s ego may actively defend
against acknowledging painful unconscious material. One of the few cases
that Freud reported in detail was that of “Dora.” Dora was referred to Freud
because of a persistent cough that was assumed to be of psychological ori-
gin. According to Freud, such physical symptoms often are the result of
childhood sexual conflict. Dora’s cough and other psychosomatic com-
plaints were found to be rooted in her sexual attraction to her father and to
other men who were seen as resembling him—including a family friend,
and even Freud himself. Her attraction was accompanied by jealousy of her
mother and the family friend’s wife. The situation was complicated, because
Dora’s father was having an affair with the family friend’s wife, to whom
Dora was also attracted, and the family friend had expressed his attraction
for Dora.
658
All this and more is revealed in two dreams of Dora’s that Freud analyzes
in detail. The first is a dream of being awakened by her father, dressing
quickly, and escaping a house that is on fire. The dream does its work by
equating her father with the family friend, who once really was beside her
bed as she awoke from a nap. This caused her to decide to “dress quickly” in
the mornings, lest the friend come upon her unclothed. Her unconscious at-
traction for the friend, however, is belied by the symbol of fire, which might be
likened to consuming passion. In her second dream, Dora dreamed that her
father was dead and that a man said “Two and a half hours more.” The
dream symbolizes both Dora’s turning away from her father as an object of
her sexual interest and her intention (not evident to Freud at the time) of
leaving therapy after two more sessions.
If Dora had not stopped therapy prematurely, Freud would have contin-
ued to bring his interpretation of her unconscious conflicts to the fore. In
particular, he would have used her transference of childhood emotions to
Freud himself as a vehicle for making the material revealed by her dreams,
free associations, and behaviors evident to consciousness. The use of such
transference is a key element of psychoanalysis. While this would not have
completely resolved Dora’s strong instinctual urges, it would have allowed
her to come to terms with them in more mature ways, perhaps by choosing
an appropriate marriage partner. Indeed, Freud reveals at the end of his re-
port of this case that Dora married a young man she mentioned near the
end of her time in therapy.
Impact and Criticisms

Freud was a unique, seminal thinker. His theory was controversial from its
inception. At the same time, however, it is such a powerful theory that, while
many have criticized it, no subsequent personality theorist has been able to
ignore the ideas Freud advanced. Psychoanalytic theory has also provided
an interpretive framework for literary critics, historians, philosophers, and
others.
Freud’s theory was a product of his personal history, his training in sci-
ence and medicine, and the Viennese culture in which he lived. Freud’s
early training was as a neurologist. As he turned from neurology to psychol-
ogy, he continued to apply the skills of careful observation to this new disci-
pline and to assume that the human mind followed natural laws that could
be discovered. Viennese society at the time of Freud was one of restrictive so-
cial attitudes, particularly for women, and of covert practices that fell far
short of public ideals. Thus it was relatively easy to see the psychological
problems of the middle-class Viennese women who often were Freud’s pa-
tients as being attributable to sexual conflicts.
Although Freud himself was dedicated to developing a science of mental
life, his methods are open to criticism on scientific grounds. His theory is
based upon his experiences as a therapist and his own self-analysis. His con-
clusions may therefore be restricted to the particular people or time his
659
Psychology Basics
work encompassed. He did not seek to corroborate what his patients told
him by checking with others outside the therapy room. Freud was not inter-
ested in the external “truth” of a report as much as its inner psychological
meaning. He did not make details of his cases available to scrutiny, perhaps
because of confidentiality. Although he wrote extensively about his theory,
only five case histories were published. In all, these difficulties make the as-
sessment of Freudian theory in terms of traditional scientific criteria prob-
lematic.
Freud’s theory has had strong adherents as well as critics. Although theo-
rists such as Alfred Adler and Carl Jung eventually broke with Freud, argu-
ing against the primacy of the sexual instincts, his influence can be seen in
their theories. Similarly, the important work of Erik Erikson describing hu-
man development through the life span has its roots in psychoanalytic the-
ory. Many modern psychoanalytic theorists place a greater emphasis on the
ego than did Freud, seeing it as commanding its own source of energy, inde-
pendent of and equal to the id. Much literature and social criticism also pos-
sess a Freudian flavor.

Freud, Sigmund. General Psychological Theory: Papers on Metapsychology. New
York: Macmillan, 1997. A collection of Freud’s papers about the practice
of psychoanalysis.
__________. An Outline of Psychoanalysis. Translated by Helena Ragg-Kirkby .
New York: Penguin Books, 2003. A brief introduction to Freudian theory.
Beginning students of Freud may find the tone too didactic and the treat-
ment too abbreviated; however, it is valuable when read in conjunction
with a good summary of Freud from a secondary source.
Gay, Peter. Freud: A Life for Our Time. 1988. Reprint. New York: W. W. Norton,
1998. Well-written biography of Freud places his work in historical and
psychological context. Accessible to the reader who may only have a pass-
ing familiarity with Freudian theory.
__________, ed. The Freud Reader. Reprint. New York: W. W. Norton, 1995. A
well-edited volume of selections of Freud’s work. The Interpretation of
Dreams, Fragment of an Analysis of a Case of Hysteria (“Dora”), and Three Essays
on the Theory of Sexuality are particularly important in defining the basics
of Freud’s theory.
Hall, Calvin Springer, Gardner Lindzey, and John Campbell. “Freud’s Classi-
cal Psychoanalytical Theory.” In Theories of Personality. 4th ed. New York:
John Wiley & Sons, 1998. This chapter is the classic textbook summary of
Freud’s theory. Readable, thorough, and accurate. Also presents a brief
discussion of psychoanalytic research methods and criticisms of the theory.
Jones, Ernest. The Life and Work of Sigmund Freud. Edited and abridged by
Lionel Trilling and Steven Marcus.3 vols. New York: Basic Books, 1981.
Jones was a confidant of Freud and his official biographer. Interesting as
an insider’s account of Freud’s life.
660
Kardiner, Abram. My Analysis with Freud. New York: W. W. Norton, 1977.

Kardiner is a well-known analyst. This brief volume is a personal account
of his own analysis, with Freud as the therapist. A fascinating insider’s ac-
count of Freudian analysis and the forces that shaped the psychoanalytic
movement.
Susan E. Beers
See also: Abnormality: Psychological Models; Dreams; Psychoanalysis; Psy-

choanalytic Psychology; Psychotherapy: Goals and Techniques; Women’s
Psychology: Karen Horney; Women’s Psychology: Sigmund Freud.
661
Psychology
Definition
Fields of study: Classic analytic themes and issues; methodological issues
The term “psychology” first appeared in written form during the early sixteenth cen-
tury and meant the systematic study of the soul and mind. The meaning of the concept
changed gradually during the following three centuries, until psychology emerged in
the 1880’s as a separate field of study. Defined as the scientific study of mind and con-
sciousness, the discipline was by the 1920’s redefined as the scientific study of behavior
and mental processes, creating some significant problems. In spite of definitional am-
biguities, modern psychology is a vigorous and broad field of study.
Key concepts
• act psychology
• behaviorism
• functionalism
• psychological domain
• structuralism
The term “psyche,” while personified by the ancient Greeks as a goddess, es-
sentially means “breath,” which was equated with soul or mind. The suffix
“ology” means “science” or “study of.” Psychology, as originally defined,
then, means the scientific study of soul or mind. The term “scientific,” as
used here, means systematic; scientific fields of study did not emerge until
the seventeenth century.
Apparently, the concept of psychology was not formulated until the early
to middle sixteenth century, appearing first in 1530 as part of the title of a se-
ries of academic lectures given by Philipp Melanchthon, a German scholar.
The first book with the Latin word psychologia (psychological) as part of the
title was published in 1594. When used by philosophers and theologians
during the following three centuries, the term had a gradually changing
meaning, with the focus being much more on the study of mind and con-
sciousness than on the soul.
Psychology, as a separate field of study, came into being in Germany in
1879 and, during the 1880’s, in many other European countries and the
United States. The field was defined as the scientific or systematic study of
mind and consciousness and was largely modeled after physics and chemis-
try. Wilhelm Wundt (1832-1920), the acknowledged founder of the new
discipline, believed that psychologists should be concerned primarily with
investigating the structure of mind and consciousness using rigorous intro-
spective techniques. Psychology was, according to Wundt, to focus on identi-
fying the properties of simple mental elements and the laws by which these
elements combined to form the more complex structures of mind and con-
662
Psychology: Definition
sciousness, for example, percepts and ideas. This approach, and a derivative
of it developed in the United States by Edward Titchener, became known as
structuralism. Animal research, the study of infants and children, the study
of people with psychological problems, and concern with individual differ-
ences were not seen as central to psychology.
Some of Wundt’s European contemporaries, however, such as Franz
Brentano and Oswald Külpe, argued that psychology should focus on pro-
cesses associated with mind and consciousness, such as perceiving, thinking,
and intending, rather than attempting to divide the mental domain into
simple elements. Brentano’s approach became known as act psychology, in
contrast to Wundt’s mental-content psychology, and the two perspectives
generated some interesting controversies. They did agree, though, that psy-
chology should be concerned primarily with the study of mind and con-
sciousness in normal adult human beings; animals, children, and people
with mental and emotional problems were not of particular interest to them
as subjects of research.
Also emphasizing conceptions of mind and consciousness as process
rather than content were prominent early American psychologists such as
William James, John Dewey, James Rowland Angell, and Harvey Carr. In
contrast to Brentano and Külpe, however, these psychologists were primarily
interested in the functions served by the processes. It was generally assumed
that each of these capabilities evolved to help humans survive and that it was
the job of psychologists to determine how seeing, hearing, feeling, thinking,
willing, planning, and so forth contributed to individuals’ survival. Because
not everyone adapts equally well to the challenges of life, this approach to
psychology, which became known as functionalism, as emphasized the study
of individuals differences in intelligence, personality, social skills, and so
forth, as well as applied psychology and animal research. Psychology, how-
ever, was still defined as the systematic study of mind and consciousness.
Functionalism has its foundations in Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution
and in late nineteenth century British psychology and applied statistics.
With the introduction of animal research into psychology and continu-
ing controversies over the meanings of the concepts of mind, consciousness,
and terms referring to the varying aspects of private experience, some psy-
chologists increasingly believed that a scientific psychology could only be
created if research centered on behavior (responses) and environmental
features (stimuli), both of which are observable. Therefore, when American
psychologist John B. Watson proclaimed, in 1913, that psychology should
abandon attempts to study mind and consciousness introspectively and re-
define itself as the scientific study of behavior, many of his peers were ready
to follow his call; behaviorism had its formal beginning.
The behavioral orientation had its greatest influence on American psy-
chology from about the 1920’s until the early 1970’s, undergoing a number
of transformations. During that time, most textbooks defined psychology as
the scientific study of behavior, or of behavior and mental and affective pro-
663
Psychology Basics
cesses. Even as the limits of behavioral psychology, in its various forms, be-
came apparent by the late 1960’s, definitions of psychology changed very lit-
tle. According to most modern psychologists in the United States and in
many other countries, psychology is primarily the study of behavior, and
only secondarily—and sometimes grudgingly—the study of such difficult-
to-define mental and affective states and processes as thoughts, percepts,
images, and feelings. Nevertheless, even the concepts of mind and con-
sciousness, the original concerns of psychology, have somewhat reluctantly
been readmitted to the field as necessary research concerns.
Definitional Problems
There are a number of serious problems associated with defining psychol-
ogy as the scientific study of behavior and mental and affective states. Not
only is the definition imprecise, but it also has apparently made it very diffi-
cult to generate an integrated body of psychological knowledge. While im-
pressive research on the behavior of animals and humans has been con-
ducted, and some progress has been made in understanding mental and
affective processes and states, the knowledge generated is fragmented and
therefore of limited value.
One could argue, in fact, that psychology is not the study of behavior at all
but is rather the study of the information each person or animal has avail-
able that makes behavior—that is, directed and controlled actions—possi-
ble. While this information has traditionally been referred to as mind and
consciousness, there might be some virtue in calling it “the psychological
domain” in order to avoid long-standing arguments. Behavior is a method-
ological concept because it refers to something researchers must study in or-
der to make inferences about the psychological domain. On the other hand,
researchers can also investigate the products of human actions, such as the
languages people develop, the buildings they construct, and the art and mu-
sic they share, to the same end. Some psychologists perform research on the
physiological processes associated with seeing, hearing, feeling, and think-
ing. Definitions of psychology should include the terms “culture” and “phys-
iological and biochemical correlates” as well as the concept of behavior.
A better approach might be to define psychology as the systematic study
of the psychological domain, this domain being the personal information
that makes it possible for individual human beings and other life-forms to
move with direction and control. To go beyond this definition is to describe
how psychologists do research rather than what the field is about.
Another problem associated with standard definitions of psychology is
the assumption that there is general agreement concerning the meaning of
the concept of behavior. As has been pointed out by many analysts, that is
not the case. The term has been used to refer to sensory responses, cognitive
and affective processes, muscle movements, glandular secretions, activity
taking place in various parts of the nervous system, and the outcomes or
consequences of particular complex actions. Behavior, in other words, is an
664
Psychology: Definition
ambiguous concept. In a strict sense, the only actions or changes relevant to

the psychological level of analysis are those that are self-initiated and unique
to the total-life-form level of organization in nature, because it is these
changes that depend on the psychological domain. Changes in the individ-
ual cells or subsystems of life-forms, on the other hand, do not constitute be-
havior in the psychological sense.
The Development of a Field

Even though a clear and generally agreed-upon definition of psychology has
not emerged, psychology today is a vigorous and broad scholarly field and
profession, extending from biological subdisciplines and animal research
laboratories to the study of humans in social, political, economic, industrial,
educational, clinical, and religious contexts. It is not surprising, therefore,
that psychologists have made contributions in a wide variety of areas.
Among the most notable are those having to do with cognitive and emo-
tional development, child rearing, formulating new ways to view and treat
psychological problems, devising ways to deal with the crises of life associ-
ated with each stage of human experience from infancy to old age, con-
sumer research and marketing, group dynamics, and the development of
tests and educational procedures.
Psychology is one of the most popular majors in American colleges, and
the discipline has experienced dramatic growth since the 1940’s. There
were about 4,000 psychologists in the United States during the 1940’s; by the
early 1990’s, there were approximately 100,000. Since the mid-1970’s, the
number of women majoring in psychology has held steady, while the num-
ber of men has decreased significantly; as a consequence, by the late 1980’s,
more women than men were earning Ph.D.’s in psychology.
One of the most challenging new areas of study is health psychology,
which emerged during the 1980’s in response to the health care crisis,
brought about by increasing costs associated with an aging population, ex-
pensive high-technology medical techniques, the acquired immunodefi-
ciency syndrome (AIDS) epidemic, economic restructuring and stagnation,
and a variety of other factors. Pressures have also been emerging for people
to reexamine their values and roles and, in a sense, their personal and na-
tional identities. These pressures derive from such powerful forces and dy-
namics as the women’s and multicultural movements, the emergence of
nontraditional social and child-rearing arrangements, and the change from
a production to a service society. A mass identity crisis may, in fact, provide
the psychologists of the twenty-first century with their major challenge.

Carr, Harvey A. Psychology: A Study of Mental Activity. New York: Longmans,
Green, 1925. Presents a clear picture of the functionalist view of psychol-
ogy. Carr was one of the American psychologists who formalized func-
tionalism.
665
Psychology Basics
Gilgen, Albert R. American Psychology Since World War II: A Profile of the Disci-
pline. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood, 1982. Presents an overview of the
major developments and trends in American psychology during World
War II, which ended in 1945, and from the postwar period through the
1970’s.
__________. “The Psychological Level of Organization in Nature and Inter-
dependencies Among Major Psychological Concepts.” In Annals of Theo-
retical Psychology. Vol. 5, edited by Arthur W. Staats and Leendert P. Mos.
New York: Plenum Press, 1987. Presents a detailed rationale for defining
psychology as the systematic study of the information available to each
person that allows each individual to move with direction and control.
Lapointe, Franois H. “Who Originated the Term ‘Psychology’?” Journal of the
History of the Behavioral Sciences 8, no. 3 (1972): 328-335. A thorough analy-
sis of the origination of the term “psychology.” An essential reference for
anyone interested in the history of the concept.
Murray, David J. A History of Western Psychology. 2d ed. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.:
Prentice-Hall, 1988. Includes clear discussions of the origins of the term
“psychology” and the meaning of the concept for the act psychologists,
the structuralists, the functionalists, and the behaviorists.
Porter, Roy. Madness: A Brief History. New York: Oxford University Press,
2002. A history of Western ideas about mental illness by one of the most
respected historians of medicine. Changing ideas about “madness” help
trace the evolution of the definition of psychology.
Titchener, Edward Bradford. A Primer of Psychology. 1899. Reprint. New York:
Macmillan, 1925. Presents a clear and detailed analysis of psychology
from the structuralist perspective and in the process identifies many of
the challenges involved in attempting to decipher the structure of mind
and consciousness.
Albert R. Gilgen
See also: Behaviorism; Cognitive Psychology; Psychoanalytic Psychology;

Psychology: Fields of Specialization; Structuralism and Functionalism.
666
Psychology
Fields of Specialization
Fields of study: Behavioral therapies; cognitive development;
experimental methodologies; general constructs and issues;
Psychology is both a theoretical and an applied science. Psychologists use observa-

tional and experimental methods to reach a greater understanding of the human mind
and human behavior. They then use this knowledge in a variety of settings to help peo-
ple in their daily lives.
Key concepts
• behaviorism
• Gestalt psychology
• social psychology
• structuralism
Because the fields of specialization within psychology are so numerous, one

must first examine the science as an entity unto itself. This involves defining
psychology, exploring the reasons for its existence, reviewing its history, and
surveying the diverse specialists who assist various populations. Although
the semantics of defining psychology differ from text to text, the actual ex-
planation remains constant: It is the science of human behavior as it relates
to the functions of the mind. More specifically, it provides evidence for why
people experience a gamut of emotions, think rationally or irrationally, and
act either predictably or unpredictably.
The discipline’s very existence reflects humankind’s need to plumb the
depths of its interior to search for the self, to process conflict, to solve prob-
lems, and to think critically as well as act pragmatically. Its challenge is to as-
sist people in understanding themselves. Humans have a natural curiosity; it
moves them to try to determine their relationship to the world in which they
live. With this comes the inclination to observe and compare other people:
their ideas, behavior patterns, and abilities. These analyses and compari-
sons, which people cannot help but make, involve the self as well as others.
People may be either overly harsh or selectively blind when examining
themselves; both these situations can be handicaps, and both can be helped
by psychology.
At times, one’s anxiety level may peak uncontrollably. Through the sci-
ence of the mind, one seeks to temper one’s agitation by becoming familiar
with and acknowledging vague fears and uncomfortable feelings. Thus, the
person learns about the source of his or her tension. From this, experts
learn how behavior originates. They assist an individual in learning to cope
667
Psychology Basics
with change; the person discovers how to make adequate adjustments in

daily living. The fast pace that humans in industrialized society keep re-
quires them now, more than ever before, to have a working knowledge of
people—their thought processes and behavior patterns. From all of this, ex-
perts are able to arrive at reasonable predictions and logical conclusions
about humankind’s future behavior.
History and Systems of Psychology

Psychology did not become accepted as a formal discipline until the late
nineteenth century. Prior to that time, even back to antiquity, questions
were directed to philosophers. Though they were versed in reasoning, logic,
and scholarship, only a few of these thinkers could deal with the complexi-
ties of the human mind. Their answers were profound and lengthy, but
these scholars frequently left their audiences bewildered and without the so-
lutions they sought. Some of these logicians used the Socratic method of
reasoning; they often frustrated those who questioned them and expected
realistic replies. Inquires were redirected to the questioner, whose burden it
was to arrive at his or her own solutions.
Gustav Fechner, a nineteenth century philosopher and physicist, postu-
lated that the scientific method should be applied to the study of mental
processes. It was his contention that experimentation and mathematical
procedures should be used to study the human mind. From the middle of
the nineteenth century onward, many disciplines contributed to what was to
become the science of psychology. Wilhelm Wundt and Edward Titchener
were the leaders of the structuralist school, which identified the elements
and principles of consciousness.
Other early giants of the field included William James and John Dewey.
They inaugurated the study of functionalism, which taught that psychologi-
cal knowledge should be applied to practical knowledge in fields such as ed-
ucation, business law, and daily living. A champion of behaviorism, John B.
Watson, advocated that the study of psychology should concentrate on ob-
servable behavior; he urged that objective methods be adopted. The Gestalt
movement was originated by Max Wertheimer. In concert with Kurt Koffka
and Wolfgang Köhler, he embraced the premise that the whole may be dif-
ferent from its parts studied in isolation.
Psychoanalysis was developed by Sigmund Freud. He studied the uncon-
scious using techniques of free association, hypnosis, and body language.
The neobehaviorist model, in contrast, defended the behaviorist position
that complicated phenomena such as mental and emotional activities can-
not be observed. Love, stress, empathy, trust, and personality cannot be ob-
served in and of themselves. Their effects, however, are readily apparent.
Carl Rogers and Abraham Maslow pioneered the area known as human-
ism in the 1950’s and 1960’s. Areas of interest to humanistic psychologists
are self-actualization, creativity and transcendence, the search for meaning,
and social change. The humanists’ goals are to expand and to enrich human
668
Psychology: Fields of Specialization
lives through service to others and an increased understanding of the com-

plexity of people, as individuals, in groups, organizations, and communities.
In the mid-twentieth century, with the development of cognitive psychol-
ogy, mental processes such as attention, memory, and reasoning became the
focus of direct study. This approach to understanding human thought ana-
lyzes cognitive processes into a sequence of ordered stages; each stage re-
flects an important step in the processing of information. In the 1980’s and
1990’s, the fields of cognitive science and cognitive neuroscience emerged.
Psychologists began working with computer scientists, linguists, neurobiolo-
gists, and others to develop detailed models of brain and mind relation-
ships.
Major Fields in Psychology

Psychology is both a theoretical and an applied science with over a dozen
major fields. In 2004, the American Psychological Association listed fifty-five
divisions, representing psychologists working in settings as diverse as com-
munity mental health clinics and large corporations and with interests rang-
ing from the adult development and aging to the study of peace, conflict,
and violence. Academic and research psychologists use observational and
experimental methods to reach a greater understanding of the human
mind and human behavior. Psychologists in the clinical specialties then use
this knowledge to help people in their daily lives.
For example, children who are abused or neglected, or who suffer as a re-
sult of being members of dysfunctional families, require the services of child
psychologists, who evaluate, diagnose, and treat youngsters. This usually oc-
curs in a clinical setting. Thus, child psychologist are considered clinical
practitioners. More than one-half of the Ph.D.’s awarded in 1999 were in ei-
ther clinical or counseling psychology.
Many psychologists also work in the area of education. Educational psy-
chologists develop and analyze materials and strategies for effective educa-
tional curricula. School psychologists design instructive programs, consult
with teachers, and assist students with problems.
Genetic psychologists study the activities of the human organism in rela-
tion to the hereditary and evolutionary factors involved; functions and ori-
gin play a central role. Physiological psychologists examine the biological
bases of behavior. They are often interested in the biochemical reactions un-
derlying memory and learning. Engineering psychologists design and evalu-
ate equipment, training devices, and systems. The goal is to facilitate rela-
tionships between people and their environment. Industrial/organizational
(I/O) psychologists research and develop programs that promote on-the-
job efficiency, effectiveness, challenge, and positive disposition. They study
ability and personality factors, special training and experience, and work
and environment variables as well as organizational changes.
Personality psychologists study the many ways in which people differ
from one another; they are instrumental in analyzing how those differences
669
Psychology Basics
Degree Fields of Psychology Ph.D.’s

Arranged in descending order by number of degrees awarded in 1999:
• Clinical
• Counseling
• Developmental
• All other subfields (such as community psychology, sport psychology)
• Experimental/Physiological
• General
• Social and Personality
• Industrial/Organizational
• Cognitive
• School
• Educational
may be assessed and what their impact is. Criminal psychologists study the
complexities of a perpetrator’s thought process. They are keenly interested
in a criminal’s habits, idiosyncrasies, and possible motives. Developmental
psychologists study changes in people as they age and mature. Their work
may be protracted over the span of an individual’s life; their theories may be
advanced several years after they were first conceived.
Social psychologists study how people influence one another. They may
be interested, for example, in the concept of leaders and followers. Environ-
mental psychologists monitor the physical and social effects of the environ-
ment on behavior. They are interested in how elements such as heat, noise,
health, and activity affect the human condition. Their contributions are in
the areas of urban planning, architecture, and transportation.
Consumer psychologists determine factors that influence consumer deci-
sions, exploring such issues as the effect of advertising on purchasing deci-
sions, brand loyalty, and the rejection or acceptance of new products. Experi-
mental psychologists design and conduct basic and applied research in a
variety of areas, including learning, sensation, attention and memory, lan-
guage, motivation, and the physiological and neural bases of behavior. Com-
parative psychologists study the behavior, cognition, perception, and social
relationships of diverse animal species. Their research can be descriptive as
well as experimental and is conducted in the field or with animals in captivity.
Tests and Measures of Individual Differences

The scope of psychology’s fields of specialization is great. The professionals
who work in these areas strive to help humans know, understand, and help
themselves. To accomplish this, psychologists use numerous tests to help
them ascertain specific information about an individual, a group of people,
or a particular population. Ability tests measure multiple aptitudes, creativ-
670
ity, achievement, and intelligence levels. Psychologists may perform occupa-

tional and clinical assessments. Also included in the area of assessment are
personality tests, which encompass self-report inventories, measures of in-
terests, attitudes and values, projective techniques, and performance and
situational evaluations.
An example of a multiple-aptitude test is the Differential Aptitude Test
(DAT), first published in 1947, then revised in 1963, 1973, and 1991. Its pri-
mary purpose is to counsel students in grades eight through twelve in educa-
tional and vocational matters. Creativity tests have received much attention
from researchers and practitioners alike. The Aptitudes Research Project
(ARP) was developed by the University of Southern California. It is a structure-
of-intellect (SI) model, which encompasses all intellectual functions. Al-
though its initial platform was reasoning, creativity, and problem solving, its
base was expanded to divergent production. Until the ARP, research re-
sources in this area were very limited.
Achievement tests, which differ from aptitude tests, measure the effects
of specific instruction or training. Some of the most respected tests are the
California Achievement Tests, the Iowa Tests of Basic Skills, the Metropoli-
tan Achievement Test, and the Stanford Achievement Test. Their signifi-
cance lies in reporting what the individual can do at the time of test adminis-
tration. Aptitude instruments, on the other hand, make recommendations
about future skills. Intelligence tests speak their own language; it is unfortu-
nate, though, that so much importance is placed upon the results they yield.
One should always remember that the scores identified in the Stanford-
Binet test and in the various Wechsler intelligence scales are only part of a
big picture about any given human being and should be evaluated accord-
ingly.
Personality tests measure the emotional, motivational, interpersonal, and
attitudinal characteristics of an individual. The Kuder Interest Inventories
list occupations according to a person’s interest area. The Rorschach Ink-
blot Projective Technique investigates the personality as a whole. The The-
matic Apperception Test (TAT) researches personality and attitude. The
Myers-Briggs Type Indicator is a widely used measure of personality disposi-
tions and interests based on Carl Jung’s theory of types.
Psychology and Society

Psychology as a formal discipline is still relatively new; of its many specializa-
tions, some have found their way to maturity, while others are still in their
early stages. The development of diverse fields has been justified by the
changing nature of social and psychological problems as well as by changing
perceptions as to how best to approach those problems. For example, be-
cause more people live closer together than ever before, they must interact
with one another to a greater degree; finding ways to deal with issues such as
aggression, racism, and prejudice therefore becomes crucial. Several divi-
sions of the American Psychological Association reflect the diverse groups
671
Psychology Basics
that interest psychologists: the Society of Pediatric Psychology, the Society

for the Psychological Study of Ethnic Minority Issues, and the Society for the
Psychological Study of Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual Issues.
Economic conditions require most parents to work—whether they are
single parents or parents in a two-parent family—thus depriving children of
time with their parents. This has created a need for day-care centers; the
care and nurturing of young people is being transferred, to a significant de-
gree, to external agents. Moreover, older children may be expected to as-
sume adult responsibilities before they are ready. All these issues point to an
increasing need for family counseling. Educational institutions demand
achievement from students; this can daunt students who have emotional or
family problems that interfere with their ability to learn. The availability of
school counselors or psychologists can make a difference in whether such
children succeed or fail. Businesses and organizations use psychologists and
psychological testing to avoid hiring employees who would be ineffective or
incompatible with the organization’s approach and to maximize employee
productivity on the job.
The specialized fields of psychology have played both a facilitative and a
reflective role. Therapists and counselors, for example, have enabled indi-
viduals to look at what they have previously accomplished, to assess the pres-
ent, and to come to terms with themselves and the realities of the future.
The future of psychology itself will hold further developments both in the
refining of specializations that already exist and in the development of new
ones as inevitable societal changes require them.

Butler, Gillian, and Freda McManus. Psychology: A Very Short Introduction. New
York: Oxford University Press, 2000. Provides an understanding of some
of psychology’s leading ideas and their practical relevance. The authors
answer some of the most frequently asked questions about psychology:
What is psychology? How do humans use what is in the mind? How does
psychology work? How do people influence one another? What can a psy-
chologist do to help?
Colman, Andrew M. What Is Psychology? 2d ed. New York: Routledge, 1999.
Extensively revised and updated, this introduction to psychology as a dis-
cipline assumes no prior knowledge of the subject. Examples are used
throughout to illustrate fundamental ideas, with a self-assessment quiz fo-
cusing readers on a number of intriguing psychological problems. The
book explains the differences between psychology, psychiatry, and psy-
choanalysis and offers an exploration of the professions and careers asso-
ciated with psychology.
Koch, Sigmund, and David E. Leary, eds. A Century of Psychology as Science.
Washington, D.C.: APA Books, 1992. This reissued edition, originally
published in 1985, comprehensively accesses the accomplishments, sta-
tus, and prospects of psychology at the end of its first century as a science,
672
while offering a new postscript. The forty-three contributors are among

psychology’s foremost authorities. Among the fields addressed are sen-
sory processes and perception, learning, motivation, emotion, cognition,
development, personality, and social psychology.
Rieber, Robert W., and Kurt Salzinger, eds. Psychology: Theoretical-Historical
Perspectives. 2d ed. Washington, D.C.: APA Books, 1998. The approach to
theory and history adapted by the contributors is to focus on some of the
central figures in the development of the discipline. Within this ap-
proach, the authors offer analyses of three major theoretical currents in
psychology: psychoanalysis, behaviorism, and the Geneva school. Other
chapters focus on psychophysics (the oldest incarnation of experimental
psychology) and on Gestalt, cognitive, and evolutionary psychology. Pro-
vides the reader with a broad overview of the development of a continu-
ally evolving field.
Simonton, Dean Keith. Great Psychologists and Their Times: Scientific Insights
into Psychology’s History. Washington, D.C.: APA Books, 2002. Integrates
relevant research on the psychology of eminent psychologists, from the
pioneering work of Francis Galton to work published in the twenty-first
century. Of particular interest are chapters exploring what aspects of the
sociocultural context are most conducive to the emergence of illustrious
psychologists and how these sociocultural conditions—including politi-
cal events, economic disturbances, or cultural values—affect not only the
magnitude of achievement but also the nature of that achievement.
Denise S. St. Cyr; updated by Allyson Washburn
See also: Behaviorism; Cognitive Psychology; Development; Industrial and

Organizational Psychology; Neuropsychology; Psychoanalytic Psychology;
Psychology: Definition.
673
Psychopathology
Fields of study: Behavioral therapies; general constructs and issues;
models of abnormality; organic disorders; personality disorders
As a field of study, psychopathology has as its focus the description and causes of ab-
normal behavior and of psychological and emotional problems. Models or approaches
to psychopathology differ with respect to the assumed causes of psychological problems.
Many clinicians integrate different models to understand the basis of a client’s prob-
lems and combine different treatment approaches to maximize effectiveness.
Key concepts
• behavior therapy
• biological approach
• biopsychosocial approach
• cognitive approach
• cognitive therapy
• culture and psychopathology
• learning approach
• mental illness
• somatic therapy
Psychopathology refers to psychological dysfunctions that either create dis-

tress for the person or interfere with day-to-day functioning in relationships
or at the workplace. “Psychological disorders,” “abnormal behavior,” “men-
tal illness,” and “behavior and emotional disorders” are terms often used in
place of psychopathology.
As a topic of interest, psychopathology does not have an identifiable, his-
torical beginning. From the writings of ancient Egyptians, Hebrews, and
Greeks it is clear, however, that ancient societies believed that abnormal be-
havior had its roots in supernatural phenomena, such as the vengeance of
God and evil spirits. Although modern scientists have opposed that view, in
the twenty-first century many people who hold fundamentalist religious be-
liefs or live in isolated societies still maintain that abnormal behavior can be
caused by demoniac possession.
The Greek physician Hippocrates (460-377 b.c.e.) rejected demoniac
possession and believed that psychological disorders had many natural
causes, including heredity, head trauma, brain disease, and even family
stress. Hippocrates was wrong when it came to specific details, but it is re-
markable how accurate he was in identifying broad categories of factors that
do influence the development of psychopathology. The Roman physician
Galen (c. 129-198 c.e.) adopted the ideas of Hippocrates and expanded
upon them. His school of thought held that diseases, including psychologi-
cal disorders, were due to an imbalance among four bodily fluids, which he
called humors: blood, black bile, yellow bile, and phlegm. For example, too
674
Psychopathology
much black bile, called melancholer, was believed to cause depression.

Galen’s beliefs have been discredited, but many of the terms he used have
lived on. For instance, a specific subtype of depression is named after
Galen’s melancholer: Major Depression with Melancholic Features.
A major figure in the history of psychopathology is the German psychia-
trist Emil Kraepelin (1856-1926). He claimed that mental illnesses, like
physical illnesses, could be classified into distinct disorders, each having its
own biological causes. Each disorder could be recognized by a cluster of
symptoms, called a syndrome. The way in which he classified mental disor-
ders continues to exert a strong influence on approaches to categorizing
mental illnesses. The official classification system in the United States is pub-
lished by the American Psychiatric Association in the Diagnostic and Statisti-
cal Manual of Mental Disorders: DSM-IV-TR (rev. 4th ed., 2000). Many features
of this manual can be traced directly to the writings of Kraepelin in the early
years of the twentieth century.
Examples of Psychopathology
There is a very broad range of psychological disorders. The DSM-IV-TR lists
more than two hundred psychological disorders that differ in symptoms and
the degree to which they affect a person’s ability to function.
It is normal for someone to feel anxious on occasion. Generalized anxiety
disorder is diagnosed when a person engages in excessive worry about all
sorts of things and feels anxious and tense much of the time. Most people
who have this disorder function quite well. They can do well at work, have
good relationships, and be good parents. It is the fact that they suffer so
much from their anxiety that leads to a diagnosis. In contrast, schizophrenia
can be completely debilitating. Many people with schizophrenia cannot
hold a job, are hospitalized frequently, have difficulty in relationships, and
are incapable of good parenting. Common symptoms of schizophrenia in-
clude delusions (a system of false beliefs, such as believing there is a vast con-
spiracy among extraterrestrrial beings to control the government); halluci-
nations (seeing things that are not there or hearing voices that other people
cannot hear); incoherence (talking in a way that no one can understand);
or emotions that are expressed out of context (laughing when telling a sad
story). The symptoms of schizophrenia make it difficult or impossible for
the person to function normally.
Many disorders are marked by both subjective distress and impaired func-
tioning. One such disorder is obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). An ob-
session is a recurrent, usually unpleasant thought, image, or impulse that in-
trudes into a person’s awareness. Some examples are believing that one is
contaminated by germs, picturing oneself stabbing one’s children, or think-
ing that every bump hit in the road while driving could have been a person
struck by the car. Obsessions cause a great deal of distress. Obsessions typi-
cally lead to the development of compulsions. A compulsion is a repetitive
act that is used by the person to stop the obsession and decrease the anxiety
675
Psychology Basics
caused by the obsession. People who believe they have been contaminated
may wash themselves for hours on end; those who believe that they have hit
another person while driving may not be able to resist the urge to stop and
look for someone injured. Behavioral compulsions can sometimes occupy
so much time that the person cannot meet the demands of everyday life.
Causes of Psychopathology
The most important goal of researchers in the field of psychopathology is to
discover the causes (etiology) of each disorder. If the causes for disorders
were known, then psychologists could design effective treatments and, it
would be hoped, be able to prevent the development of many disorders. Un-
fortunately, theories of psychological disorders are in their infancy, and
there are many more questions than there are answers. There is no general
agreement among psychologists as to where to look for answers to the ques-
tion of etiology. Consequently, some researchers stress the importance of bi-
ological causes, other researchers focus on psychological processes in the
development of disorders, while still others emphasize the crucial role of
learning experiences in the development of behavior disorders. All these
approaches are important, and each supplies a piece of the puzzle of psy-
chopathology, but all approaches have their limitations.
the learning approach. Psychologists who work within this model of
psychopathology believe that abnormal behavior is learned through past ex-
periences. The same principles that are used to explain the development of
normal behavior are used to explain the development of abnormal behav-
ior. For example, a child can learn to be a conscientious student by observ-
ing role models who are conscientious in their work. Another child may
learn to break the rules of society by watching a parent break the same rules.
In each case, observational learning is at work, but the outcome is very dif-
ferent. In another example of a learning principle, a person who is hungry
and hears someone preparing food in the kitchen may begin to salivate be-
cause the sounds of food preparation have, in the past, preceded eating
food and food makes the person salivate. Those sounds from the kitchen are
stimuli that have become conditioned so that the person learns to have the
same reaction to the sounds as to food (salivation). This learning process is
called classical conditioning. In a different example, experiencing pain and
having one’s life threatened causes fear. A person who is attacked and bitten
by a dog might well develop a fear response to all dogs that is severe enough
to lead to a diagnosis of a phobia. Just as the sounds in the kitchen elicit sali-
vation, the sight of a dog elicits an emotional response. The same underly-
ing principle of classical conditioning can account for the development of
normal behavior as well as a disorder. There are many other principles of
learning besides observational learning and classical conditioning. To-
gether, psychologists use them to account for forms of psychopathology
more complex than are exemplified here. Nonetheless, there are many dis-
orders in which a learning approach to etiology seems farfetched. For exam-
676
Psychopathology
ple, no one believes that mental retardation, childhood autism, or schizo-

phrenia can be explained by learning principles alone.
the psychological approach. This model, sometimes called the cog-
nitive approach, holds that many forms of psychopathology are best under-
stood by studying the mind. Some psychologists within this tradition believe
that the most important aspect of the mind is the unconscious. The Austrian
psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) believed that many forms of
psychopathology are due to intense conflicts of which the person is unaware
but which, nevertheless, produce symptoms of disorders.
Many psychological disorders are associated with obvious problems in
thinking. Schizophrenics, people with attention-deficit hyperactivity disor-
der (ADHD), and those who suffer from depression all show difficulties in
concentration. Memory problems are central in people who develop amne-
sia in response to psychological trauma. People who are paranoid show
abnormalities in the way they interpret the behavior of others. Indeed, it is
difficult to find examples of psychopathology in which thinking is not disor-
dered in some way, be it mild or severe. Within the cognitive approach, de-
pression is one of the disorders that receives the most attention. People who
are depressed often show problems in emotion (feeling sad), behavior
(withdrawing from people), and thinking. The cognitive formulation as-
sumes that thinking is central, specifically the way depressed people think
about the world, themselves, and the future. Dysfunctional thinking is be-
lieved to give rise to the other aspects of depression. Most of the research in
the field of psychopathology derives from the cognitive perspective. One of
the major challenges to this approach is determining whether thinking pat-
terns cause disorders or whether they are aspects of disorders that, them-
selves, are caused by nonpsychological factors. For example, depressed peo-
ple have a pessimistic view of their futures. Does pessimism figure into the
cause of the depression, or might depression be caused by biological factors
and pessimism is just one of the symptoms of depression?
the biological approach. The biological (biogenic) approach assumes
that many forms of psychopathology are caused by abnormalities of the
body, usually the brain. These abnormalities can be inherited or can occur
for other reasons. What these “other reasons” are is unclear, but they may in-
clude birth complications, environmental toxins, or illness of the mother
during pregnancy.
Schizophrenia is one disorder that receives much attention among those
researchers who follow the biogenic approach. A great deal of research has
been conducted on the importance of neurotransmitters. Nerve cells in the
brain are not connected; there is a small space between them. A nerve im-
pulse travels this space by the release of chemicals in one nerve cell, called
neurotransmitters, which carry the impulse to the receptors of the next cell.
There are a large number of neurotransmitters, and new ones are discov-
ered periodically. Early research on the relationship between neurotrans-
mitters and psychopathology tended to view the problem as “too much” or
677
Psychology Basics
“too little” of the amount of neurotransmitters. It is now known that the situ-
ation is much more complicated. In schizophrenia, the neurotransmitter
dopamine has received most of the attention, with many studies suggesting
that excessive amounts of dopamine cause some of the symptoms of schizo-
phrenia. In fact, drugs that reduce the availability of dopamine to the cells
are successful in alleviating some symptoms of the disorder. However, not all
people with schizophrenia are helped by these drugs, and some people are
helped by drugs that one would not prescribe if the sole cause of schizophre-
nia is too much dopamine. Researchers are finding that the way in which do-
pamine and another neurotransmitter, serotonin, work together may lead
to a better biological theory of schizophrenia than the excessive dopamine
hypothesis.
The biological approach is a highly technical field, and it relies heavily on
advances in technologies for studying the brain. Powerful new tools for
studying the brain are invented at a rapid pace. For example, researchers
are now able to use neuroimaging techniques to watch how the brain re-
sponds and changes from second to second.
Heredity appears to be important in understanding who develops what
kind of psychological disorder, but it is often unknown exactly what is inher-
ited that causes the disorder. The fact that schizophrenia runs in families
does not reveal what is being passed on from generation to generation. The
fact that inheritance works at the level of gene transmission places heredi-
tary research squarely within the biological approach.
One method for addressing the question of whether a disorder can be in-
herited is by studying twins. Some twins are identical; each twin has the same
genes as the other. Other twins share only half of their genes; these are fra-
ternal twins. If one identical twin has schizophrenia and the disorder is en-
tirely inherited, the other twin should also develop schizophrenia. Among
identical twins, if one twin is schizophrenic, the other twin has a 48 percent
chance of having the same disorder, not a 100 percent chance. For fraternal
twins, if one is schizophrenic, there is a 17 percent chance that the other
twin will have the disorder. If neither twin has schizophrenia, and no one
else in the immediate family has the disorder, there is only a 1 percent
chance of developing this form of psychopathology.
Two important points can be made. First, genes matter in the transmis-
sion of schizophrenia. Second, the disorder is not entirely due to heredity.
Researchers who focus on heredity have found that some other disorders
seem to have a genetic component, but no mental illness has been found to
be entirely due to heredity. Clearly, there are other factors operating, and
the biological approach must be integrated with other approaches to gain a
full picture of the etiology of psychopathology.
the biopsychosocial approach. As its name suggests, the biopsycho-
social approach seeks to understand psychopathology by examining the in-
teractive influences of biology, cognitive processes, and learning. This is the
most popular model of psychopathology and, in its most basic form, is also
678
Psychopathology
referred to as the diathesis-stress model. A diathesis is a predisposing factor,

and the diathesis may be biological or psychological. When discussing bio-
logical diatheses, most theories assume that the diathesis is present at birth.
A problem with the regulation of neurotransmitters, which may lead to
schizophrenia or depression, is one example. An example of a psychological
diathesis is when a person’s style of thinking predisposes him or her to a dis-
order. For instance, pessimism—minimizing good things that happen, max-
imizing negative events, and attributing failures to personal defects—may
predispose a person to depression. The stress aspect of the diathesis-stress
model refers to the negative life experiences of the person. An early, chaotic
family environment, child abuse, and being raised or living in a high-crime
neighborhood are examples of stressful environments. From this perspec-
tive, a person will develop a disorder who has a predisposition for the disor-
der, in combination with certain life experiences that trigger the disorder.
Because the biological, learning, and psychological approaches have all
contributed to the understanding of psychopathology, it is no surprise that
most psychologists want to combine the best of each approach—hence, the
biopsychosocial model. Given the present state of knowledge, each model
represents more of an assumption about how psychopathology develops
rather than a single theory with widespread scientific support. For virtually ev-
ery psychological disorder, psychologists debate the causes of the disorder.
Culture and Psychopathology

The importance of understanding the cultural context of psychopathology
cannot be overstated. To be sure, some disorders that span populations—
depression, mental retardation, and schizophrenia are examples—but a
population both defines what should be considered abnormal behavior and
determines how psychopathology is expressed. “Cultural relativism” refers
to the fact that abnormality is relative to its cultural context; the same behav-
ior or set of beliefs can be viewed as abnormal in one population and per-
fectly familiar and normal in another population. When viewed from an
American perspective, the remedies, rituals, and beliefs of a witch doctor
may seem to reflect some disorder within the witch doctor rather than a val-
ued and culturally sanctioned means of treatment within that culture. No
doubt members of a given tribal population in South America may regard
the behavior of North American adolescents on prom night as grossly ab-
normal.
Some disorders only exist in certain cultures. A disorder known as
pibloktoq occurs in Eskimo communities. The symptoms include tearing off
one’s clothes, shouting obscenities, breaking furniture, and performing
other irrational and dangerous acts. The afflicted individual often follows
this brief period of excited behavior by having a seizure, falling into a coma
for twelve hours, and, upon awakening, having no memory of his or her be-
havior.
Some disorders may be very similar across two populations but contain a
679
Psychology Basics
cultural twist. For instance, in the United States, the essential feature of so-
cial anxiety disorder is a fear of performance situations that could lead to
embarrassment and disapproval. In Japan and Korea, the main concern of
people with social anxiety disorder is the fear that one’s blushing, eye con-
tact, or body odor will be offensive to others.
There are numerous examples of culturally based psychopathologies; the
DSM-IV-TR lists twenty-five of them in an appendix. Moreover, throughout
the manual, a brief statement accompanies the description of most disor-
ders on the roles of ethnic and cultural factors that are relevant for the given
disorder, which can help the clinician arrive at an accurate diagnosis.
Treatment
The major forms of treatment for psychological disorders can be grouped
according to the most popular models of psychopathology. Thus, there ex-
ists behavior therapy (learning approach), cognitive therapy and psycho-
analysis (psychological approach), and somatic treatment, such as the use of
medications (biological approach). Consistent with the biopsychosocial
model, many therapists practice cognitive behavior therapy while their cli-
ents are taking medication for their disorders. These treatments, as well as
the models from which they derive, represent common and popular view-
points, but the list is not exhaustive (for instance, family systems is a model
of disorders, and the treatment is family therapy). The link between models
of psychopathology and treatment is not as strong as it appears. Therapists
tend to adopt the treatment belief of “whatever works,” despite the fact that
all therapists would prefer to know why the person is suffering from a disor-
der and why a specific treatment is helpful. In addition, even if the therapist
is sure that the problem is a consequence of learning, he or she might have
the client take medication for symptom relief during therapy. In other
words, psychologists who are aligned with a specific model of psychopath-
ology will still employ an array of treatment techniques, some of which are
more closely associated with other models.
behavior therapy. Based on learning theory, behavior therapy attempts
to provide new learning experiences for the client. Those with problems that
are fear-based, such as phobias, may benefit from gradual exposure to the
feared situation. If social anxiety is determined to be caused by a deficit in
social skills, a behavior therapist can help the person learn new ways of relat-
ing to others. If the disorder is one of excess, as in substance abuse, the be-
havior therapist will provide training in self-control strategies. The parents
of children who show conduct disorders will be taught behavior modifica-
tion techniques that they could use in the home. Behavior therapy focuses
on the client’s present and future. Little time is spent discussing childhood
experiences, except as they clearly and directly bear on the client’s present-
ing problem. The therapist adopts a problem-solving approach, and sessions
are focused on a learning-theory-based conceptualization of the client’s prob-
lems and discussions of strategies for change. Homework assignments are
680
Psychopathology
common, which leads behavior therapists to believe that therapy takes place
between sessions.
cognitive therapy. The basic tenet of cognitive therapy is that psycho-
logical problems stem from the way people view and think about the events
that happen to them. Consequently, therapy focuses on helping patients
change their viewpoints. For example, with a patient who becomes de-
pressed after the breakup of a relationship, the cognitive therapist will assess
the meaning that the breakup has for the person. Perhaps he or she holds ir-
rational beliefs such as, “If my partner does not want me, no one will,” or “I
am a complete failure for losing this relationship.” The assumption is that
the patient’s extreme, negative thinking is contributing to the depression.
The therapist will challenge these beliefs and help the patient substitute a
more rational perspective; for example, “Just because one person left me
does not mean that the next person will,” and “Even if this relationship
ended, it does not mean that I am a failure in everything I do.”
Cognitive therapy has some similarity to behavior therapy. There is a fo-
cus on the present, history-taking is selective and related to the presenting
problem, and homework assignments are routine. Indeed, because the two
approaches have many things in common, many therapists use both forms
of treatment and refer to themselves as cognitive-behavioral therapists.
somatic therapy. Somatic therapy is the domain of physicians (psychi-
atrists) because this form of treatment requires medical training. By far the
most common example of somatic therapy is the use of psychotropic medi-
cations, medicine that will relieve psychological symptoms. Less common
examples are electroconvulsive shock treatment, in which the client is tran-
quilized and administered a brief electric current to the brain to induce a
convulsion, and brain surgery, such as leucotomy and lobotomy (rarely
practiced).
The use of medications for psychological disorders has become enor-
mously popular since 1970. Three main reasons are that the biological ap-
proach to understanding psychopathology is becoming more prominent;
new drugs are being released each year that have fewer side effects; and a
great deal of research is being conducted to show that an ever-increasing
number of disorders are helped by medication. The use of medication for
psychological disorders is not viewed as a cure. Sometimes drugs are used to
help a person through a difficult period. At other times they are an impor-
tant adjunct to psychotherapy. Only in the most severe forms of psychopath-
ology would a person be medicated for the rest of his or her life.
Which Therapy Is Best?

Researchers approach the question of which therapy is best in the context of
specific disorders. No one therapy is recommended for every disorder. For
instance, behavior therapy has proven to be highly successful with phobias,
cognitive therapy shows good results with depression, and a trial of medica-
tion is usual for schizophrenia and bipolar disorder.
681
Psychology Basics
No matter what the presumed cause is of a specific disorder, a common

practice is to provide medication for symptom relief, along with some form
of psychotherapy to improve the person’s condition over the long run.

Disorders: DSM-IV-TR. Rev. 4th ed. Washington, D.C.: Author, 2000. The
manual is the official listing of psychological disorders and their diagnos-
tic criteria. Some of the technical words are not defined, theories are not
discussed, and treatment is ignored. Nonetheless, the reader can gain a
great deal of knowledge about the different forms of psychopathology
and how therapists arrive at diagnoses.
Barlow, David H., and Vincent M. Durand. Abnormal Psychology. 3d ed.
Belmont, Calif.: Wadsworth/Thomson, 2002. This undergraduate text-
book is written for an audience with little or no background in psychol-
ogy. The book covers a broad range of psychological disorders and is an
excellent beginning text to learn about the biopsychosocial model of
psychopathology. Hundreds of references are provided.
Kanfer, Frederick, H., and Arnold P. Goldstein, eds. Helping People Change: A
Textbook of Methods. New York: Pergamon General Psychology, 1991. This
is a classic in the field of clinical psychology. It covers many cognitive-
behavioral techniques that are used for an array of psychological disor-
ders. The target audience is undergraduate and graduate students in psy-
chology and practitioners who want to learn about this treatment mo-
dality. Each chapter is easy to understand and assumes only a basic
knowledge of therapy and psychopathology.
Millon, Theodore, Paul H. Blaney, and Roger D. Davis, eds. Oxford Textbook of
Psychopathology. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999. An advanced
textbook for readers who have, at least, a college background in psychol-
ogy and basic knowledge of the field of psychopathology. Twenty-seven
chapters, authored by experts, span almost seven hundred pages. Theory
and assessment of disorders is emphasized.
Laurence Grimm and Lindsey L. Henninger
See also: Abnormality: Psychological Models; Cognitive Behavior Therapy;

Cognitive Therapy; Drug Therapies; Psychotherapy: Goals and Techniques.
682
Psychosomatic Disorders
Fields of study: Cognitive processes; organic disorders; stress and illness
Psychosomatic disorders are physical disorders produced by psychological factors such
as stress, mental states, or personality characteristics. A variety of psychological or
psychotherapeutic interventions have been developed to alter the individual’s ability to
cope with stressful situations and to change the personality or behavior of the individ-
ual.
Key concepts
• behavior modification
• biogenic
• biopsychosocial
• cognitive
• psychogenic
• psychological factors affecting physical condition
• psychosomatic disorders
• self-efficacy
• Type A behavior pattern
The term “psychosomatic” was introduced by physician Flanders Dunbar in

the early 1940’s, shortly after Hans Selye presented the concept of “stress.”
Psychosomatic disorders are physical disorders which are caused by, or exac-
erbated by, psychological factors. These psychological factors fall into three
major groups: stress resulting from encounters with the environment, per-
sonality characteristics, and psychological states. Psychosomatic disorders
are different from two other conditions with which they are often confused.
Psychosomatic disorders are real—that is, they are actual physical illnesses
that have underlying psychological causes or that are made worse by psycho-
logical factors. In somatoform disorders (such as hypochondriasis), by con-
trast, there is no physiological cause; another condition, malingering, is the
faking of an illness.
Psychosomatic disorders can affect any of the organ systems of the body.
Certainly, not all physical disorders or illnesses are psychosomatic disorders;
in many cases, an illness or physical disorder is caused entirely by biogenic
factors. In many other cases, however, there is no question about the impor-
tance of psychogenic factors. The American College of Family Physicians
has estimated that 90 percent of the workload of doctors is the result of psy-
chogenic factors.
Many familiar and common psychosomatic disorders that can affect the
body’s various organ systems. Included among them are skin disorders, such
as acne, hives, and rashes; musculoskeletal disorders, such as backaches,
rheumatoid arthritis, and tension headaches; respiratory disorders, such as
683
Psychology Basics
asthma and hiccups; and cardiovascular disorders, such as hypertension,

heart attacks, strokes, and migraine headaches. Other disorders have also
been related to psychological factors, including anemia, weakening of the
immune system, ulcers, and constipation. Genitourinary disorders such as
menstrual problems, vaginismus, male erectile disorder, and premature
ejaculation are included among psychosomatic disorders, as are certain
endocrine and neurological problems.
The relationship between the mind and the body has long been the sub-
ject of debate. Early societies saw a clear link between the two. Early Greek
and Roman physicians believed that body fluids determined personality
types and that people with certain personality types were prone to certain
types of diseases. Beginning during the Renaissance, the dominant line of
thought held that there was little or no connection between the mind and
the body. Illness was seen as the result of organic, cellular pathology. De-
struction of body tissue and invasion by “germs,” rather than personality
type, were seen as the causes of illness.
Sigmund Freud’s work with patients suffering from conversion hysteria
began to demonstrate both the importance of psychological factors in the
production of physical symptoms of illness and the value of psychological
therapy in changing the functioning of the body. Research conducted in the
1930’s and 1940’s suggested that personality factors play a role in the pro-
duction of a variety of specific illnesses, including ulcers, hypertension, and
asthma.
The Role of Stress

Even though Freud demonstrated the role of psychological factors in illness,
the medical field has still focused upon the biological roots of illness and has
still largely rejected or ignored the role of emotions and personality. Never-
theless, the ascending line of thought can be described as a biopsychosocial
view of illness, which begins with the basic assumption that health and ill-
ness result from an interplay of biological, psychological, and social factors.
This view provides a conceptual framework for incorporating human ele-
ments into the scientific paradigm. A man who suffers a heart attack at age
thirty-five is not conceptualized simply as a person who is experiencing the
effects of cellular damage caused by purely biological processes that are best
treated by surgery or the administration of drugs. The victim, instead, is
viewed as a person who also has engaged in practices that adversely affected
his health. In addition to drugs and surgery, therefore, treatment for this
man might include changing his views on the relative value of work and fam-
ily as well as emphasizing the importance of daily exercise and diet. If he
smokes, he will be encouraged to quit smoking. He might receive training in
stress management and relaxation techniques.
Few people today would argue with the proposition that stress is a fact of
life. Most have far more experience with stressors—those events that hu-
mans find stressful—than they would willingly choose for themselves. Stress
684
is one of the major causes of psychosomatic disorders. Stressors are often as-
sumed to be external events, probably because stressful external events are
so easily identified and recognized. Many stressors, however, come from
within oneself. For example, an individual alone often sets strict standards
for himself or herself and, in failing to meet those standards, often makes
harsher personal judgments than anyone else would make. Especially since
the late 1970’s and early 1980’s, cognitive psychologists have focused atten-
tion on the internal thinking processes, thoughts, values, beliefs, and expec-
tations that lead people to put unnecessary pressure on themselves that re-
sults in the subjective sense of stress.
Another contribution made by cognitive psychologists was the realization
that a situation can be a stressor only if the individual interprets it as stress-
ful. Any event that people perceive as something with which they can cope
will be perceived as less stressful than an event that taxes or exceeds their re-
sources, regardless of the objective seriousness of the two events. In other
words, it is the cognitive appraisal of the event, coupled with one’s cognitive
appraisal of one’s ability to deal with the event, rather than the objective re-
ality of the event, that determines the degree to which one subjectively expe-
riences stress.
Personality Types
Continuing the tradition of the early Greek and Roman physicians, modern
personality theorists have often noted that certain personality characteris-
tics seem to be associated with a propensity to develop illness, or even spe-
cific illnesses. Other personality characteristics appear to reduce vulnerabil-
ity to illness. One of the best-known examples of a case in which personality
characteristics affect health is that of the Type A behavior pattern (or Type A
personality). The person identified as a Type A personality typically displays
a pattern of behaviors which includes easily aroused hostility, excessive com-
petitiveness, and a pronounced sense of time urgency. Research suggests
that hostility is the most damaging of these behaviors. Type A personalities
typically display hyperreactivity to stressful situations, with a corresponding
slow return to the baseline of arousal. The hostile Type A personality is par-
ticularly prone to coronary heart disease. By contrast, the less driven Type B
personality does not display the hostility, competitiveness, and time urgency
of the Type A personality and is about half as likely to develop coronary
heart disease.
Studies conducted in the 1970’s and 1980’s led to the suggestion that
there is a Type C, or cancer-prone, personality. Although the role of person-
ality characteristics is heavily debated in terms of the development of cancer,
various characteristics related to stress have been found to suppress the im-
mune system, thereby making an individual more vulnerable to some can-
cers. Personality characteristics have therefore also been found to be some-
what influential in the course of the disease. It is well known that many
natural and artificial substances produce cancer, but many researchers have
685
Psychology Basics
also noted that people with certain personality characteristics are more
likely to develop cancer, are more likely to develop fast-growing cancers, and
are less likely to survive their cancers, whatever the cause. These personality
characteristics include repression of strong negative emotions, acquies-
cence in the face of stressful life situations, inhibition, depression, and
hopelessness. Encounters with uncontrollable stressful events appear to be
particularly related to the development or course of cancer. In addition,
some research suggests that not having strong social support systems may
contribute to the development or affect the outcome of cancer.
Research has begun to focus on the possible interaction among risk fac-
tors for cancer. For example, depressed smokers are many more times likely
to develop smoking-related cancers than are either nondepressed smokers
or depressed nonsmokers. One theory suggests that the smoking provides
exposure to the carcinogenic substance that initiates the cancer, and depres-
sion promotes its development.
It has been suggested that hardiness is a broad, positive personality vari-
able that affects one’s propensity for developing stress-related illness. Har-
diness is made up of three more specific characteristics: commitment (be-
coming involved in things that are going on around oneself), challenge
(accepting the need for change and seeing new opportunities for growth in
what others see as problems), and control (believing that one’s actions de-
termine what happens in life and that one can have an effect on the environ-
ment). It has been hypothesized that people who possess these characteris-
tics are less likely to develop stress-related disorders because they view
stressful situations more favorably than do other people. Commitment and
control seem to be more influential in promoting health. Locus of control is
a related concept which has received much attention.
Control and Helplessness

Locus of control refers to the location where one believes control over life
events originates. An external locus of control is outside oneself; an internal
locus of control is within oneself. The individual who perceives that life
events are the result of luck, or are determined by others, is assuming an ex-
ternal locus of control. The belief that one’s efforts and actions control
one’s own destiny reflects an internal locus of control. Internalizers are
thought to be more likely to assume responsibility for initiating necessary
lifestyle changes, to employ direct coping mechanisms when confronted
with stressful situations, and to be more optimistic about the possibility of
successfully instituting changes that are needed. This last characteristic is
sometimes called self-efficacy. Self-efficacy refers to the belief that one is
able to do what is needed and attain the intended effect.
The concept of learned helplessness, on the other hand, produces feel-
ings of complete lack of control and a fatalistic acceptance of events. Martin
E. P. Seligman began to investigate this phenomenon in 1964. He found that
when people are faced with a situation which they can do nothing to prevent
686
or escape, they learn the attitude of helplessness. Seligman and colleagues

later investigated the question of why some people do not adopt this atti-
tude. They concluded that people who adopt a pessimistic explanatory style
become helpless when adversity is encountered, but that an optimistic ex-
planatory style prevents the development of learned helplessness.
Seligman has described the chain of events by which the pessimistic ex-
planatory style may lead to illness. Beginning with unfortunate experiences
such as a serious loss, defeat, or failure, the person with a pessimistic explan-
atory style becomes depressed. The depression leads to depletion of a neu-
rotransmitter substance called catecholamine, and the body increases the
secretion of endorphins—the body’s naturally produced form of morphine.
When receptors in the immune system detect the increased presence of the
endorphins, the immune system begins to turn itself down. Any disease
agents that are encountered while the immune system is weakened have a
much greater likelihood of overwhelming the remaining defenses of the im-
mune system. This process is very similar to the situation faced by the indi-
vidual who contracts the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and devel-
ops acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS). When the immune
system of the person with AIDS is unable to function effectively, opportunis-
tic infections against which the body could normally defend itself are able to
overtake it. It is those opportunistic infections that kill, rather than the HIV
itself.
Interventions
Because the hyperreactivity of the Type A behavior pattern is thought to be
at least partially genetically based, there are probably some limits on what
can be done to reduce the incidence of coronary heart disease resulting
from physiological hyperreactivity. There is, however, much that can be
done in other areas. Persons who are prone to such disorders can be taught
to exercise properly, eliminate unhealthy dietary practices, and reduce or
quit smoking. Of particular interest to psychologists is the opportunity to
help these individuals by teaching effective coping strategies, stress manage-
ment, values training, behavior modification to control Type A behaviors,
and cognitive control of depression and other negative emotions.
Studies by psychologists have demonstrated a wide range of interventions
that can be helpful in reducing the danger of cardiovascular disease in Type
A personalities. Exercise produces positive effects on physiological func-
tioning, appears to improve general psychological functioning, and reduces
Type A behaviors. Cognitive behavioral stress management techniques have
been shown to reduce behavioral reactivity. Values training focusing on
changing the person’s perceptions of the importance of occupational suc-
cess and competitiveness has enabled the individual to concentrate on more
beneficial behaviors. Behavior modification techniques have been used to
alter the kinds of behavior that appear to be most dangerous for the Type A
person, substituting other behavioral responses in place of explosive speech
687
Psychology Basics
and hostility. Cognitive control of emotions produces more rapid physiolog-

ical recovery after stress.
Efforts by psychologists to help the Type C personality might focus on as-
sertiveness training and altering the person’s belief that it is not appropriate
to display strong negative emotions, such as anger or frustration. Teaching
the Type C person to fight back against stressful life situations, rather than
acquiescing to them, might also be of benefit. Imagery therapy appears to
be beneficial to some cancer patients, perhaps for that reason, but also be-
cause it promotes the development of learned optimism in place of learned
pessimism. Promoting the development of effective social support systems is
another means for psychologists to have a positive impact in the fight
against cancer.
Psychosomatics and the Future

It is important that a distinction be made between psychosomatic disorders
and three other conditions listed in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of
Mental Disorders: DSM-IV-TR (rev. 4th ed., 2000), which is the official classifi-
cation system for mental disorders published by the American Psychiatric
Association. Psychosomatic disorders, which are covered by the category
Psychological Factors Affecting Physical Conditions, are not themselves con-
sidered mental disorders. While the psychological factors that cause the
physical illness are unhealthy or abnormal from a psychiatric or psychologi-
cal perspective, the psychosomatic disorder is a real, physical illness or con-
dition controlled by real, physical processes.
Somatoform disorders, on the other hand, are mental disorders which
manifest themselves through real or imagined physical symptoms for which
no physical cause exists. These symptoms are not intentionally produced by
the client. Conversion disorder is one of the somatoform disorders that
laypeople often confuse with psychosomatic disorders. Unlike the case with
psychosomatic disorders, there is no organic or physiological pathology that
would account for the presence of the physical symptoms displayed by the
person suffering from a conversion disorder. Hypochondriasis is the second
somatoform disorder that is often confusing for laypeople. The person suf-
fering from hypochondriasis fears or believes that he or she has the symp-
toms of a serious disease, but the imagined “symptoms” are actually normal
sensations or body reactions which are misinterpreted as symptoms of dis-
ease.
Malingering is the third condition which is sometimes confused with psy-
chosomatic disorders. The person who is malingering is faking illness and is
reporting symptoms that either do not exist at all or are grossly exaggerated.
The malingering is motivated by external goals or incentives.
By eliminating many of the diseases that used to be epidemic, especially
those which killed people early in life, medical science has increased the av-
erage life expectancy of Americans by about thirty years since the beginning
of the twentieth century. Eliminating the psychological factors that cause
688
psychosomatic disorders holds promise for another increase in average life

expectancy in the next few decades. Heart disease, cancer, and strokes are
the top three killer diseases in the United States, and each has a powerful
psychosomatic component. The reduction in human suffering and the eco-
nomic benefits that can be gained by controlling nonfatal psychosomatic
disorders are equally promising.
Cognitive and health psychologists have, particularly since the 1970’s,
tried to determine the degree to which cognitive psychotherapy interven-
tions can boost immune system functioning in cancer patients. They have
also used behavioral and cognitive therapy approaches to alter the attitudes
and behaviors of people who are prone to heart disease and strokes, with
considerable success. In the near future, they can be expected to focus their
efforts on two major fronts. The first will involve further attempts to identify
the psychological factors which might increase people’s propensity to de-
velop psychosomatic disorders. The second will involve continuing efforts
to develop and refine the therapeutic interventions intended to reduce the
damage done by psychosomatic disorders, and possibly to prevent them en-
tirely.

Chopra, Deepak. Creating Health. Reprint. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1991.
Chopra is a proponent of meditation, an approach that not all American
psychologists feel comfortable advocating. Nevertheless, this book is writ-
ten by a practicing physician for the layperson. He covers a wide variety of
psychosomatic disorders, suggests a variety of healthy habits, and pres-
ents the viewpoint that “health is our natural state.”
Pert, Candace B. Molecules of Emotion. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1997.
This is a highly accessible book written in an engaging style with wit and
humor. Pert discusses her research on the scientific bases of mind-body
medicine and the difficulties in integrating these concepts into Western
medicine. The book contains appendices with a list of resources and
practitioners, an extensive glossary, and recommended readings.
Seligman, Martin E. P. Learned Optimism. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1991.
Chapter 2 provides an especially interesting account of how two young
graduate students can upset one of the most basic assumptions of a well-
entrenched viewpoint and promote the development of a new way of
looking at things. Chapter 10 describes how explanatory styles might af-
fect health and the mechanism by which this is thought to occur. A read-
able book which examines an interesting concept.
Simonton, O. Carl, Stephanie Matthews-Simonton, and James L. Creighton.
Getting Well Again. New York: Bantam Books, 1980. Cancer researchers
and therapists examine the mind-body connection, effects of beliefs,
causes of cancer, effects of stress and personality, and effects of expecta-
tions on the development and progress of cancer. They describe a holistic
approach to treatment, emphasizing relaxation and visual imagery, that
689
Psychology Basics
is reported to produce cancer survival rates that are twice the national
norm.
Taylor, Shelley E. Health Psychology. 5th ed. Boston: McGraw-Hill, 2003. A
moderately high-level college textbook that comprehensively covers the
general field of health psychology. As could be expected, many research
studies are presented, and not all of them corroborate one another. The
general reader should have no particular difficulty handling this mate-
rial; the writing is reader-friendly.
Wedding, Danny, ed. Behavior and Medicine. 3d ed. Seattle: Hogrefe & Huber,
2001. This large volume covers an extensive area of behavior and medi-
cine, which include stress and various behaviors which may affect physio-
logical health. The articles cover such behavioral issues as substance
abuse, stress management, pain, placebos, AIDS, cardiovascular risk, and
adherence to medical regimens. Other behavioral issues are covered
which relate to love and work, as well as developmental issues from in-
fancy to death, dying and grief. The book is readable and includes illus-
trations, bibliographies, summaries, and study questions at the end of
each article.
John W. Nichols; updated by Martha Oehmke Loustaunau
See also: Cognitive Behavior Therapy; Cognitive Therapy; Emotions; Endo-

crine System; Learned Helplessness; Stress-Related Diseases.
690
Psychosurgery
Fields of study: Anxiety disorders; biological treatments; depression;
endocrine system; schizophrenias
Psychosurgery is brain surgery in which brain parts are disconnected or removed to do

away with psychiatric problems such as aggression, anxiety, and psychoses. It was
used most from 1935 to 1965, until psychoactive drugs began to replace it. Psycho-
surgery is not used to relieve psychiatric symptoms resulting from structural brain dis-
ease such as brain tumors.
Key concepts
• electroconvulsive therapy
• psychopharmaceuticals
• psychosurgery techniques
• somatic theory of insanity
In the early twentieth century, the treatment of mental disease was limited
to psychotherapy for neurotics and long-term care of psychotics in asylums.
In the 1930’s, these methods were supplemented by physical approaches us-
ing electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) and brain operations. Psychosurgical
operations were in vogue from the mid-1930’s to the middle to late 1960’s.
They became, and still are, hugely controversial, although their use had
drastically declined by the last quarter of the twentieth century. Controversy
arose because, for its first twenty-five years of existence, crude psycho-
surgery was too often carried out on inappropriate patients.
ECT developed after the 1935 discovery that schizophrenia could be
treated by convulsions induced through camphor injection. Soon, convul-
sion production was accomplished by passage of electric current through
the brain, as described in 1938 by Italian physicians Ugo Cerletti and Lucio
Bini. ECT was most successful in alleviating depression and is still used for
that purpose. In contrast, classic psychosurgery by bilateral prefrontal leu-
cotomy (lobotomy) is no longer performed because of its deleterious effects
on the physical and mental health of many subjects. These effects included
epilepsy and unwanted personality changes such as apathy, passivity, and low
emotional responses. It should be remembered, however, that psycho-
surgery was first planned to quiet chronically tense, delusional, agitated, or
violent psychotic patients.
History and Context of Psychosurgery

Psychosurgery is believed to have originated with the observation by early
medical practitioners that severe head injuries could produce extreme
changes in behavior patterns. In addition, physicians of the thirteenth to six-
691
Psychology Basics
teenth centuries reported that sword and knife wounds that penetrated the
skull could change normal behavior patterns. From the mid-1930’s to the
mid-1960’s, reputable physicians performed psychosurgery on both indi-
gent patients in public institutions and on the wealthy at expensive private
hospitals and universities.
Psychosurgery was imperfect and could cause adverse reactions, but it
was performed because of the arguments advanced by powerful physician
proponents of the method; the imperfect state of knowledge of the brain at
the time; the enthusiasm of the popular press, which lauded the method;
and many problems at overcrowded mental hospitals. The last reason is
thought to have been the most compelling, as asylums for the incurably
mentally ill were hellish places. Patients were beaten and choked by atten-
dants, incarcerated in dark, dank, padded cells, and subjected to many
other indignities. At the same time, little could be done to cure them.
Egas Moniz Invents Leucotomy

The two main figures in psychosurgery were António Egas Moniz, the Portu-
guese neurologist who invented lobotomy, and the well-known American
neuropathologist and neuropsychiatrist Walter Freeman, who roamed the
world convincing others to carry out the operations. The imperfect state of
knowledge of the brain in relation to insanity was expressed in two theories
of mental illness. A somatic (organic) theory of insanity proposed it to be of
biological origin. In contrast, a functional theory supposed life experiences
to cause the problems.
The somatic theory was shaped most by Emil Kraepelin, the foremost au-
thority on psychiatry in the first half of the twentieth century. Kraepelin dis-
tinguished twenty types of mental disorder, including dementia praecox
(schizophrenia) and manic-depressive (bipolar) disorder. Kraepelin and his
colleagues viewed these diseases as genetically determined, and practition-
ers of psychiatry developed complex physical diagnostic schema that identi-
fied people with various types of psychoses. In contrast, Sigmund Freud was
the main proponent of the functional theory. Attempts to help mental pa-
tients included ECT as well as surgical removal of tonsils, sex organs, and
parts of the digestive system. All these methods had widely varied success
rates that were often subjective. Further differences depended on which sur-
geon used them. By the 1930’s, the most widely effective curative proce-
dures were several types of ECT and lobotomy (psychosurgery).
The first lobotomy was carried out on November 12, 1935, at a hospital in
Lisbon, Portugal. There, Pedro A. Lima, Egas Moniz’s neurosurgeon collab-
orator, drilled two holes into the skull of a mental patient and injected ethyl
alcohol directly into the frontal lobes of her brain to destroy nerve cells. Af-
ter similar operations on several patients, the tissue-killing procedure was al-
tered to use an instrument called a leucotome. After its insertion into the
brain, the knifelike instrument, designed by Egas Moniz, was rotated like an
apple corer to destroy chosen lobe areas.
692
Psychosurgery
António Egas Moniz,

inventor of the lobotomy.
(The Nobel Foundation)
Egas Moniz—already a famous neurologist—named the procedure pre-

frontal leucotomy. He won a Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1949
for his invention of the procedure. Within a year of his first leucotomy,
psychosurgery (another term invented by Egas Moniz) spread through Eu-
rope. Justification for its wide use was the absence of any other effective so-
matic treatment and the emerging concept that the cerebral frontal lobes
were the site of intellectual activity and mental problems. The selection of
leucotomy target sites was based on two considerations using the position in
the frontal lobes where nerve fibers—not nerve cells—were most concen-
trated and avoiding damage to large blood vessels. Thus, Egas Moniz tar-
geted the frontal lobe’s centrum ovale, which contains few blood vessels.
After eight operations—50 percent performed on schizophrenics—Egas
Moniz and Lima stated that their cure rates were good. Several other psychi-
atric physicians disagreed strongly. After twenty operations, it became fairly
clear that psychosurgery worked best on patients suffering from anxiety and
depression, while schizophrenics did not benefit very much. The main ef-
fect of the surgery was to calm patients and make them docile. Retrospec-
693
Psychology Basics
tively, it is believed that Egas Moniz’s evidence for serious improvement in

many cases was very sketchy. However, many psychiatric and neurological
practitioners were impressed, and the stage was set for wide dissemination of
psychosurgery.
Lobotomy Procedures
The second great proponent of leucotomy—the physician who renamed it
lobotomy and greatly modified the methodology used—was Freeman, pro-
fessor of neuropathology at George Washington University Medical School
in Washington, D.C. In 1936, he tested the procedure on preserved brains
from the medical school morgue and repeated Egas Moniz’s efforts. After
six lobotomies, Freeman and his associate James W. Watts became optimistic
that the method was useful to treat patients exhibiting apprehension, anxi-
ety, insomnia, and nervous tension, while pointing out that it would be im-
possible to determine whether the procedure had effected the recovery or
cure of mental problems until a five-year period had passed.
As Freeman and Watts continued to operate, they noticed problems, in-
cluding relapses to the original abnormal state, a need for repeated surgery,
a lack of ability on the part of patients to resume jobs requiring the use of
reason, and death due to postsurgical hemorrhage. This led them to de-
velop a more precise technique, using the landmarks on the skull to identify
where to drill entry holes, cannulation to assure that lobe penetration depth
was not dangerous to patients, and use of a knifelike spatula to make lobot-
omy cuts. The extent of surgery also varied, depending upon whether the
patient involved was suffering from an affective disorder or from schizo-
phrenia. Their method, the “routine Freeman-Watts lobotomy procedure,”
became popular throughout the world.
Another method used for prefrontal lobotomy was designed by J. G.
Lyerly in 1937. He opened the brain so that psychosurgeons could see ex-
actly what was being done to the frontal lobes. This technique also became
popular and was used throughout the United States. Near the same time, in
Japan, Mizuho Nakata of Nigata Medical College began to remove from the
brain parts of one or both frontal lobes. However, the Freeman-Watts
method was most popular as the result of a “do-it-yourself manual” for
psychosurgery that Freeman and Watts published in 1942. The book theo-
rized that the brain pathways between cerebral frontal lobes and the thala-
mus regulate intensity of emotions in ideas, and acceptance of this theory
led to better scientific justification of psychosurgery.
Another lobotomy procedure that was fairly widespread was Freeman’s
transorbital method, designed not only to correct shortcomings in his rou-
tine method but also in attempt to aid many more schizophrenics. The sim-
ple, rapid, but frightening procedure drove an ice-pick-like transorbital
leukotome through the eye socket, above the eyeball, and into the frontal
lobe. Subjects were rendered unconscious with ECT, and the procedure was
done before they woke up. Use of this method gained many converts and,
694
Psychosurgery
gruesome as it sounds, the method caused less brain damage than other
psychosurgery procedures. It was widely used at state hospitals for the in-
sane and was lauded by the press as making previously hopeless cases nor-
mal immediately.
Subsequently developed tereotaxic surgical techniques, such as stereo-
tactic cingulatory, enabled psychosurgeons to create much smaller lesions
by means of probes inserted into accurately located brain regions, followed
by nerve destruction through the use of radioactive implants or by cryogen-
ics. Currently, psychosurgery is claimed to be an effective treatment for pa-
tients with intractable depression, anxiety, or obsessional problems and a
method that improves the behavior of very aggressive patients. Opponents
say that these therapeutic effects can be attained by means of antipsychotic
and antidepressant drugs. The consensus is that psychosurgery can play a
small part in psychiatric treatment when long-term use of other treatments
is unsuccessful and patients are tormented by mental problems.
Mode of Action of Psychosurgery

Collectively, the brain’s limbic system is composed of the hippocampus,
amygdala, hippocampal and cingulate gyri, limen insulae, and posterior or-
bital regions of cerebral frontal lobes. This system, its components linked by
nerve pathways, controls emotional expression, seizure activity, and mem-
ory storage and recall. Moreover, cerebral lobe limbic system connections
from the dorsal convexity of a frontal lobe comprise two pathways running
to the cingulate gyrus and hippocampus and the hypothalamus and mid-
brain. The frontal lobe orbital surface also projects to the septal area of the
hypothalamus. The limbic brain architecture therefore yields two neuro-
transport circuits in a frontolimbic-hypothalamic-midbrain axis. These are a
medial frontal, cingulate, hippocampus circuit (MFCHC) and an orbital
frontal, temporal, amygdala circuit (OFTAC), which control hypothalamic
autonomic and endocrine action. The MFCHC and OFTAC connect in the
septa, preoptic area, midbrain, and hypothalamus.
The original Egas Moniz lobotomy divided the frontolimbic structures,
and its bad effects were due to the disabling impairment of frontal lobe
function. Psychosurgery on the anterior cingulate gyrus and on the thala-
mofrontal bundle (bimedial leucotomy) divided different parts of the same
main circuit. Orbital undercutting severs red nerve tracts running from the
posterior orbital cortex to the limbic system. Although psychosurgery is cur-
rently an uncommon procedure, when it is performed, the methods used
are lower medial quadrant leucotomy, making lesions just before the fourth
ventricle; stereotactic-subcaudate-tractotomy, making lesions with rear halves
in the subcaudate area; removal of the anterior two inches of the cingulate
gyrus; and stereotactic limbic leucotomy, lesioning the lower medial fron-
tal lobe quadrant. These operations cause varied endocrine and autonomic
disconnections and are thus chosen to suit the mental condition being
treated.
695
Psychology Basics
Diagnosis and Treatment

Diagnosis of a need for psychosurgery is based on observation of symptoms
supporting abnormal psychological behavior. Examples are extremes of ag-
gression, anxiety, obsession, or compulsiveness as well as psychoses other
than schizophrenia. The exclusion of schizophrenics, except for those hav-
ing marked anxiety and tension, is based on data supporting poor responses
by schizophrenics to lobotomy and other leucotomies. Surveys have shown
that good surgical outcomes were only obtained in 18 percent of schizo-
phrenics who underwent lobotomy, as compared with 50 percent of depres-
sives.
Psychosurgery’s unfavorable record between 1935 and 1965, and its post-
operative irreversibility, speak to the need for careful study before suggest-
ing such brain surgery. In addition, many members of the medical commu-
nity believe that the choice of psychosurgery should be based on the long-
term nature of symptoms untreatable by other means, as well as a severe risk
of suicide. Before psychosurgery is attempted, other methods must be ex-
hausted, such as repeated ECT, prolonged psychoanalysis, and aggressive
pharmaceutical treatments with antipsychotic drugs. Some sources suggest,
as criteria for choosing psychosurgery, the persistence of symptoms for
more than ten years of treatment under conditions where all possible
nonsurgical methodology has been exhausted after its aggressive use. Oth-
ers believe it inhumane to require a decade of illness before allowing the
possibility of a cure.
Symptom severity is another hugely important criterion for psychosur-
gery. Examples of this are the complete inability to work at a job or carry out
household chores, as well as long-term and severe endogenous depression.
It is also suggested that patients who have strong psychological support from
their families and stable environments are the best candidates. Careful as-
sessment of patient symptoms, handicaps, and problems should always be
carried out. Formal rating scales, personality assessment via school and work
records, and information coming from close relatives or friends are also
viewed as crucial.
The use of psychosurgery is limited to a very small number of patients not
helped by existing chemotherapeutic or psychoanalytical methodology. It is
fortunate that a wide variety of new techniques have made psychosurgery ca-
pable of destroying smaller and smaller targets. As knowledge of the brain
and its functioning increases, it appears possible that modern psychosur-
gery may yet prove to be useful where other methods fail.

Feigenbaum, Ernes. Stereotactic Cingulotomy as a Means of Psychosurgery. Rock-
ville, Md.: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Public
Health Service, 1985. A useful description of one of the newer psycho-
surgical methods.
Fulton, John F. Frontal Lobotomy and Affective Behavior: A Neuropsychological
696
Psychosurgery
Analysis. New York: W. W. Norton, 1951. A prominent member of the

American medical profession contemporary with António Egas Moniz
and Pedro A. Lima discusses human and animal lobotomy. Fulton is
strongly for lobotomy and lauds its achievements and prospects. The
book has good references and illustrations.
Lader, Malcolm H., and Reginald Herrington. Biological Treatments in Psychi-
atry. 2d ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 1996. Covers the human
brain, mental illness and principles of its treatment, neuropharmacology,
psychosurgery, and ECT. Contains a good bibliography.
Rodgers, Joann Ellison. Psychosurgery: Damaging the Brain to Save the Mind.
New York: HarperCollins, 1992. Covers psychosurgery in healing the
chronically mentally ill. Describes methods which destroy only a few
brain cells and their efficacy compared to drugs. Examines moral and
medical pros and cons.
Turner, Eric A. Surgery of the Mind. Birmingham, England: Carmen Press,
1982. Answers questions regarding the ethics of carrying out psycho-
surgery, its consequences, and its justifications. Topics include the brain,
its function and operation, selection and management of lobotomy pa-
tients, various types of psychosurgery, and follow-up of five hundred
psychosurgeries.
Valenstein, Elliot S. Great and Desperate Cures: The Rise and Decline of Psycho-
surgery and Other Radical Treatments for Mental Illness. New York: Basic
Books, 1986. Well-thought-out history of psychosurgery. Includes theo-
ries of mentation leading to psychosurgery, methodology of its great pro-
ponents, and reasons for its replacement and limited use. Illustrated.
__________, ed. The Psychosurgery Debate: Scientific, Legal, and Ethical Perspec-
tives. New York: W. F. Freeman, 1980. Includes an overview of the history,
rationale for, and extent of psychosurgery; patient selection; evaluation
of methods used; description of legal and ethical issues; and an extensive
bibliography.
Sanford S. Singer
See also: Anxiety Disorders; Bipolar Disorder; Brain Structure; Depression;

Madness: Historical Concepts; Schizophrenia: Background, Types, and Symp-
toms; Schizophrenia: Theoretical Explanations.
697
Psychotherapy
Goals and Techniques
Field of study: Evaluating psychotherapy
The goals to be reached in psychotherapy and the techniques employed to accomplish

them vary according to the needs of the patient and the theoretical orientation of the
therapist.
Key concepts
• behavioral therapy
• corrective emotional experience
• desensitization
• eclectic therapy
• humanistic therapy
• interpretation
• psychodynamic therapy
• resistance
• shaping
• therapeutic alliance
Psychotherapy involves an interpersonal relationship in which clients pres-

ent themselves to a psychotherapist in order to gain some relief from dis-
tress in their lives. It should be noted that although people who seek psycho-
logical help are referred to as “clients” by a wide range of psychotherapists,
this term is used interchangeably with the term “patients,” which is tradi-
tionally used more often by psychodynamically and medically trained practi-
tioners. In all forms of psychotherapy, patients must tell the psychotherapist
about their distress and reveal intimate information in order for the psycho-
therapist to be helpful. The psychotherapist must aid patients in the diffi-
cult task of admitting difficulties and revealing themselves, because a pa-
tient’s desire to be liked and to be seen as competent can stand in the way of
this work. The patient also wants to find relief from distress at the least possi-
ble cost in terms of the effort and personal changes to be made, and, there-
fore, patients often prevent themselves from making the very changes in
which they are interested. This is termed resistance, and much of the work
of the psychotherapist involves dealing with such resistance.
The goals of the patient are determined by the type of life problems that
are being experienced. Traditionally, psychotherapists make a diagnosis of
the psychiatric disorder from which the patient suffers, with certain symp-
toms to be removed in order for the patient to gain relief. The vast majority
of patients suffer from some form of anxiety or depression, or from certain
failures in personality development which produce deviant behaviors and
rigid patterns of relating to others called personality disorders. Relatively
698
Psychotherapy: Goals and Techniques
few patients suffer from severe disorders, called psychoses, which are char-
acterized by some degree of loss of contact with reality. Depending on the
particular symptoms involved in the patient’s disorder, psychotherapeutic
goals will be set, although the patient may not be aware of the necessity of
these changes at first. In addition, the diagnosis allows the psychotherapist
to anticipate the kinds of goals that would be difficult for the patient to at-
tain. Psychotherapists also consider the length of time they will likely work
with the patient. Therefore, psychotherapeutic goals depend on the pa-
tient’s wishes, the type of psychiatric disorder from which the patient suf-
fers, and the limitations of time under which the psychotherapy proceeds.
Another factor that plays a major role in determining psychotherapeutic
goals is the psychotherapist’s theoretical model for treatment. This model is
based on a personality theory that explains people’s motivations, how peo-
ple develop psychologically, and how people differ from one another. It sug-
gests what occurred in life to create the person’s problems and what must be
achieved to correct these problems. Associated with each theory is a group
of techniques that can be applied to accomplish the goals considered to be
crucial within the theory used. There are three main models of personality
and treatment: psychodynamic therapies, behavioral therapies, and human-
istic therapies. Psychodynamic therapists seek to make patients aware of mo-
tives, of which they were previously unconscious or unaware, for their ac-
tions. By becoming aware of their motives, patients can better control the
balance between desires for pleasure and the need to obey one’s con-
science. Behavioral therapists attempt to increase the frequency of certain
behaviors and decrease the frequency of others by reducing anxiety associ-
ated with certain behavior, teaching new behavior, and rewarding and pun-
ishing certain behaviors. Humanistic therapists try to free patients to use
their innate abilities by developing relationships with patients in which pa-
tients can be assured of acceptance, making the patients more accepting of
themselves and more confident in making decisions and expressing them-
selves.
Most psychotherapists use a combination of theories, and therefore of
goals and techniques, in their practice. These “eclectic” therapists base their
decisions about goals and techniques upon the combined theory they have
evolved or upon a choice among other theories given what applies best to a
patient or diagnosis. It also appears that this eclectic approach has become
popular because virtually all psychotherapy cases demand attention to cer-
tain common goals associated with the various stages of treatment, and dif-
ferent types of therapy are well suited to certain goals and related tech-
niques at particular stages.
Therapeutic Relationships
When patients first come to a psychotherapist, they have in mind some
things about their lives that need to be changed. The psychotherapist recog-
nizes that before this can be accomplished, a trusting relationship must be
699
Psychology Basics
established with patients. This has been termed the “therapeutic alliance”
or a “collaborative relationship.” Establishing this relationship becomes the
first goal of therapy. Patients must learn that the therapist understands them
and can be trusted with the secrets of their lives. They must also learn about
the limits of the therapeutic relationship: that the psychotherapist is to be
paid for the service, that the relationship will focus on the patients’ con-
cerns and life experiences rather than the psychotherapist’s, that the psy-
chotherapist is available to patients during the scheduled sessions and emer-
gencies only, and that this relationship will end when the psychotherapeutic
goals are met.
The therapist looks early for certain recurring patterns in what the pa-
tient thinks, feels, and does. These patterns may occur in the therapy ses-
sions, and the patient reports about the way these patterns have occurred in
the past and how they continue. These patterns become the focal theme for
the therapy and are seen as a basic reason for the patient’s troubles.
For example, a patient may complain that he has never had the confi-
dence to think for himself. He reports that his parents always told him what
to do, without explanation. In his marriage, he finds himself unable to feel
comfortable with making any decisions, and he always looks to his spouse for
the final say. This pattern of dependence may not be as clear to the patient
as to the psychotherapist, who looks specifically for similarities across past
and present relationships. Furthermore, the patient will probably approach
the psychotherapist in a similar fashion. For example, the patient might ask
for the psychotherapist’s advice, stating that he does not know what to do.
When the psychotherapist points out the pattern in the patient’s behavior,
or suggests that it may have developed from the way his parents interacted
with him, the psychotherapist is using the technique of interpretation. This
technique originated in the psychodynamic models of psychotherapy.
When patients are confronted with having such patterns or focal themes,
they may protest that they are not doing this, that they find it difficult to do
anything different, or that they cannot imagine that there may be a different
way of living. These tendencies to protest and to find change to be difficult
are called “resistance.” Much of the work of psychotherapy involves over-
coming this resistance and achieving the understanding of self called in-
sight.
One of the techniques the psychotherapist uses to deal with resistance is
the continued development of the therapeutic relationship in order to dem-
onstrate that the psychotherapist understands and accepts the patient’s
point of view and that these interpretations of patterns of living are done in
the interest of the achievement of therapeutic goals by the patient. Human-
istic psychotherapists have emphasized this aspect of psychotherapeutic
technique. The psychotherapist also responds differently to the patient
from the way others have in the past, so that when the patient demonstrates
the focal theme in the psychotherapy session, this different outcome to the
pattern encourages a new approach to the difficulty. This is called the cor-
700
rective emotional experience, a psychotherapeutic technique that origi-

nated in psychodynamic psychotherapy and is emphasized in humanistic
therapies as well.
For example, when the patient asks the psychotherapist for advice, the
psychotherapist might respond that they could work together on a solution,
building on valuable information and ideas that both may have. In this way,
the psychotherapist has avoided keeping the patient dependent in the rela-
tionship with the psychotherapist, as the patient has been in relationships
with parents, a spouse, or others. This is experienced by the patient emo-
tionally, in that it may produce an increase in self-confidence or trust rather
than resentment, because the psychotherapist did not dominate. With the
repetition of these responses by the psychotherapist, the patient’s ways of re-
lating are corrected. Such a repetition is often called working through, an-
other term originating in psychodynamic models of therapy.
Psychotherapists have recognized that many patients have difficulty with
changing their patterns of living because of anxiety or lack of skill and expe-
rience in behaving differently. Behavioral therapy techniques are especially
useful in such cases. In cases of anxiety, the patient can be taught to relax
through relaxation training exercises. The patient gradually imagines per-
forming new, difficult behaviors while relaxing. Eventually, the patient
learns to stay relaxed while performing these behaviors with the psychother-
apist and other people. This process is called desensitization, and it was orig-
inally developed to treat persons with extreme fears of particular objects or
situations, termed phobias. New behavior is sometimes taught through
modeling techniques in which examples of the behavior are first demon-
strated by others. Behavioral psychotherapists have also shown the impor-
tance of rewarding small approximations to the new behavior that is the
goal. This shaping technique might be used with the dependent patient by
praising confident, assertive, or independent behavior reported by the pa-
tient or shown in the psychotherapy session, no matter how minor it may be
initially.
Alleviating Distress
The goals and techniques of psychotherapy were first discussed by the
psychodynamic theorists who originated the modern practice of psycho-
therapy. Sigmund Freud and Josef Breuer are generally credited with de-
scribing the first modern case treated with psychotherapy, and Freud went
on to develop the basis for psychodynamic psychotherapy in his writings be-
tween 1895 and his death in 1939. Freud sat behind his patients while they
lay upon a couch, so that they could concentrate on saying anything that
came to mind in order to reveal themselves to the psychotherapist. This also
prevented the patients from seeing the psychotherapist’s reaction, in case
they expected the psychotherapist to react to them as their parents had re-
acted. This transference relationship provided Freud with information
about the patient’s relationship with parents, which Freud considered to be
701
Psychology Basics
the root of the problems that his patients had. Later psychodynamic psycho-
therapists sat facing their patients and conversing with them in a more con-
ventional fashion, but they still attended to the transference.
Carl Rogers is usually described as the first humanistic psychotherapist,
and he published descriptions of his techniques in 1942 and 1951. Rogers
concentrated on establishing a warm, accepting, honest relationship with
his patients. He established this relationship by attempting to understand
the patient from the patient’s point of view. By communicating this “accu-
rate empathy,” patients would feel accepted and therefore would accept
themselves and be more confident in living according to their wishes with-
out fear.
Behavioral psychotherapists began to play a major role in this field after
Joseph Wolpe developed systematic desensitization in the 1950’s. In the
1960’s and 1970’s, Albert Bandura applied his findings on how children
learn to be aggressive through observation to the development of modeling
techniques for reducing fears and teaching new behaviors. Bandura focused
on how people attend to, remember, and decide to perform behavior they
observe in others. These thought processes, or “cognitions,” came to be ad-
dressed in cognitive psychotherapy by Aaron T. Beck and others in the
1970’s and 1980’s. Cognitive behavioral therapy became a popular hybrid
that included emphasis on how thinking and behavior influence each other.
In surveys of practicing psychotherapists beginning in the late 1970’s, Sol
Garfield showed that the majority of therapists practice some hybrid therapy
or eclectic approach. As it became apparent that no one model produced
the desired effects in a variety of patients, psychotherapists used techniques
from various approaches. An example is Arnold Lazarus’s multimodal be-
havior therapy, introduced in 1971. It appears that such trends will continue
and that, in addition to combining existing psychotherapeutic techniques,
new eclectic models will produce additional ways of understanding psycho-
therapy as well as different techniques for practice.

Garfield, Sol L. Psychotherapy: An Eclectic Approach. New York: John Wiley &
Sons, 1980. Focuses on the patient, the therapist, and their interaction
within an eclectic framework. Written for the beginning student of psy-
chotherapy and relatively free of jargon.
Goldfried, Marvin R., and Gerald C. Davison. Clinical Behavior Therapy. New
York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1976. An elementary, concise descrip-
tion of basic behavioral techniques. Includes clear examples of how these
techniques are implemented.
Goldman, George D., and Donald S. Milman, eds. Psychoanalytic Psychother-
apy. Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley, 1978. A very clear, concise treat-
ment of complicated psychodynamic techniques. Explains difficult con-
cepts in language accessible to the layperson.
Phares, E. Jerry. Clinical Psychology: Concepts, Methods, and Profession. 3d ed.
702
Pacific Grove, Calif.: Brooks/Cole, 1988. An overview of clinical psychol-

ogy that includes excellent chapters summarizing psychodynamic, behav-
ioral, humanistic, and other models of psychotherapy. Written as a col-
lege-level text.
Rogers, Carl Ransom. Client-Centered Therapy. Boston: Houghton Mifflin,
1965. A classic description of the author’s humanistic psychotherapy that
is still useful as a strong statement of the value of the therapeutic relation-
ship. Written for a professional audience, though quite readable.
Teyber, Edward. Interpersonal Process in Psychotherapy: A Guide to Clinical
Training. 3d ed. Pacific Grove, Calif.: Brooks/Cole, 1997. An extremely
clear and readable guide to modern eclectic therapy. Full of practical ex-
amples and written as a training manual for beginning psychotherapy
students.
Wolpe, Joseph. The Practice of Behavior Therapy. 4th ed. Elmsford, N.Y.:
Pergamon, 1990. Written by the originator of behavioral psychotherapy.
Introduces basic principles, examples of behavioral interventions, and
many references to research. Initial chapters are elementary, but later
ones tend to be complicated.
Richard G. Tedeschi
See also: Cognitive Therapy; Drug Therapies; Psychoanalysis; Psychoana-

lytic Psychology.
703
Race and Intelligence
Type of psychology: Biological bases of behavior; intelligence and
intelligence testing
Fields of study: Biological influences on learning; general issues in
intelligence; intelligence assessment
The relationship between race and intelligence has long been the subject of heated de-
bate among social scientists. At issue is whether intelligence is an inherited trait or is
primarily attributable to environmental influences.
Key concepts
• intelligence quotient (IQ) tests
• nature versus nurture
• twin studies
In 1969, educational psychologist Arthur Jensen published an article in the

Harvard Educational Review titled “How Much Can We Boost I.Q. and Scho-
lastic Achievement?” He attempted to explain multiple findings that whites,
on the average, outperform blacks by about 15 points on intelligence quo-
tient (IQ) tests. His major conclusion was that racial differences in intelli-
gence are primarily attributable to heredity and that whites, as a racial
group, are born with abilities superior to those of blacks.
Jensen, as well as William Shockley, presents the hereditarian hypothesis
of intelligence. It argues that some people are born smarter than others and
that this fact cannot be changed with training, education, or any alteration
in the environment. Because they believe that African Americans as a group
are not as smart as Caucasians, they suggest that special programs, such as
Head Start, which are designed to help disadvantaged children improve in
school achievement, are doomed to fail.
In contrast to the hereditarians, Urie Bronfenbrenner and Ashley Mon-
tagu can be described as environmentalists. They believe that although in-
telligence has some genetic component, as do all human characteristics, the
expression of intelligent behavior is defined, determined, and developed
within a specific cultural context. Therefore, what people choose to call in-
telligence is primarily caused by the interaction of genetics with environ-
mental influences. Environmentalists believe that a person can improve in
his or her intellectual functioning with sufficient changes in environment.
Richard Herrnstein and Charles Murray’s The Bell Curve (1994) re-
opened the issue of heredity versus environment in the attainment of intelli-
gence. The authors argue that Caucasians are inherently superior to African
Americans in IQ levels, presenting a mass of statistical evidence to support
their position. Critics of The Bell Curve attack it on a number of fronts. There
is a failure to separate hereditary from genetic variables. The definition of
race proves a difficult one. The IQ tests themselves come into the same cul-
ture bias category. The statistical tests hide more than they reveal. There is
704
difficulty replicating Hernnstein and Murray’s results. The defects mount

up rather quickly.
Much of the hereditarian argument is based on two types of studies: those
comparing IQ test performances of twins and those of adopted children. Be-
cause identical twins have the same genetic endowment, it is thought that
any differences observed between them should be attributable to the effects
of the environment. Hereditarians also suggest that one should observe
more similarities in the IQs of parents and their biological children (be-
cause they share genes) than between parents and adopted children (who
are biologically unrelated and therefore share no genes).
Statistical formulas are applied to comparisons between family members’
IQs to determine the relative contributions of heredity and environment.
Using this method, Sir Cyril Burt in 1958 reported a heritability estimate of
.93. This means that 93 percent of the variability in intelligence could be ex-
plained genetically. People have also interpreted this to mean that 93 per-
cent of the intelligence level is inherited. Jensen has more recently reported
heritability estimates of .80 and .67, depending on what formula is used.
Hereditarians have also pointed out that when they compare African Ameri-
cans and Caucasians from similar environments (the same educational
level, income level, or occupation), the reported IQ differences remain.
This, they argue, supports their view that heredity is more important than
environment in determining intelligence. The same arguments have been
made for the work of Hernnstein and Murray.
For environmentalists, it is not so much the reported IQ differences be-
tween different racial groups that are in question. Of more concern are the
basic assumptions made by the hereditarians and the reasons they give for
the reported differences. Not surprisingly, environmentalists challenge the
hereditarian arguments on several levels. First, they point out that there is
no evidence of the existence of an “intelligence” gene or set of genes. They
say that scientists have been unsuccessful in distinguishing the genetic from
the environmental contributions to intelligence.
Environmentalists also refute the assumption that IQ tests adequately
measure intelligence. Although IQ has been noted to be a good predictor of
success in school, it turns out to have little relationship to economic success
in life. S. E. Luria reports an analysis that shows that the son of a Caucasian
businessman with an IQ of 90 has a greater chance of success than an Afri-
can American boy with an IQ of 120. This example calls into question what
actually is being assessed. It is not at all clear that “intelligence” is being mea-
sured—especially as there is no generally accepted definition of intelligence
among social scientists.
The definition of race is also problematic. Although most people may
identify several racial groups (such as African, or black; Caucasian, or white;
and so on), Montagu and many other social scientists agree that race is a
pseudoscientific concept, used as a social or political category to assign so-
cial status and to subordinate nonwhite populations. Because of intermin-
705
Psychology Basics
Image not available
Intelligence, as measured by
tests, involves both genetics
and environmental factors
such as good schools.
(CLEO Photography)
gling among different cultural groups, it is also difficult to identify strict bio-
logical boundaries for race, which in turn makes genetic interpretations of
racial comparisons of IQ differences much less meaningful.
In addition to questioning what IQ tests measure, many psychologists
have criticized IQ tests as being biased against individuals who are culturally
different from the mainstream group (Caucasians) and who have not assim-
ilated the white, middle-class norms upon which the tests were based. Tests
developed in one culture may not adequately measure the abilities and apti-
tude of people from another culture, especially if the two cultures empha-
size different skills, ways of solving problems, and ways of understanding the
world.
Environmentalists have also criticized the research and statistical tech-
niques used by the hereditarians. It is now widely acknowledged that the
data reported by Burt, upon which Jensen heavily relied, were false. In many
different studies, he came up with the same figures (to the third decimal
point) for the similarities between IQ scores for twins. This is statistically im-
possible. He also did not take into account how other variables, such as age
and gender, might have produced higher IQ values in the twins he studied.
Rather, he assumed that they shared genes for intelligence.
706
It is also charged that the concept of heritability is misunderstood by the

hereditarians. This is a statistic that applies to groups, not to individuals. If
one states that the heritability estimate of a group of IQ scores is .80, that
does not mean that 80 percent of each IQ score is attributable to genetics,
but that 80 percent of the difference in the group of scores can be attributed
to genetic variation. Therefore, according to the enviromentalists, it is in-
correct for hereditarians to establish heritability within one group (such as
Caucasian children) and then apply that figure to a different racial group
(such as African American children).
Consequences of Various Positions

Several examples may help clarify the relationships between heredity, envi-
ronment, and characteristics such as IQ. The first example involves a highly
heritable characteristic, height. In this example, a farmer has two fields, one
rich in nutrients (field A) and the other barren (field B). The farmer takes
seeds from a bag that has considerable genetic variety, plants them in the
two fields, and cares for the two fields of crops equally well. After several
weeks, the plants are measured. The farmer finds that within field A, some
plants are taller than others in the same field. Because all these plants had
the same growing environment, the variation could be attributed to the ge-
netic differences in the seeds planted. The same would be the case with the
plants in field B.
The farmer also finds differences between the two fields. The plants in
field A are taller than the plants in field B, because of the richer soil in which
they grew. The difference in the average heights of the plants is attributable
to the quality of the growing environment, even though the genetic varia-
tion (heritability) within field A may be the same as that within field B. This
same principle applies to IQ scores of different human groups.
Taking the example further, the farmer might call a chemist to test the
soil. If the chemist was able to determine all the essential missing nutrients,
the farmer could add them to the soil in field B for the next season. The sec-
ond batch of plants would grow larger, with the average height being similar
to the average height of plants in field A. Similarly, if one is comparing Afri-
can Americans and Caucasians—or any racial groups—on a characteristic
such as IQ test scores, it is important to understand that unless the groups
have equivalent growing environments (social, political, economic, educa-
tional, and so on), differences between them cannot be easily traced to he-
redity.
As another example, one might take a set of identical twins who were
born in Chicago, separate them at birth, and place one of the twins in the
!Kung desert community in Africa. The life experiences of the twin in Africa
would differ significantly from those of his Chicago counterpart because of
the differences in diet, climate, and other relevant factors required for exis-
tence and survival in the two environments. The twin in Africa would have a
different language and number system; drawing and writing would not
707
Psychology Basics
likely be an important part of daily life. Therefore, if one were to use exist-
ing IQ tests, one would have to translate them from English to the !Kung
language so that they could be understood. The translation might not truly
capture the meaning of all the questions and tasks, which might interfere
with the !Kung twin’s understanding of what was being asked of him. More
problems would arise when the !Kung twin is asked to interpret drawings or
to copy figures, because he would not be very familiar with these activities.
It is likely that the !Kung twin would perform poorly on the translated IQ
test, because it does not reflect what is emphasized and valued in his society.
Rather, it is based on the schooling in society in which the Chicago twin lives.
This does not mean that the !Kung twin is less intelligent than his Chicago
twin. Similarly, the Chicago twin would do poorly on a test developed from
the experience of !Kung culture, because the !Kung test would emphasize
skills such as building shelter, finding water, and other activities that are not
important for survival in Chicago. In this case, the !Kung test would not ade-
quately measure the ability of the Chicago twin.
Studies done by psychologist Sandra Scarr show that evidence for a ge-
netic basis for racial differences in IQ is far from clear. She looked at the IQ
scores of African American children who were born into working-class fami-
lies but were adopted and raised by white middle-class families. The IQ
scores of these children were close to the national average and were almost
10 to 20 points higher than would have been expected had they remained in
their birth homes.
Change in children’s environments seems to be a critical factor in en-
hancing their ability to perform on the IQ tests, as seen in the research done
by Scarr. Bronfenbrenner found similar results. He examined a dozen stud-
ies that looked at early intervention in children’s lives; he found that when-
ever it was possible to change the environment positively, children’s scores
on IQ tests increased.
Historical Development of Racial Context

The notion of inherited differences is an ancient one; however, the concept
of racial classifications is more recent. According to psychologist Wade No-
bles, the Western idea of race emerged during the sixteenth century as
Europeans began to colonize other parts of the world. As they came into
contact with people who looked different from them, many Europeans de-
veloped the notion that some races were superior to others. This belief often
was given as a justification for slavery and other oppressive activities.
Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution was critical in promoting the belief
that human differences were a result of heredity and genetics. His notion of
“the survival of the fittest” led psychologists to research racial differences in
intelligence in order to understand the successes and failures of different
human groups. Francis Galton, Darwin’s cousin, was instrumental in fur-
thering the hereditarian perspective in psychology. In his book Hereditary
Genius: An Inquiry into Its Laws and Consequences (1869), he attempted to il-
708
lustrate that genius and prominence follow family lines. He also began the
eugenics movement, which supported the use of selective mating and
forced sterilization to improve racial stock. The Bell Curve is simply a more re-
cent argument along the same lines. Nothing really new is added to the ar-
gument. There is a bit more sociobiological jargon and a mass of statistics,
but they do not hold up to careful scrutiny.
Following Galton’s lead, many psychologists embraced the notions of in-
herited racial differences in intelligence. The pioneering work of anthro-
pologist Franz Boas, in attacking the popular conception of race, fostered
research to attack the myths attached to that concept, including the myth of
inherent superiority or inferiority. G. Stanley Hall, the founder of the Amer-
ican Psychological Association, believed that African people were at a lower
evolutionary stage than Caucasians. By the beginning of the 1900’s, psycho-
logical testing was being widely used to support the view that intelligence
was hereditary and was little influenced by the environment. More recently,
Burt, Herrnstein, and Jensen have argued in favor of an overriding genetic
factor in intelligence.
There were also early efforts to challenge the hereditarian perspective in
psychology. During the 1920’s and 1930’s, Herman Canady and Howard
Long, two of the first African Americans to receive graduate degrees in psy-
chology, produced evidence showing the importance of environmental in-
fluences on IQ test performance. They were concerned about increasingly
prevalent “scientific” justifications for the inequality and injustice experi-
enced by African Americans, American Indians, and other groups. Fighting
racism was a major reason Leon Kamin became involved in the debate about
race and intelligence. He gathered the original information that had been
reported by scientists and reexamined it; Kamin was responsible for discov-
ering that Burt had reported false information. He also noted that many
hereditarians misused and misinterpreted their statistics.
Hereditarians maintain that racial differences in IQ test scores are pri-
marily caused by genetics and that these scores do reflect differences in in-
telligence; environmentalists say no. It has not been proved definitively that
IQ tests measure intelligence; however, the evidence does suggest that per-
formance on IQ tests is determined by the interaction between genetic and
environmental influences. The quality of the environment will determine
how well people will reach their potential. In a society where the history of
certain groups includes oppression, discrimination, and exclusion from op-
portunity, it is difficult to explain differences in achievement as being pri-
marily inherited. Instead, it would seem to be a more important goal to elim-
inate injustices and to change the conditions of life so that all people could
do well.

Devlin, Bernie, et al., eds. Intelligence, Genes, and Success: Scientists Respond to
“The Bell Curve.” New York: Springer, 1997. A number of psychologists
709
Psychology Basics
and social scientists respond to the claims of Richard Hernnstein and

Charles Murray.
Fancher, Raymond E. The Intelligence Men: Makers of the IQ Controversy. New
York: W. W. Norton, 1985. Examines the historical contexts of the IQ con-
troversy. The life experiences of the major hereditarians and environ-
mentalists and how these experiences influenced their perspectives are
emphasized. This book is easy to read and does an excellent job of mak-
ing complex statistics understandable.
Goldsby, Richard. Race and Races. 2d ed. New York: Macmillan, 1977. Pro-
vides straightforward and accurate information about issues of race, ra-
cial differences, and racism. There is a balanced discussion of both the
hereditarian and environmentalist perspectives of the IQ controversy.
Enjoyable and easy to read for high school and college students alike.
Gould, Stephen Jay. The Mismeasure of Man. Revised and expanded ed. New
York: Norton, 1997. Gould replies to the work of Richard Hernnstein and
Charles Murray, questioning both their motives and their methods.
Guthrie, Robert V. Even the Rat Was White. 2d ed. Boston: Allyn and Bacon,
2004. Provides an excellent historical view of how psychology has dealt
with race as an issue. The first section of the book focuses on methods of
study, early psychological testing, and the development of racism in the
profession of psychology.
Hernnstein, Richard, and Charles Murray. The Bell Curve. New York: Free
Press, 1994. This book argues that differences in black and white IQ
scores are genetically based.
Jensen, Arthur R. Bias in Mental Testing. New York: Free Press, 1980. An at-
tempt to deal comprehensively with the issues of IQ testing and bias.
Jensen challenges the criticisms against IQ tests and offers research to
support his view that group differences in IQ test scores are not attribut-
able to bias.
Kamin, Leon J. The Science and Politics of IQ. New York: Halstead Press, 1974.
Discusses the political nature of the role psychologists have played in sup-
port of IQ testing. The role of psychologists in the eugenics movement
and in education is discussed. Includes strong critiques of the work done
by Cyril Burt and Arthur Jensen.
Montagu, Ashley, ed. Race and IQ. New York: Oxford University Press, 1975.
Written to challenge the interpretations offered by the hereditarians.
Most of the articles included were previously published in professional
journals or popular magazines. Some of the chapters contain very techni-
cal material; however, the authors generally do an effective job translat-
ing this into more understandable language.
Derise E. Tolliver; updated by Frank A. Salamone
See also: Intelligence; Intelligence Tests.
710
Radical Behaviorism
B. F. Skinner
Fields of study: Behavioral and cognitive models; instrumental
conditioning
Radical behaviorism describes the views of Skinner, an influential figure in American

psychology since the 1930’s. Skinner argued that most behavior is controlled by its con-
sequences; he invented an apparatus for observing the effects of consequences, advo-
cated a technology of behavior control, and believed that everyday views about the
causes of behavior were an obstacle to its true understanding.
Key concepts
• contingency of reinforcement
• discriminative stimulus
• experimental analysis of behavior
• mentalism
• operant
• private events
• rule-governed behavior
• shaping
According to B. F. Skinner (1904-1990), the behavior of an organism is a

product of current and past environmental consequences and genetic en-
dowment. Because little can be done, at least by psychology, about genetic
endowment, Skinner focused on those things that could be changed or con-
trolled: the immediate consequences of behavior. By consequences, Skinner
meant the results or effects that a particular behavior (a class of responses,
or “operant”) produces. There are many ways to open a door, for example,
but because each one allows a person to walk to the next room, one would
speak of a “door-opening” operant. The consequences not only define the
class of responses but also determine how often members of the class are
likely to occur in the future. This was termed the Law of Effect by early twen-
tieth century American psychologist Edward L. Thorndike, whose work
Skinner refined.
Skinner analyzed behavior by examining the antecedents and conse-
quences which control any specific class of responses in the individual or-
ganism. From this view, he elaborated a psychology that encompassed all as-
pects of animal and human behavior, including language. By the late 1970’s,
historians of psychology ranked Skinner’s work as the second most signifi-
cant development in psychology since World War II; the general growth of
the field was ranked first. Three journals arose to publish work in the
Skinnerian tradition: Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior, Journal of
Applied Behavior Analysis, and Behaviorism. Moreover, an international orga-
711
Psychology Basics
nization, the Association for Behavior Analysis, was formed, with its own
journal.
Controlling Variables
Skinner theorized that behavior has several kinds of consequences, or ef-
fects. Events that follow behavior and produce an increase in the rate or fre-
quency of the behavior are termed reinforcers. In ordinary language, they
might be called rewards, but Skinner avoided this expression because he de-
fined reinforcing events in terms of the effects they produced (their rate of
occurrence) rather than the alleged feelings they induced (for example,
pleasure). To attribute the increase in rate of response produced by rein-
forcement to feelings of pleasure would be regarded by Skinner as an in-
stance of mentalism—the attribution of behavior to a feeling rather than an
event occurring in the environment. Other consequences which follow a be-
havior produce a decrease in the rate of behavior. These are termed punish-
ers. Skinner strongly objected to the use of punishment as a means to con-
trol behavior because it elicited aggression and produced dysfunctional
emotional responses such as striking back and, in a small child, crying. Con-
sequences (reinforcers and punishers) may be presented following a behav-
ior (twenty dollars for building a doghouse, for example, or an electric
B. F. Skinner.
(Alfred A. Knopf)
712
Radical Behaviorism: B. F. Skinner
shock for touching an exposed wire) or taken away (a fine for speeding, the
end of a headache by taking aspirin). Consequences may be natural (toma-
toes to eat after a season of careful planting and watering) or contrived (re-
ceiving a dollar for earning an A on a test).
Reinforcing and punishing consequences are one example of control-
ling variables. Events that precede behaviors are also controlling variables
and determine under what circumstances certain behaviors are likely to ap-
pear. Events occurring before a response occurs are called discriminative
stimuli because they come to discriminate in favor of a particular piece of
behavior. They set the occasion for the behavior and make it more likely to
occur. For example, persons trying to control their eating are advised to
keep away from the kitchen except at meal times. Being in the kitchen
makes it more likely that the person will eat something, not simply because
that is where the food is kept but also because being in the kitchen is one of
the events which has preceded previous eating and therefore makes eating
more likely to occur. This is true even when the person does not intend to
eat but goes to the kitchen for other reasons. Being in the kitchen raises the
probability of eating. It is a discriminative stimulus (any stimulus in the pres-
ence of which a response is reinforced) for eating, as are the table, the re-
frigerator, or a candy bar on the counter. Any event or stimulus which occurs
immediately before a response is reinforced becomes reinforced with the re-
sponse and makes the response more likely to occur again if the discrimina-
tive stimulus occurs again. The discriminative stimulus comes to gain some
control over the behavior.
Discriminative and Reinforcing Stimuli

Discriminative stimuli and reinforcing stimuli are the controlling variables
Skinner used to analyze behavior. These events constitute a chain of behav-
ior called a contingency of reinforcement. It is a contingency because rein-
forcement does not occur unless the response is made in the presence of the
discriminative stimuli. Contingencies of reinforcement are encountered ev-
ery day. For example, a soda drink is purchased from a machine. The ma-
chine is brightly colored to act as a discriminative stimulus for dropping
coins in a slot, which in turn yields a can or bottle of soft drink. The machine
comes to control a small portion of a person’s behavior. If the machine mal-
functions, a person may push the selector button several times repeatedly,
perhaps even putting in more coins, and still later, strike the machine. By
carefully scheduling how many times an organism must respond before re-
inforcement occurs, the rate of response can be controlled as is done in slot
or video machines or gambling devices in general. Responses are made sev-
eral hundred or thousand times for very little reinforcement—a near win or
a small payoff. Schedules of reinforcement are another important set of
controlling variables which Skinner explored.
Contingencies are relationships among controlling variables. Some of
the relationships become abstracted and formulized, that is, put in the form
713
Psychology Basics
of rules. When behavior is under the control of a rule, it is termed rule-

governed behavior, as opposed to contingency-shaped behavior. As a person
first learns any skill, much of his or her behavior is rule governed, either
through written instructions or by the person’s repeating the rule to himself
or herself. For example, a novice golfer might review the rules for a good
swing, even repeating them aloud. Eventually, though, swing becomes auto-
matic; it seems to become “natural.” The verbal discriminative stimuli have
shifted to the very subtle and covert stimuli associated with swing without
the golfer’s thinking about it, and the natural consequences of a successful
swing take over.
Operant Chamber Experiments

The operant chamber is a small experimental space or cage that Skinner in-
vented to observe the effects that consequences have on behavior. A food-
deprived organism (Skinner first used rats and later switched to pigeons) is
placed in the chamber containing a lever that, when depressed, releases a
small piece of food into a cup from which the organism eats. The first bar-
press response is produced through the process of shaping, or reinforcing
approximations to bar pressing (for example, being near the bar, having a
paw above the bar, resting a paw on the bar, nearly depressing the bar) until
bar pressing is regularly occurring. Once the operant of bar pressing is es-
tablished, an experimental analysis of the variables which influence it can be
done. The schedule of reinforcement can be changed, for example, from
one reinforcer for each response to five responses required for each rein-
forcer. Changes in the rate of response can be observed on a device Skinner
invented, a cumulative record, which automatically displays the rate at
which the operant is occurring. A discriminative stimulus can be introduced
in the form of a small light mounted on the wall of the chamber. If bar
presses are reinforced only when the light is turned on, the light will come
to have some control over the operant. Turning the light on and off will lit-
erally turn bar pressing on and off in a food-deprived rat.
Skinner controlled his own behavior in the same fashion that he had
learned to control the behavior of laboratory organisms. He arranged a
“writing environment,” a desk used only for that purpose; wrote at a set time
each day; and would keep careful records of time spent writing. Other exam-
ples of self-management may be found in Skinner’s novel of his research,
Walden Two (1948). In this fictionalized account, children learn self-control
through a set of exercises that teach ways to tolerate increasing delays of re-
inforcement.
Behavioral Analysis of Language

Skinner also performed a behavior analysis of language (Verbal Behavior,
1957). For example, a behavioral analysis of the word “want,” “believe,” or
“love,” an operational definition in Skinner’s sense, would be all those cir-
cumstances and situations which control the use of the word, that is, the
714
discriminative stimuli for the verbal response. Skinner tried to show in Verbal
Behavior that speaking and writing could be explained with the same princi-
ple he had used to explain animal behavior. Many of Skinner’s works, and
much of his private notebooks, are taken up with the recording of how
words are used. His purpose was to de-mentalize them, to show that what
controls their use is some aspect of the environment or some behavioral
practice on the part of the verbal community, rather than some internal or
mental event. The earliest uses of the word “to know,” for example, referred
to action, something the individual could do, rather than something he or
she possessed or had stored inside the mind.
Understanding Skinner’s Contributions

So much has been written about Skinner, some of it misleading or false, that
it is important to clarify what he did not do. He did not raise either of his
daughters in a “Skinner box.” His youngest daughter was raised during her
infancy with the aid of an “aircrib,” a special enclosed crib Skinner built that
allowed control of air temperature and humidity, and in which the infant
could sleep and play without the burden of clothes. “Aircribs” were later
available commercially. Skinner did not limit his analysis of behavior only to
publicly observable events, as did the methodological behaviorists. Part of
what made Skinner’s behaviorism radical was his insistence that a science of
behavior should be able to account for those private events—events to
which only the individual has access, such as the pain of a toothache—to
which only the individual has access. He described how the community
teaches its members to describe covert events such as toothaches and head-
aches. He did not regard such events as anything other than behavior. That
is, he did not give them a special status by calling them “mental events.”
Skinner did not argue that reinforcement explains everything. He al-
lowed, especially in his later works, that genetic endowment plays a role in
the determination of behavior, as do rules and antecedent events. He did
not reject physiological explanations of behavior when actual physiology
was involved. He did object to the use of physiological terms in psychologi-
cal accounts, unless the physiological mechanisms were known. For Skinner,
physiology was one subject matter and behavior was another. Finally, he did
not ignore complex behavior. Many of his works, particularly Verbal Behavior
and The Technology of Teaching (1968), offered behaviorist analyses of what in
other psychologies would be termed cognitive phenomena, such as talking,
reading, thinking, problem solving, and remembering.
Skinner made many contributions to twentieth century psychology. Among
them was his invention of the operant chamber and its associated methodol-
ogy. Operant equipment and procedures are employed by animal and hu-
man experimental psychologists in laboratories around the world. Most of
these psychologists do not adhere to Skinner’s radical behaviorism or to all
the features of his science of behavior. They have, however, found the tech-
niques that he developed to be productive in exploring a wide variety of
715
Psychology Basics
problems, ranging from the fields of psychopharmacology to learning in

children and adults to experimental economics. Skinner and his followers
developed a technology of behavior that included techniques for working
with the developmentally disabled, children in elementary classrooms, and
persons with rehabilitation or health care problems. They also considered
approaches to public safety, employee motivation and production, and any
other field which involved the management of behavior. Although the tech-
nology developments never reached the vision described in Walden Two, the
efforts are ongoing.
Skinner may have exhausted the Law of Effect. The idea which states that
consequences influence behavior can be found in many forms in the litera-
ture of psychology and philosophy, especially since the middle of the nine-
teenth century, but it is only in the work of B. F. Skinner that one sees how
much of human and animal behavior can be brought within its purview. Be-
cause Skinner took behavior as his subject matter, he greatly expanded what
could be regarded as being of interest to psychologists. Behavior was every-
where, in the classroom, at the office, in the factory. Nearly any aspect of hu-
man activity could become the legitimate object of study by a Skinnerian
psychologist, a point well illustrated in Skinner’s description of a utopian
community which takes an experimental attitude toward its cultural prac-
tices and designs a culture based on a science of behavior (Walden Two).
Finally, Skinner conceptualized an epistemology, a way of understanding
what it means for humans to know something, that may be a lasting contri-
bution to twentieth century philosophy.
Relationship with Darwinism and Pragmatism

In placing the radical behaviorism of B. F. Skinner in historical context, two
nineteenth century doctrines are often invoked. One view, shared by Skin-
ner, is that operant psychology represents an extension of the principle of
natural selection which Charles Darwin described at the level of the species.
Natural selection explained the origin of species; contingencies of rein-
forcement and punishment explain the origin of classes of responses. The
environment selects in both cases. In operant psychology, the role of the en-
vironment is to reinforce differentially and thereby select from among a
pool of responses which the organism is making. The final effect is some
one particular operant which has survival or adaptive value for the individ-
ual organism. Skinner has suggested that cultural evolution occurs in a simi-
lar fashion.
It is also observed that Skinner’s psychology resembles nineteenth cen-
tury pragmatism. The pragmatists held that beliefs are formed by their out-
come, or practical effect. To explain why someone does something by refer-
ence to a belief would be regarded as mentalism by Skinner; he would
substitute behavior for beliefs. Yet he comes to the same doctrine: one in
which environmental consequences act in a Darwinian fashion. Finally,
Skinner’s philosophy shows the influence of the nineteenth century positiv-
716
ism of physicist Ernst Mach. Skinner desired a description of behavior and

its causes, while avoiding mental states or other cognitive or personality enti-
ties that intervene between behavior and the environment.

Kazdin, Alan E. Behavior Modification in Applied Settings. 6th ed. Belmont, Ca-
lif.: Wadsworth/Thomson Learning, 2001. An introduction to behavior
modification that can be understood by the high school or college stu-
dent. Operant techniques are clearly described, with the emphasis on
how they are applied in a wide range of settings. Excellent discussion of
recent developments in the field.
Modgil, Sohan, and Celia Modgil, eds. B. F. Skinner: Consensus and Contro-
versy. New York: Falmer Press, 1987. A collection of essays by psychologists
and philosophers. Each topic has a pro and contrary opinion, with re-
plies and rebuttals. Although written at a professional level, this is an ex-
cellent volume for a global view of Skinner’s ideas and for the clearest un-
derstanding of what is “radical” about Skinner’s behaviorism.
O’Donoghue, William, and Kyle Ferguson. The Psychology of B. F. Skinner.
Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Sage Publications, 2001. An attempt to clarify
Skinner’s psychology through discussion of his life, contributions to psy-
chology, and philosophy of science.
Skinner, B. F. About Behaviorism. New York: Vintage Books, 1976. In this work
Skinner argues for his radical behaviorism by contrasting it with method-
ological behaviorism and by illustrating how it treats topics such as per-
ception, memory, verbal behavior, private events, and thinking.
__________. Particulars of My Life. New York: New York University Press,
1984.
__________. The Shaping of a Behaviorist. New York: New York University
Press, 1984.
__________. A Matter of Consequences. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1983. Skin-
ner published his autobiography in three separate volumes, listed as the
three previous titles. The first describes his life from birth, through his
college years, to his entering Harvard University for graduate study in
psychology. The Shaping of a Behaviorist presents his years at Harvard and
his rise to national prominence. A Matter of Consequences begins with his
return to Harvard as a professor in the late 1940’s.
__________. Science and Human Behavior. Reprint. New York: Classics of Psy-
chiatry & behavioral Sciences Library, 1992. A fine introduction to Skin-
ner’s thought. The principles of operant psychology are described, with
numerous examples of the applicability to an individual’s life and the ma-
jor institutions of society. The chapter on private events illustrates one im-
portant way in which Skinner’s radical behaviorism differs from method-
ological behaviorism.
__________. Walden Two. Reprint. New York: Macmillan, 1990. A description
of a fictional community based upon experimental practices and behav-
717
Psychology Basics
ioral principles. The book was the source of inspiration for several com-
munes and illustrates how all aspects of culture can be submitted to a be-
havioral analysis. Contains a lengthy criticism of democracy as a form of
government.
Vargas, Julie S. “B. F. Skinner, Father, Grandfather, Behavior Modifier.” In
About Human Nature: Journeys in Psychological Thought, edited by Terry J.
Knapp and Charles T. Rasmussen. Dubuque, Iowa: Kendall/Hunt, 1987.
An intimate description of Skinner by his eldest daughter, who is herself a
psychologist. Skinner’s home, study, and the activities occurring over a
Thanksgiving weekend are described.
Terry J. Knapp
See also: Behaviorism; Cognitive Behavior Therapy; Conditioning; Learning.
718
Reflexes
Field of study: Nervous system
A reflex is one of the most basic types of behavior that can be elicited; over the years, psy-
chologists and physiologists have studied the behavioral and biological processes asso-
ciated with reflex production in the hope of understanding principles and processes in-
volved in generating both simple behaviors and a variety of more complex behaviors
such as learning, memory, and voluntary movement.
Key concepts
• classical (Pavlovian) conditioning
• infantile reflexes
• monosynaptic reflex
• polysynaptic reflex
• spinal reflex
The reflex is undoubtedly the simplest form of behavior that has been stud-
ied widely by psychologists and neuroscientists. Reflexes involve two sepa-
rate yet highly related events: the occurrence of an eliciting stimulus and the
production of a specific response. Most organisms are capable of displaying
a variety of complex behaviors; however, because these behaviors are com-
plex, it has been very difficult, if not impossible, to understand biological or
psychological processes involved in generating or modifying the variety of
behaviors that most organisms can display. In attempts to study these com-
plex behaviors, a number of researchers have adopted a strategy of studying
simpler behaviors, such as reflexes, that are thought to make up, contribute
to, or serve as a model of the more complex behavior.
Spinal Reflex
A number of reflexes can be generated in the mammalian spinal cord even
after it has been surgically isolated from the brain. The stretch reflex is an
example of a spinal reflex. When a muscle is stretched, such as when a ten-
don is tapped or when an attempt is made to reach for an object, sensory
“detectors” or receptors within the muscle are activated to signal the muscle
stretch. These receptors are at the end of very long nerve fibers that travel
from the muscle receptor to the spinal cord, where they activate spinal motor
neurons. The motor neurons control the same muscle on which the stretch
receptor that initiated the stretch signal is located. When activated, the spi-
nal motor neurons signal the muscle, causing it to contract. In this manner,
when a muscle stretch is detected, the stretch reflex ensures that a contrac-
tion is generated in the muscle to counteract and balance the stretch. This
type of reflex is referred to as a “monosynaptic reflex” because it involves
only one synapse: the synapse between the sensory receptor neuron and the
motor neuron (where a synapse is the junction between two neurons).
719
Psychology Basics
Another example of a spinal reflex is the flexion or withdrawal reflex.

Anyone who has accidentally touched a hot stove has encountered this re-
flex. Touching a hot stove or applying any aversive stimulus to the skin acti-
vates pain receptors in the skin. These receptors are at the end of long sen-
sory fibers that project to neurons in the spinal cord. The spinal neurons
that receive input from the sensory fibers are not motor neurons, as in the
stretch reflex, but rather very small neurons called spinal interneurons. The
interneurons make synaptic contact on other interneurons as well as on mo-
tor neurons that innervate flexor muscles. When activated, the flexor mus-
cles typically cause limb withdrawal. The flexor reflex ensures that a rela-
tively rapid withdrawal of one’s hand from a hot stove will occur if the stove
is accidentally touched. The flexor reflex is an example of a “polysynaptic re-
flex” because there are two or more synapses involved in the reflex (the pres-
ence of at least one synapse between a sensory neuron and an interneuron
and a second synapse between the interneuron and a motor neuron).
One functional difference between monosynaptic and polysynaptic re-
flexes is the amount of information processing that can take place in the two
reflex systems. The monosynaptic reflex is somewhat limited, because infor-
mation flow involves only the synapse between the sensory and motor neu-
rons. This type of reflex is ideal for quick adjustments that must be made in
muscle tension. Conversely, polysynaptic reflexes typically involve a number
of levels of interneurons. Hence, convergence and divergence of informa-
tion can occur as information flows from sensory to motor elements. In es-
sence, the polysynaptic system, in addition to having afferent and efferent
components, has a “processor” of sorts between the sensory and motor ele-
ments. In intact organisms, the integration that takes place within the pro-
cessor allows information to be shared by other regions of the nervous sys-
tem. For example, some of the interneurons send information upward to
the brain. When a hot stove is touched, the brain is informed. This sensory
experience is likely to be evaluated and stored by the brain, therefore mak-
ing it less likely that the hot stove will be touched a second time.
Musculature Reflexes
Reflexes are not limited to the spinal cord. Responses involving the muscu-
lature of the face and neck can also be reflexive in nature. For example, a
puff of air that strikes the cornea of the human eye elicits a brisk, short-
latency eyelid closure. Like the polysynaptic spinal reflexes, this eyeblink
reflex appears to involve three elements: a sensory nerve, called the trigem-
inal nerve, that carries information from receptors in the cornea of the eye
to the trigeminal nucleus (a cranial nerve nucleus); interneurons that con-
nect the trigeminal nucleus with several other brain-stem neurons; and a
motor nerve that originates from brain-stem motor neurons and contracts
the muscles surrounding the eye to produce the eyeblink. This reflex is de-
fensive in nature because it ensures that the eyeball is protected from fur-
ther stimulation if a stimulus strikes the cornea.
720
Reflexes
Use of Autonomic Nervous System

Not all reflexes involve activation of skeletal muscles. For example, control
of the urinary bladder involves a spinal reflex that activates smooth muscles.
Also, temperature regulation is partially the product of a reflexive response
to changes in external or internal environments. Many of these types of re-
flexes engage the autonomic nervous system, a division of the nervous sys-
tem that is involved in regulating and maintaining the function of internal
organs.
Not all reflexes involve simple, local, short-latency responses. The main-
tenance of posture when standing upright is a generally automatic, reflexive
system that one does not think about. This system includes neurons in the
spinal cord and brain stem. The body’s equilibrium system (the vestibular or
balance system) involves receptors in the middle ear, brain-stem structures,
and spinal motor neurons, while locomotion requires the patterned activa-
tion of several reflex systems. Finally, a number of behavioral situations re-
quire a rapid response that integrates the motor system with one of the spe-
cial senses (such as quickly applying the car brakes when a road hazard is
seen). These are generally referred to as reaction-time situations and re-
quire considerable nervous system processing, including the involvement of
the cerebral cortex, when engaged. Nevertheless, these responses are con-
sidered reflexive in nature because they involve an eliciting stimulus and a
well-defined, consistent response.
Role in Learning and Memory

Reflexes have been widely studied by psychologists and biologists interested
in learning and memory. Russian physiologists Ivan Sechenov and Ivan Pav-
lov have generally been credited with the first attempts to study systemati-
cally how reflexes could be used to examine relationships between behavior
and physiology. Pavlov in particular had a huge influence on the study of be-
havior. Most students are familiar with the story of Pavlov and his successful
demonstration of conditioned salivation in dogs produced by pairing a bell
with meat powder. Over the years, the Pavlovian conditioning procedure
(also known as classical conditioning) has often been used to study the be-
havioral principles and neural substrates of learning. The conditioning of a
variety of reflexes has been observed, including skeletal muscle responses
such as forelimb flexion, hindlimb flexion, and eyelid closure as well as auto-
nomic responses such as respiration, heart rate, and sweat gland activity.
One of the most widely studied classical conditioning procedures is classi-
cal eyelid conditioning. This reflex conditioning procedure has been stud-
ied in a variety of species, including rabbits, rats, cats, dogs, and humans.
Mostly because of the research efforts of Isadore Gormezano and his col-
leagues, which began in the early 1960’s, much is known about behavioral
aspects of classical eyelid conditioning in rabbits. In this paradigm, a mild
electric shock or air puff is presented to elicit reliably a reflexive blink from
the rabbit. The blink is typically measured by means of devices that are at-
721
Psychology Basics
tached to the nictitating membrane, a third eyelid that is present in a variety

of species, including the rabbit. During training sessions, a neutral stimulus
such as a tone or light is delivered 0.3 to 1.0 second prior to the air puff. Af-
ter about one hundred of these tone and air-puff pairings, the rabbit learns
to blink when the tone or light is presented (the rabbit begins to interpret
the tone as a signal of the impending air-puff presentation).
This preparation has yielded a wealth of data concerning the parameters
of behavioral training that produce the fastest or slowest learning rates
(such as stimuli intensities, time between stimuli, and number of trials per
day). Furthermore, this simple reflexive learning situation has been used to
study how the brain codes simple forms of learning and memory. A number
of researchers (most notably Richard F. Thompson) have studied the activ-
ity of a variety of brain structures during learning and performance of the
classically conditioned eyelid response. These studies have shown that dis-
crete brain regions such as the cerebellum and hippocampus alter their ac-
tivity to generate or modify the conditioned response. In brief, these re-
searchers have used the conditioning of a very simple reflex to advance the
understanding of how the brain might code more complex learning and
memory processes.
Innate Reflexes
The study of reflexes has not been limited to learning and memory. Devel-
opmental psychologists have studied a variety of innate reflexes that are gen-
erated by newborn infants. Sucking is a very prominent reflex that is readily
observed in newborns. Also related to feeding is the rooting reflex, which
can be elicited when the cheek of an infant is stroked softly. The skin stimu-
Newborns possess a grasping reflex that allows them to hold tightly to objects. (PhotoDisc)
722
Reflexes
lation causes the infant to open his or her mouth and turn toward the point
of stimulation. This reflex has obvious applications in helping the infant lo-
cate food. The infant’s ability to hold on to objects is, in part, attributable to
the presence of the grasp reflex. When an object touches the palm of a new-
born’s hand, the newborn’s fist will close immediately around the object,
thus allowing the infant to hold the object for a short period of time. The in-
fantile reflexes disappear within a few months after birth and are replaced
by voluntary responses. Most developmental researchers believe that the
infantile reflexes are temporary substitutes for the voluntary responses.
Apparently, the voluntary responses are not present during the first few
months of life because various parts of the infant’s nervous system, includ-
ing the cerebral cortex, have not matured sufficiently to support the behav-
ior. Therefore, the disappearance of the infantile reflexes serves as an im-
portant marker of neural and behavioral development.
Contributions to Psychology
The study of reflexes has played a prominent role in shaping the field of psy-
chology. During the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century, Sir
Charles Sherrington, a British physiologist, conducted an extensive series of
studies concerned with spinal reflexes. He showed that a number of skin
stimulations, such as pinching or brushing, produced simple responses
even when a spinal transection separated the spinal cord from the rest of the
nervous system. From these experiments, he argued that the basic unit of
movement was the reflex, which he defined as a highly stereotyped, un-
learned response to external stimuli. This work created a flurry of activity
among physiologists and psychologists, who tried to trace reflexes through-
out the nervous system and assemble them into more complex behaviors.
Early in the twentieth century, many psychologists and physiologists, in-
cluding Sherrington and Pavlov, adopted the reflex as the basic unit of be-
havior to study, in part because of the relative simplicity of the behavior and
in part because of the ease with which the behavior could be reliably elicited
by applying external stimuli. Based on his research, Sherrington believed
that complex behaviors were produced by chaining together simple reflexes
in some temporal order. This basic idea provided the framework for much
of the physiological and behavioral work completed early in the twentieth
century. Sechenov and Pavlov also believed that the concept of the reflex
could explain more complex behaviors. Pavlov, for example, showed that
not all reflexes were innate; rather, new reflexes could be established by
associating a “neutral” stimulus (a stimulus that did not initially produce a
reflex) with a stimulus that reliably elicited a reflex. As a result of this dem-
onstration, Pavlov proposed an elaborate theory of reflex learning that in-
volved forming associations between stimuli in the cerebral cortex.
In the latter half of the twentieth century, many psychologists interested
in studying overt behavior and physiologists interested in studying nervous
system function adopted the study of reflexes as a means of simplifying be-
723
Psychology Basics
havior or nervous system activity. Psychologists such as Gormezano, Robert

Rescorla, and Allan Wagner, who have studied classical conditioning phe-
nomena, hope to develop a comprehensive understanding of the learning
process that occurs when simple paradigms such as classical conditioning
are used. Behavioral neuroscientists and neurobiologists (such as Thomp-
son and Eric Kandel) who study nervous system function have used reflexes
as the basic unit of behavior in hope of catching a glimpse of nervous system
function when a fairly simple behavioral response is being generated and
modified by learning experiences. In both cases, a major reason for using
the reflex as the unit of behavior is to simplify the experimental situation.
Indeed, researchers are not likely to understand complex behavioral pro-
cesses without first understanding how simpler behaviors and nervous sys-
tem functions are generated, modified, and maintained. The study of re-
flexes, from both a behavioral and biological standpoint, has provided and
should continue to provide a valuable approach for understanding human
behavior as well as understanding how the nervous system generates activity
to produce the behavior.

Carlson, Neil R. Foundations of Physiological Psychology. 5th ed. Boston: Allyn &
Bacon, 2002. An up-to-date textbook on the neuroscience of behavior.
Domjan, Michael, and Barbara Burkhard. The Principles of Learning and Be-
havior. 5th ed. Belmont, Calif.: Thomson/Wadsworth, 2003. This text is
widely used by students interested in learning and behavior. The sections
on the history of the reflex and its use in the learning research field is par-
ticularly applicable to the present discussion.
Fancher, Raymond E. Pioneers of Psychology. 3d ed. New York: W. W. Norton,
1996. This book provides biographies of several prominent psychologists
who have had an impact on the field. Included is a chapter detailing the
experiments and theories of Ivan Pavlov. Valuable for understanding how
the study of the reflex fits into the history of psychology.
Gleitman, Henry, Alan J. Fridlund, and Daniel Weisberg. Psychology. 6th ed.
New York: W. W. Norton, 2004. This text provides broad coverage of the
field of psychology. The chapters on development, learning, and mem-
ory should provide the reader with additional information concerning
reflexes and other simple behaviors.
Joseph E. Steinmetz
See also: Brain Structure; Nervous System; Pavlovian Conditioning.
724
S-R Theory
Neal E. Miller and John Dollard
Fields of study: Behavioral and cognitive models; models of
abnormality; personality theory
Miller and Dollard developed a personality theory that was based on Clark Hull’s
stimulus-response learning theory. They used this theory and a number of psychoana-
lytic concepts to explain how neurosis developed. They also showed how psychotherapy
could be conceptualized as a learning process by using an S-R model of higher mental
processes.
Key concepts
• conflict
• cue
• cue-producing response
• drive
• habit
• imitation
• reinforcement
• response
• response hierarchy
• secondary drive
Much, if not most, human behavior is learned. How human beings learn is
one of the central and most controversial topics in psychology. Neal E.
Miller and John Dollard used principles of learning developed by Clark
Hull, who studied how animals learn, and applied them to explain complex
human behavior.
According to Miller and Dollard, human behavior occurs in response to
cues. A red traffic light, for example, is a cue to stop, whereas a green light is
a cue to go. A cue is simply any stimulus that is recognized as different from
other stimuli. A cue may bring about a variety of responses, but some re-
sponses are more likely to occur than others. The response to a cue most
likely to occur is called the dominant response. Responses to a cue are ar-
ranged in a response hierarchy, from the dominant response to the re-
sponse least likely to occur. A person’s response hierarchy can change. The
hierarchy that a person has originally is called the initial hierarchy. If the ini-
tial hierarchy is inborn, it is known as the innate hierarchy. When a hierar-
chy changes, the result is known as the response hierarchy.
Response Hierarchy and Learning

Change in a response hierarchy occurs as a result of learning. There are four
fundamental considerations in the explanation of how learning occurs:
drive, cue, response, and reinforcement.
725
Psychology Basics
A drive is an intense stimulus, such as hunger, that motivates a response.

The cue is the stimulus that elicits the response. If the dominant response in
the hierarchy results in a reduction in the drive, then reinforcement will oc-
cur. Reinforcement means that the association, or connection, between the
cue (stimulus) and response is strengthened; the next time the cue occurs,
therefore, that response will be even more likely to occur. Reinforcement
occurs when a person realizes that the response has led to a reward, al-
though such awareness is not always necessary; reinforcement can also oc-
cur automatically. In other words, Miller and Dollard’s theory states that for
persons to learn, they must want something (drive), must do something (re-
sponse) in the presence of a distinct stimulus (cue), and must get some re-
ward for their actions (reinforcement).
If the dominant response does not result in a reward, the chance that the
dominant response will occur again is gradually lessened. This process is
called extinction. Eventually, the next response in the hierarchy will occur;
in other words, the person will try something else. If that response results in
reward, it will be reinforced and may become the dominant response in the
hierarchy. In this way, according to Miller and Dollard, humans learn and
change their behavior. According to this theory, connections between stim-
ulus and response are learned; these are called habits. Theories that view
learning in this way are called stimulus-response, or S-R, theories. The total
collection of a person’s habits make up his or her personality.
Role of Drives
Drives, as previously noted, motivate and reinforce responses. Some drives,
such as hunger, thirst, sex, and pain, are inborn and are known as primary
drives. These drives are naturally aroused by certain physiological condi-
tions; through learning, however, they may also be aroused by cues to which
they are not innately connected. For example, one may feel hungry when
one sees a favorite restaurant, even though one has recently eaten. Drives
aroused in this way (that is, by previously neutral cues) are called secondary,
or learned, drives.
The natural reaction to an aversive stimulus is pain. Pain is a primary
drive; it motivates a person to act, and any response which reduces pain will
be reinforced. Neutral cues associated with pain may also produce a re-
sponse related to pain called fear (or anxiety). Fear motivates a person to
act; a response which reduces fear will be reinforced. Fear is therefore a
drive; it is a drive which is especially important for understanding neurotic
behavior, according to Miller and Dollard. For example, a fear of a harmless
cue such as an elevator (an elevator phobia) will motivate a person to avoid
elevators, and such avoidance will be reinforced by reduction of fear.
Cue Responses
A response to one cue may also occur to cues which are physically similar to
that cue; in other words, what one learns to do in one situation will occur in
726
S-R Theory: Neal E. Miller and John Dollard
other, similar situations. This phenomenon is called stimulus generaliza-

tion.
Many responses are instrumental responses; that is, they act on and
change some aspect of the environment. Other responses are known as cue-
producing responses; the cues from these responses serve to bring about
other responses. Words are especially important cue-producing responses;
someone says a word and another person responds, or one thinks a word
and this is a cue for another word. Thinking can be considered as chains of
cue-producing responses—that is, as a sequence of associated words; in this
way Miller and Dollard sought to describe the higher mental processes such
as thinking, reasoning, and planning.
Social Role of Learning

In their book Social Learning and Imitation (1941), Miller and Dollard
pointed out that to understand human behavior one must know not only
the process of learning (as described above) but also the social conditions
under which learning occurs. Human learning is social—that is, it occurs in
a social context, which can range from the societal level to the interpersonal
level. The process of imitation is one example of how what an individual
learns to do depends on the social context.
Imitation involves matching, or copying, the behavior of another person.
If the matching behavior is rewarded, it will be reinforced, and the individ-
ual will therefore continue to imitate. The cue that elicits the imitating re-
sponse is the person being imitated (the model), so that the imitative behav-
ior, in Miller and Dollard’s analysis, is dependent on the presence of the
model. In this way, Miller and Dollard used S-R theory to explain how indi-
viduals learn what to do from others and thereby learn how to conform to
society.
Psychoanalytic Approach to Neurosis

In their best-known work, Personality and Psychotherapy: An Analysis in Terms of
Learning, Thinking, and Culture (1950), Dollard and Miller applied S-R the-
ory to explain how neurosis is learned and how it can be treated using learn-
ing principles. They pointed out three central characteristics of neurosis
that require explanation: misery, stupidity, and symptoms. The misery that
neurotics experience is a result of conflict. Conflict exists when incompati-
ble responses are elicited in an individual. An approach-approach conflict
exists when a person has to choose between two desirable goals; once a
choice is made, the conflict is easily resolved. An avoidance-avoidance con-
flict exists when an individual must choose between two undesirable goals.
An approach-avoidance conflict exists when an individual is motivated both
to approach and to avoid the same goal. The last two types of conflicts may
be difficult to resolve and under certain conditions may result in a neurosis.
Dollard and Miller tried to explain some aspects of psychoanalytic theory
in S-R terms; like Sigmund Freud, the founder of psychoanalysis, they em-
727
Psychology Basics
phasized the role of four critical childhood training situations in producing

conflicts that can result in neurosis. These are the feeding situation, cleanli-
ness training, sex training, and anger-anxiety conflicts. Unfortunate train-
ing experiences during these stages of childhood may result in emotional
problems. Childhood conflicts arising from such problems may be re-
pressed and may therefore operate unconsciously.
The “stupidity” of the neurotic is related to the fact that conflicts which
produce misery are repressed and unconscious. Dollard and Miller ex-
plained the psychoanalytic concept of repression in terms of S-R theory in
the following manner. Thinking about an experience involves the use of
cue-producing responses (that is, the use of words) in thinking. If no words
are available to label an experience, then a person is unable to think about
it—that is, the experience is unconscious. Some experiences are uncon-
scious because they were never labeled. Early childhood experiences before
the development of speech and experiences for which the culture and lan-
guage do not provide adequate labels are examples of experiences which
are unconscious because they are unlabeled. Labeled painful experiences
may also become unconscious if a person stops thinking about them. Con-
sciously deciding to stop thinking about an unpleasant topic is called sup-
pression. Repression is similar to suppression except that it is automatic—
that is, it occurs without one consciously planning to stop thinking. For
Dollard and Miller, therefore, repression is the automatic response of stop-
ping thinking about very painful thoughts; it is reinforced by drive reduc-
tion and eventually becomes a very strong habit.
The third characteristic of neuroses requiring explanation are symptoms.
Phobias, compulsions, hysteria, and alcoholism are examples of symptoms.
Symptoms arise when an individual is in a state of conflict-produced misery.
This misery is a result of the intense fear, and other intense drives (for exam-
ple, sexual drives), involved in conflict. Because the conflict is unconscious,
the individual cannot learn that the fear is unrealistic. Some symptoms of
neurosis are physiological; these are direct effects of the fear and other
drives which produce the conflict. Other symptoms, such as avoidance in a
phobia, are learned behaviors that reduce the fear or drives of the conflict.
These symptoms are reinforced, therefore, by drive reduction.
Therapeutic Techniques
Dollard and Miller’s explanation of psychotherapy is largely a presentation
of key features of psychoanalysis described in S-R terms. Therapy is viewed as
a situation in which new learning can occur. Because neurotic conflict is un-
conscious, new learning is required to remove repression so that conflict
can be resolved. One technique for doing this, taken directly from psycho-
analysis, is free association; here, neurotic patients are instructed to say
whatever comes to their consciousness. Because this can be a painful experi-
ence, patients may resist doing this, but, because the therapist rewards pa-
tients for free associating, they eventually continue. While free associating,
728
S-R Theory: Neal E. Miller and John Dollard
patients become aware of emotions related to their unconscious conflicts

and so develop a better understanding of themselves.
Another technique borrowed from psychoanalysis involves a phenome-
non known as transference. Patients experience and express feelings about
the therapist. Such feelings really represent, in S-R terms, emotional reac-
tions to parents, teachers, and other important persons in the patient’s past,
which, through stimulus generalization, have been transferred to the thera-
pist. The therapist helps the patient to recognize and label these feelings
and to see that they are generalized from significant persons in the patient’s
past. The patient in this way learns how she or he really feels. The patient
learns much about herself or himself that was previously unconscious and
learns how to think more adaptively about everyday life. The patient’s symp-
toms are thereby alleviated.
Extending the Behaviorist Approach

The S-R theory used by Miller and Dollard had its intellectual roots in the
thinking of the seventeenth century, when human beings were thought of as
being complicated machines which were set in motion by external stimuli.
At the beginning of the twentieth century, the stimulus-response model was
adopted by John B. Watson, the founder of behaviorism. Watson used the
S-R model to explain observable behavior, but he avoided applying it to
mental processes because he believed that mental processes could not be
studied scientifically.
Miller and Dollard extended the behaviorism of Watson to the explana-
tion of mental events through their concept of the cue-producing response
and its role in the higher mental processes. This was an S-R explanation:
Mental processes were seen as arising from associations between words that
represent external objects; the words are cues producing responses. Miller
and Dollard’s approach, therefore, represented a significant departure
from the behaviorism of Watson. Miller and Dollard tried to explain mental
events in their book Personality and Psychotherapy, in which they attempted to
explain many psychoanalytic concepts in S-R terms. Because psychoanalysis
is largely a theory of the mind, it would have been impossible for them not
to have attempted to describe mental processes.
Contributions to Mental Processes Research

The approach to explaining mental processes used by Miller and Dollard,
though it represented a theoretical advance in the 1950’s, was gradually re-
placed by other explanations, beginning in the 1960’s. The drive-reduction
theory of learning that Miller and Dollard advocated came under criticism,
and the S-R view that humans passively react to external stimuli was criti-
cized by many psychologists. As a result, new theories of learning emphasiz-
ing cognitive (mental) concepts were developed.
New ways of thinking about mental processes were also suggested by
fields outside psychology; one of these was computer science. The computer
729
Psychology Basics
and its programs were seen as analogous to human mental processes, which,
like computer programs, involve the input, storage, and retrieval of infor-
mation. The computer and its programs, therefore, suggested new ways of
thinking about the human mind. Miller and Dollard’s S-R theory has largely
been replaced by concepts of modern cognitive science.
Miller and Dollard’s theory still exercises an important influence on
modern thinking in psychology. Their analysis of psychoanalysis in terms of
learning theory made the important point that neuroses could be un-
learned using the principles of learning. Behaviorally oriented treatments
of emotional disorders owe a debt to the intellectual legacy of Miller and
Dollard.

Dollard, John, et al. Frustration and Aggression. 1939. Reprint. Westport,
Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1980. An early application of S-R theory to
complex human behavior. The presentation of the hypothesis that ag-
gression is inevitably caused by frustration is seen here.
Dollard, John, and Neal E. Miller. Personality and Psychotherapy: An Analysis in
Terms of Learning, Thinking, and Culture. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1950.
The best-known of the works of Miller and Dollard. Presents a theory of
personality and an S-R presentation of psychoanalytic theory and psycho-
analytic therapy.
sonality. 4th ed. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1998. This book has a chap-
ter on S-R theory and presents a detailed overview of the theory of Miller
and Dollard.
Miller, Neal E. “Studies of Fear as an Acquirable Drive: I. Fear as a Motivator
and Fear-Reduction as Reinforcement in the Learning of New Responses.”
Journal of Experimental Psychology 38 (1948): 89-101. A classic paper that
served as the experimental basis for postulating that fear is a secondary
drive.
Miller, Neal E., and John Dollard. Social Learning and Imitation. 1949. Re-
print. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1979. Presents an application
of S-R theory to social motivation with a special emphasis on imitation.
Sanford Golin
See also: Behaviorism; Conditioning; Drives; Learning; Social Learning: Al-

bert Bandura.
730
Schizophrenia
Background, Types, and Symptoms
Field of study: Schizophrenias
Schizophrenia is a severe mental illness that interferes with a person’s ability to think
and communicate. Researchers have studied the illness for decades, but the specific ge-
netic mechanisms and how they interact with environmental factors in contributing to
the illness remain unknown.
Key concepts
• affect
• antipsychotic medication
• delusions
• genetic factors
• hallucinations
• insight
• neuroleptics
• psychosis
• tardive dyskinesia
Schizophrenia affects approximately one out of every hundred individuals.

It is considered to be one of the most severe mental illnesses because its
symptoms can have a devastating impact on the lives of patients and their
families. The patient’s thought processes, communication abilities, and
emotional expressions are disturbed. As a result, many patients with schizo-
phrenia are dependent on others for assistance with daily life activities.
Schizophrenia is often confused, by the layperson, with multiple person-
ality disorder. The latter is an illness which is defined as two or more distinct
personalities existing within the person. The personalities tend to be intact,
and each is associated with its own style of perceiving the world and relating
to others. Schizophrenia, in contrast, does not involve the existence of two
or more personalities; rather, it is the presence of psychotic symptoms and
characteristic deficits in social interaction that define schizophrenia.
The diagnostic criteria for schizophrenia have changed over the years;
however, certain key symptoms, including disturbances in thought, percep-
tion, and emotional experiences, have remained as defining features. The
most widely used criteria for diagnosing schizophrenia are those listed in
the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders: DSM-IV-TR (rev. 4th
ed., 2000). This manual is published by the American Psychiatric Associa-
tion and is periodically revised to incorporate changes in diagnostic criteria.
The DSM-IV-TR contains the following symptoms for diagnosing schizo-
phrenia: delusions, hallucinations, disorganized thought, speech, or behav-
ior, and flattened (less responsive) affect; symptoms must have been present
731
Psychology Basics
for at least six months, and the individual must show marked impairment in
a major area of functioning such as work or interpersonal relations. Further,
the presence of other disorders, such as drug reactions or organic brain dis-
orders associated with aging, must be ruled out. Thus, the diagnosis of
schizophrenia typically involves a thorough physical and mental assessment.
While no single individual symptom is necessary for a person to receive a di-
agnosis of schizophrenia, according to the DSM-IV-TR, the persistent and
debilitating presence of bizarre hallucinations, which can include a halluci-
nated voice commenting on the individual or hallucinated conversations
between two voices, is a strong indication of schizophrenia. The presence of
delusions or hallucinations and loss of contact with reality is referred to as
psychosis and is often present in schizophrenia, but psychotic symptoms can
be seen in other mental disorders (for example, bipolar disorder or sub-
stance-induced psychotic disorder), so the term “psychosis” is not synony-
mous with the diagnosis of schizophrenia.
While not emphasized by the DSM-IV-TR, international and cross-cultural
study of the symptoms of schizophrenia has noted that the most frequently
observed symptom in schizophrenia is patients’ lack of insight. That is, de-
spite sometimes overwhelming evidence of gross abnormalities in percep-
tion and behavior, patients with schizophrenia are likely to deny that those
problems are symptomatic of a disorder.
Each of these symptoms can take a variety of forms. Delusions are defined
as false beliefs based on incorrect inferences about external reality. Delusions
are classified based on the nature of their content. For example, grandiose
delusions involve false beliefs about one’s importance, power, or knowl-
edge. The patient might express the belief that he or she is the most intelli-
gent person in the world but that these special intellectual powers have gone
unrecognized. As another example, persecutory delusions involve beliefs of
being persecuted or conspired against by others. The patient might claim,
for example, that there is a government plot to poison him or her.
Hallucinations are sensory experiences that occur in the absence of real
stimuli. In the case of auditory hallucinations, the patient may hear voices
calling or conversing when there is no one in physical proximity. Visual hal-
lucinations may involve seeing people who are deceased or seeing inani-
mate objects move on their own accord. Olfactory (smell) and tactile
(touch) hallucinations are also possible.
The term “affect” is used to refer to observable behaviors that are the ex-
pression of an emotion. Affect is predominantly displayed in facial expres-
sions. “Flat” affect describes a severe reduction in the intensity of emotional
expressions, both positive and negative. Patients with flat affect may show no
observable sign of emotion, even when experiencing a very joyful or sad
event.
Among the symptoms of schizophrenia, abnormalities in the expression
of thoughts are a central feature. When speech is incoherent, it is difficult
for the listener to comprehend because it is illogical or incomplete. As an
732
Schizophrenia: Background, Types, and Symptoms
DSM-IV-TR Criteria for Schizophrenia

Characterized by two or more of the following, each present for significant
portion of time during one-month period (less if treated successfully):
• delusions
• hallucinations
• disorganized speech (such as frequent derailment or incoherence)
• grossly disorganized or catatonic behavior
• negative symptoms (affective flattening, alogia, or avolition)
Only one criterion symptom required if delusions are bizarre or hallucina-
tions consist of a voice keeping running commentary on person’s behavior or
thoughts, or two or more voices conversing with each other
For a significant portion of time since onset, one or more major areas of
functioning (work, interpersonal relations, self-care) markedly below level
achieved prior to onset; when onset in childhood or adolescence, failure to
achieve expected level of interpersonal, academic, or occupational achieve-
ment
Continuous signs of disturbance persist for at least six months, including at
least one month of active-phase symptoms (less if treated successfully) and
possibly including periods of prodromal or residual symptoms; during pro-
dromal or residual periods, signs of disturbance may be manifested by only
negative symptoms or two or more symptoms present in attenuated form
(such as odd beliefs, unusual perceptual experiences)
Schizoaffective Disorder and Mood Disorder with Psychotic Features ruled
out because either no Major Depressive, Manic, or Mixed Episodes have oc-
curred concurrently with active-phase symptoms or mood episodes have oc-
curred during active-phase symptoms, but their total duration brief relative to
duration of active and residual periods
Disturbance not due to direct physiological effects of a substance or a gen-
eral medical condition
If history of Autistic Disorder or another Pervasive Developmental Disor-
der present, additional diagnosis of Schizophrenia made only if prominent
delusions or hallucinations are also present for at least one month (less if
treated successfully)
Classification of longitudinal course (applied only after at least one year
has elapsed since initial onset of active-phase symptoms):
• Episodic with Interepisode Residual Symptoms: Episodes defined by re-
emergence of prominent psychotic symptoms; also specify if with Promi-
nent Negative Symptoms
• Episodic with No Interepisode Residual Symptoms
• Continuous: Prominent psychotic symptoms present throughout period
of observation; also specify if with Prominent Negative Symptoms
• Single Episode in Partial Remission; also specify if with Prominent Nega-
tive Symptoms
• Single Episode in Full Remission
• Other or Unspecified Pattern
733
Psychology Basics
example, in response to the question “Where do you live?” one patient re-
plied, “Yes, live! I haven’t had much time in this or that. It is an area. In the
same area. Mrs. Smith! If the time comes for a temporary space now or what-
ever.” The term “loose associations” is applied to speech in which ideas shift
from one subject to another subject that is unrelated. If the loosening of as-
sociations is severe, speech may be incoherent. As an illustration of loose as-
sociations, a patient described the meaning of “A rolling stone gathers no
moss” by saying, “Inside your head there’s a brain and it’s round like a stone
and when it spins around it can’t make connections the way moss has little
filaments.”
With regard to speech, a variety of other abnormalities are sometimes
shown by patients. They may use neologisms, which are new words invented
by the patient to convey a special meaning. Some show clang associations,
which involve the use of rhyming words in conversation: “Live and let live,
that’s my motto. You live and give and live-give.” Abnormalities in the into-
nation and pace of speech are also common.
In addition to these symptoms, some patients manifest bizarre behaviors,
such as odd, repetitive movements or unusual postures. Odd or inappropri-
ate styles of dressing, such as wearing winter coats in the summer, may also
occur in some patients. More deteriorated patients frequently show poor hy-
giene. In order to meet the diagnostic criteria for schizophrenia, the indi-
vidual must show signs of disturbance for at least six months.
Types and Treatment of Schizophrenia

Because no one symptom is sufficient for a diagnosis of schizophrenia, pa-
tients vary in the numbers and intensity of their symptoms. Four subtypes of
schizophrenia are recognized; the differentiation among them is based upon
the symptom profile, and the criteria are clearly described in DSM-IV-TR.
Catatonic schizophrenia is predominantly characterized by abnormal
motor behavior. The patient may be in a “catatonic stupor,” which means
that he or she shows a marked reduction in movement and is sometimes
mute. Other catatonic schizophrenic patients adopt a rigid posture (cata-
tonic rigidity), which they will maintain despite efforts to move them. In dis-
organized schizophrenia, the primary symptoms are incoherence, catatonic
behavior, and flat or inappropriate affect. In paranoid schizophrenia, the
predominant symptom is a preoccupation with a systematized delusion. The
label undifferentiated schizophrenia is applied to cases that do not meet the
specific criteria for catatonic, disorganized, or paranoid schizophrenia but
do show prominent delusions, hallucinations, incoherence, or disorganized
behavior. Residual schizophrenia is a diagnosis used to refer to the presence
of flattened affect or limited speech and less severe delusions or hallucina-
tions in individuals with a prior history of schizophrenia.
In his writings, Eugen Bleuler often used the phrase “the group of
schizophrenias,” because he believed the disorder could be caused by a vari-
ety of factors. In other words, he believed that schizophrenia may not be a
734
single disease entity. Today, some researchers and clinicians who work in the
field take the same position. They believe that the differences among pa-
tients in symptom patterns and the course of the illness are attributable to
differences in etiology. Despite the assumption that there may be different
subtypes of schizophrenia, however, each with its own etiology, there is no
definitive evidence to support this. In fact, the five subtypes listed in DSM-IV-
TR show similar courses and receive the same medications and psycho-
therapeutic treatments. Thus the distinctions among them are purely de-
scriptive at this point.
Because schizophrenic symptoms have such a devastating impact on the
individual’s ability to function, family members often respond to the onset
of symptoms by seeking immediate treatment. Clinicians, in turn, often re-
spond by recommending hospitalization so that tests can be conducted and
an appropriate treatment can be determined. Consequently, almost all pa-
tients who are diagnosed with schizophrenia are hospitalized at least once in
their lives. The majority experience several hospitalizations.
Research on the long-term outcome of schizophrenia indicates that the
illness is highly variable in its course. A minority of patients have only one
episode of illness, then go into remission and experience no further symp-
toms. Unfortunately, however, the majority of patients have recurring epi-
sodes that require periodic rehospitalizations. The most severely ill never
experience remission but instead show a chronic course of symptomatology.
For these reasons, schizophrenia is viewed as having the poorest prognosis
of all the major mental illnesses.
Prior to the 1950’s, patients with schizophrenia were hospitalized for ex-
tended periods of time and frequently became “institutionalized.” There
were only a few available somatic treatments, and those proved to be of little
efficacy. Included among them were insulin coma therapy (the administra-
tion of large doses of insulin in order to induce coma), electroconvulsive ther-
apy (ECT; the application of electrical current to the temples in order to in-
duce a seizure), and prefrontal lobotomy (a surgical procedure in which the
tracts connecting the frontal lobes to other areas of the brain are severed).
In the 1950’s, a class of drugs referred to as antipsychotic medications
were discovered to be effective in treating schizophrenia. Antipsychotic
drugs significantly reduce some of the symptoms of schizophrenia in many
patients. The introduction of antipsychotic medications (also called neuro-
leptics) in combination with changes in public policy led to a dramatic de-
cline in the number of patients in public mental hospitals. Antipsychotic
medications have freed many patients from confinement in hospitals and
have enhanced their chances for functioning in the community. Not all pa-
tients benefit from typical antipsychotic medications, and the discovery of
new classes of medications has offered hope to patients and families. De-
spite the benefits of antipsychotic medications, they can also produce seri-
ous side effects, particularly tardive dyskinesia, a movement disorder associ-
ated in some patients with chronic use of typical antipsychotic medications.
735
Psychology Basics
The public policy that has contributed to the decline in the number of
hospitalized patients with schizophrenia is the nationwide policy of deinsti-
tutionalization. This policy, which has been adopted and promoted by most
state governments in the years since 1970, emphasizes short-term hospital-
izations, and it has involved the release of some patients who had been in in-
stitutions for many years. Unfortunately, the support services that were
needed to facilitate the transition from hospital to community living were
never put in place. Consequently, the number of homeless schizophrenic
patients has increased dramatically. Some of these are patients whose family
members have died or have simply lost touch with them. Other patients
have withdrawn from contact with their families, despite efforts by con-
cerned relatives to provide assistance. The plight of the homeless mentally
ill is of great concern to mental health professionals.
History and Future Directions

Writing in the late 1800’s, the eminent physician Emil Kraepelin was among
the first to document the symptoms and course of schizophrenia, referring
to it as “dementia praecox” (dementia of early life). Subsequently, Eugen
Bleuler applied the term “schizophrenia,” meaning splitting of the mind, to
the disorder. Both Kraepelin and Bleuler assumed that organic factors are
involved in schizophrenia. Later research confirmed this assumption; brain
scans reveal that a significant proportion of schizophrenic patients do have
organic abnormalities. The precise nature and cause of these abnormalities
remain unknown.
In the majority of cases, the onset of schizophrenic symptoms occurs in
late adolescence or early adulthood. The major risk period is between
twenty and twenty-five years of age, but the period of risk extends well into
adult life. For some patients, there are no readily apparent abnormalities
prior to the development of illness. For others, however, the onset of schizo-
phrenia is preceded by impairments in social, academic, or occupational
functioning. Some are described by their families as having had adjustment
problems in childhood. Childhood schizophrenia is relatively rare. It is esti-
mated to occur in about one out of every ten thousand children. When
schizophrenia is diagnosed in childhood, the same diagnostic criteria and
treatments are applied.
Schizophrenia shows no clear pattern in terms of its distribution in the
population. It occurs in both males and females, although it tends to have a
slightly earlier onset in males than in females. The illness strikes individuals
of all social, economic, and ethnic backgrounds. Some patients manifest
high levels of intelligence and are excellent students prior to becoming ill;
others show poor academic performance and signs of learning disability.
While the specific pathophysiology associated with schizophrenia remains
obscure, the preponderance of evidence demonstrates a significant role for
genetic factors in the risk for developing schizophrenia.
Schizophrenia is an illness that has been recognized by medicine for
736
more than one hundred years. During this time, only modest progress has
been made in research on its etiology. Some significant advances have been
achieved in treatment, however, and the prognosis for schizophrenia is
better now than ever before. Moreover, there is reason to believe that the
availability of new technologies for studying the central nervous system will
speed the pace of further discovery.

Bleuler, Eugen. Dementia Praecox: Or, The Group of Schizophrenias. Translated
by Joseph Zinkin. New York: International Universities Press, 1957. Origi-
nal German first published in 1911. A classic book in the field, this pro-
vides excellent descriptions of the symptoms and very interesting discus-
sions of possible causal factors.
W. H. Freeman, 1991. An accessible overview for both general and profes-
sional readers; includes numerous first-person accounts of the experience
of schizophrenia from the perspective of patients and family members.
Herz, Marvin I., Samuel J. Keith, and John P. Docherty. Psychosocial Treatment
of Schizophrenia. New York: Elsevier, 1990. This book, volume 4 in the
Handbook of Schizophrenia series, examines psychosocial causes of
schizophrenia and psychosocial treatment approaches. Discusses early in-
tervention, behavior therapy and supportive living arrangements. Re-
sults of long-term outcome studies are also reviewed.
Hirsch, Steven R., and Daniel R. Weinberger. Schizophrenia. Oxford: Black-
well Science, 1995. A comprehensive review by two masters in the field.
Kraepelin, Emil. Clinical Psychiatry. Translated by A. Ross Diefendorf. Del-
mar, N.Y.: Scholars’ Facsimiles & Reprints, 1981. A facsimile reprint of the
seventh (1907) edition of Kraepelin’s classic text. Reveals the origins of
the study of schizophrenia and other mental disorders.
Maj, Mario, and Norman Sartorius. Schizophrenia. New York: John Wiley &
Sons, 1999. This book is an integration of the worldwide research litera-
ture on schizophrenia.
Neale, John M., and Thomas F. Oltmanns. Schizophrenia. New York: John
Wiley & Sons, 1980. This book provides a comprehensive overview of the
illness and examines many of the research methods for exploring its
causes.
Walker, Elaine F., ed. Schizophrenia: A Life-Span Developmental Perspective. San
Diego, Calif.: Academic Press, 1991. The entire life-course of schizo-
phrenic patients is addressed in this book, from early childhood precur-
sors to geriatric outcome.
Elaine F. Walker; updated by Loring J. Ingraham
See also: Abnormality: Psychological Models; Diagnosis; Drug Therapies;

Madness: Historical Concepts; Psychosurgery; Schizophrenia: Theoretical
Explanations.
737
Schizophrenia
Fields of study: Models of abnormality; schizophrenias
Schizophrenia is one of the most severe and potentially devastating of all psychological
disorders. Over the years, a variety of theoretical explanations, sometimes poorly sup-
ported by direct experimental evidence, have been proposed. Current empirical research
supports the operation of genetic factors in schizophrenia and suggests that such fac-
tors may act in concert with environmental factors during early development to elevate
the risk for subsequent illness.
Key concepts
• environment
• genetic factors
• interaction
• neurodevelopment
• organic
• schizophrenia spectrum
• schizotypal
Schizophrenia, an illness that strikes one percent of adults, involves changes

in all aspects of psychological functioning. Thinking disorders, perceptual
distortions and hallucinations, delusions, and emotional changes are the
most prominent of such changes. Although some people recover com-
pletely, in many others the illness is chronic and deteriorative. For many
years, because the causes of schizophrenia were poorly understood, a wide
range of theories were proposed to account for the development of schizo-
phrenia. These early theories about schizophrenia can be classified into
four types: psychodynamic, family interaction, learning/attention, and or-
ganic. Current theories of schizophrenia focus primarily on genetic factors
and their interaction with environmental conditions, particularly the envi-
ronment experienced before birth and during early development.
Psychodynamic Theories
Psychodynamic theories originated with Sigmund Freud, who believed that
schizophrenia results when a child fails to develop an attachment to his or
her parent of the opposite sex. This causes a powerful conflict (called an Oe-
dipal conflict in males) in which unconscious homosexual desires threaten
to overwhelm the conscious self. To prevent these desires from generating
thoughts and feelings that cause painful guilt or behaviors that would be
punished, the ego defends itself by regressing to a state in which awareness
of the self as a distinct entity is lost. Thus, the person’s behavior becomes so-
738
Schizophrenia: Theoretical Explanations
cially inappropriate; the person mistakes fantasies for reality and experi-
ences hallucinations and delusions.
Harry Stack Sullivan, a follower of Freud, believed that failure of mater-
nal attachment creates excessive anxiety and sets the pattern for all future
relationships. Unable to cope in a world seen as socially dangerous, the indi-
vidual retreats into fantasy. Having done so, the individual cannot grow so-
cially or develop a sense of trust in or belonging with others. By late adoles-
cence or early adulthood, the person’s situation has become so hopeless
that all pretense of normality collapses, and he or she withdraws totally into
a world of fantasy and delusion.
Family and Learning Theories

Family interaction theories dwell even more intensely on parent-child, espe-
cially mother-child, relationships. Theodore Lidz and coworkers, after con-
ducting studies on families with a schizophrenic member, concluded that
one or both parents of a future schizophrenic are likely to be nearly, if not
overtly, psychotic. They proposed that the psychotogenic influence of these
parents on a psychologically vulnerable child is most likely the cause of
schizophrenia.
Gregory Bateson and colleagues proposed a family interaction theory
called the double-bind theory. Bateson suggested that schizophrenia results
when parents expose a child to a family atmosphere in which they never ef-
fectively communicate their expectations, and therefore the child is unable
to discover which behaviors will win approval. Scolded for disobeying, for
example, the child changes his or her behavior only to be scolded for being
“too obedient.” Subjected to such no-win situations constantly, the child
cannot develop an attachment to the family, and this failure generalizes to
all subsequent relationships.
Learning theories propose that failure of operant conditioning causes
the bizarre behavior of schizophrenia. In one version, conditioning fails be-
cause mechanisms in the brain that support operant learning, such as rein-
forcement and attention, are faulty, thus preventing the learning of appro-
priate, adaptive behaviors.
For example, a person who is unable to focus attention on relevant stim-
uli would be unable to learn the stimulus associations and discriminations
necessary for successful day-to-day behavior. Such an individual’s behavior
would eventually become chaotic. This learning/attention theory proposes
a defect in perceptual filtering, a function of the brain’s reticular formation.
This system filters out the innumerable stimuli that impinge upon one’s
senses every moment but are unimportant. In schizophrenia, the theory
proposes, this filtering system fails, and the individual is overwhelmed by a
welter of trivial stimuli. Unable to cope with this confusing overstimulation,
the person withdraws, becomes preoccupied with sorting out his or her
thoughts, and becomes unable to distinguish internally generated stimuli
from external ones.
739
Psychology Basics
Organic Theories
Organic theories of schizophrenia are influenced by the knowledge that
conditions known to have organic causes (that is, causes stemming from bio-
logical abnormalities) often produce psychological symptoms that mimic
the psychotic symptoms of schizophrenia. Among these are viral encephali-
tis, vitamin-deficiency diseases, temporal-lobe epilepsy, and neurodegenera-
tive disease such as Huntington’s disease and Wilson’s disease. In contradis-
tinction to historical theories of schizophrenia that have little empirical
support, considerable research supports the operation of genetic factors in
schizophrenia. Such factors are most often assumed to influence the devel-
opment of the brain and its resilience to a variety of physiological and psy-
chological stressors. In the diathesis-stress model, such a genetic defect is
necessary for the development of chronic schizophrenia but is not sufficient
to produce it; stressful life events must also be present. The genetic abnor-
mality then leaves the person unable to cope with life stresses, the result be-
ing psychosis. Research demonstrating the operation of genetic factors in
schizophrenia in no way implies the absence of environmental factors which
operate to influence the course of the disorder.
Many brain abnormalities have been proposed as causes of schizophre-
nia. One suggestion is that schizophrenia results from generalized brain pa-
thology. For example, some researchers suggest that widespread brain dete-
rioration caused by either environmental poisoning or infection by a virus
causes schizophrenia.
Alternatively, some biochemical abnormality may be at fault. The endog-
enous psychotogen theory proposes that abnormal production of a chemi-
cal substance either inside or outside the brain produces psychotic symp-
toms by affecting the brain in a druglike fashion. Substances similar to the
hallucinogenic drugs lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) and mescaline are
popular candidates for the endogenous psychotogen. The dopamine the-
ory, however, proposes that schizophrenia results when a chemical neuro-
transmitter system in the brain called the dopamine system becomes ab-
normally overactive or when dopamine receptors in the brain become
abnormally sensitive to normal amounts of dopamine. In addition to dopa-
mine, other neurotransmitters have been proposed as important in the de-
velopment and maintenance of schizophrenia.
Neurological and Genetic Studies

Theories of schizophrenia are instrumental in generating experiments that
provide definite knowledge of the condition. Experimental support for
psychodynamic theories of the development and progression of schizophre-
nia has not been forthcoming. Therefore, most empirical researchers re-
gard psychodynamic theories of schizophrenia as having little scientific
merit. Family interaction theories also have not been supported by subse-
quent experiments. Although studies have found disturbed family relation-
ships, the evidence suggests that these are most likely the result of, not the
740
cause of, having a schizophrenic individual in the family. Family interaction

has, however, been shown to be influential in modifying the course of ill-
ness and the risk of relapse. Studies consistently fail to find that parent-child
interactions are psychotogenic, and the once-popular notion of the schizo-
phrenogenic parent has been discarded. Only learning/attention and
organic theories are strongly supported by experimental evidence. The evi-
dence for attentional or learning deficits resulting from a fault in the
reticular formation is strong, and it stems from electrophysiological and be-
havioral studies.
The electroencephalogram (EEG) is often found to be abnormal in
schizophrenic patients, showing excessive activation that indicates over-
arousal. Furthermore, studies of evoked potentials, electrical events re-
corded from the cortex of the brain in response to specific sensory stimuli,
often find abnormalities. Significantly, these occur late in the evoked poten-
tial, indicating abnormality in the brain’s interpretation of sensory stimuli
rather than in initial reception and conduction.
Behavioral studies show that schizophrenic patients often overreact to
low-intensity stimuli, which corresponds to their complaints that lights are
too bright or sounds are too loud. In addition, patients are often unusually
distractible—unable to focus attention on the most relevant stimuli. Ori-
enting responses to novel stimuli are deficient in about half of schizo-
phrenic patients. Patient self-reports also indicate that, subjectively, the indi-
vidual feels overwhelmed by sensory stimulation.
Thus, considerable evidence suggests that, at least in many patients, there
is an abnormality in the sensory/perceptual functioning in the brain, per-
haps in the perceptual filtering mechanism of the reticular formation.
Franz J. Kallmann’s twin studies of the 1940’s provided convincing evi-
dence of a genetic factor in schizophrenia. He found that genetically identi-
cal monozygotic twins are much more likely to be concordant for schizo-
phrenia (that is, both twins are much more likely to be psychotic) than are
dizygotic twins, who are not genetically identical. Studies using genealogical
techniques also showed that schizophrenia runs in families.
The criticism of these studies was that twins not only are genetically simi-
lar but also are exposed to the same family environment, and therefore ge-
netic and environmental factors were confounded. Seymour Kety and col-
leagues, working with adoption records in Scandinavia, effectively answered
this criticism by showing that adoptees with schizophrenia are more likely to
have biological relatives with schizophrenia or related illnesses than the bio-
logical relatives of unaffected adoptees. These studies showed that schizo-
phrenia is more closely associated with genetic relatedness than with family
environment. In addition, these studies showed that the genetic liability is
not a liability to psychopathology in general (that is, relatives of individuals
with schizophrenia are not at elevated risk for all forms of mental disorder)
but that there is a range of severity of illness observed in the relatives of indi-
viduals with schizophrenia. The range of less severe schizophrenia-like con-
741
Psychology Basics
ditions observed is called the schizophrenia spectrum of illness; schizotypal

personality is the most frequently studied form. Schizotypal personality dis-
order occurs more frequently than schizophrenia itself among the relatives
of individuals with schizophrenia.
Presumably, this genetic predisposition works by producing some or-
ganic change. Studies using advanced brain-imaging techniques indicate
that, in many patients, there is nonlocalized brain degeneration, which is re-
vealed by the increased size of the ventricles, fluid-filled spaces within the
brain. What causes this degeneration is unknown, but some researchers sug-
gest that it is caused by a virus and that a genetic factor increases susceptibil-
ity to infection and the subsequent damaging effects of a viral disease. Al-
though direct evidence of a virus has been found in a minority of patients,
the viral theory is still considered speculative and unproved. There is no evi-
dence that schizophrenia is contagious.
Biochemical Studies
Experimental evidence of biochemical abnormalities in the brain’s dopa-
mine neurotransmitter systems is, however, impressive. Antipsychotic drugs
are effective in relieving the symptoms of schizophrenia, especially positive
symptoms such as hallucinations and delusions. These drugs block dopa-
mine receptors in the brain. Furthermore, the more powerfully the drugs
bind to and block dopamine receptors, the smaller the effective dose that is
necessary to produce a therapeutic result.
Further evidence comes from a condition called amphetamine psychosis,
which occurs in people who abuse amphetamine and similar stimulants
such as cocaine. Amphetamine psychosis so closely mimics some forms of
schizophrenia that misdiagnoses have been common. Furthermore, am-
phetamine psychosis is not an artifact of disturbed personality; experiments
show that normal control subjects will develop the condition if they are
given high doses of amphetamines every few hours for several days. Am-
phetamine psychosis, which is believed to result from the overactivation of
dopamine systems in the brain, is treated with antipsychotic drugs such as
chlorpromazine.
Direct evidence of abnormality in the dopamine systems comes from
studies using advanced techniques such as positron emission tomography
(PET) scanning. These studies show that the brains of schizophrenic pa-
tients, even those who have never been treated with antipsychotic medica-
tions, may have abnormally large numbers of dopamine receptors in an area
called the limbic system, which is responsible for emotional regulation.
Dopamine-blocking drugs, however, help only a subset of patients. Studies
show that those most likely to benefit from medication are patients who dis-
play primarily positive symptoms. Patients who show negative symptoms—
such as withdrawal, thought blocking, and catatonia—are less likely to be
helped by medication.
742
History of the Concept of Schizophrenia

The disorders that are now called schizophrenia were first characterized in
the nineteenth century. Emil Kraepelin first grouped these disorders, refer-
ring to them by the collective name dementia praecox, in 1893.
Many early neurologists and psychiatrists thought these dementias were
organic conditions. This view changed, however, after Swiss psychiatrist Eu-
gen Bleuler published his classic work on the disorder in 1911. Bleuler pro-
posed that the primary characteristic of the condition was a splitting of intel-
lect from emotions. He introduced the term “schizophrenia” (literally, “split
mind”). Bleuler, influenced by the psychodynamic theories of Freud, be-
lieved that the bizarre content of schizophrenic thoughts and perceptions
represented a breaking away from an external reality that was too painful or
frightening. His ideas became especially influential in the United States.
Attempts to treat schizophrenia with traditional psychotherapies were,
however, unsuccessful. Success rates rarely surpassed the rate of spontane-
ous recovery, the rate at which patients recover without treatment. Because
medical interventions such as lobotomy, insulin shock therapy, and electro-
convulsive therapy were also ineffective, psychiatric hospitals were filled
with patients for whom little could be done.
The discovery of antipsychotic drugs and changing public policy about
institutionalization in the 1950’s changed things dramatically. Hospital
populations declined. The surprising effectiveness of these medications, in
concert with the discovery of amphetamine psychosis in the 1930’s and the
genetic studies of the 1940’s, re-
newed the belief that schizo-
phrenia is an organic condi-
tion.
Two problems impeded fur-
ther understanding. First, tech-
niques available for investigat-
ing the brain were primitive
compared with modern tech-
niques. Therefore, reports of
organic changes in schizophre-
nia, although common, were
difficult to confirm. Second,
because the routinely adminis-
tered medications powerfully
influenced brain functioning,
it became a problem to distin-
guish organic changes that were
important in causing the disor-
der from those that were merely
secondary to the action of anti-
Eugen Bleuler. psychotic drugs in the brain.
743
Psychology Basics
Indeed, it became “common wisdom” among many psychologists that or-

ganic factors identified by researchers were not primary to the disorder but
were, rather, side effects of medication. Soft neurological signs such as eye-
movement dysfunctions, abnormal orienting responses, and unusual move-
ments were considered drug related, even though Kraepelin and others had
described them decades before the drugs were discovered. The drugs came
to be called “major tranquilizers,” implying that medication allowed pa-
tients to function more effectively by relieving the overwhelming anxiety
that accompanied the disorder but that the drugs did not influence the
schizophrenic process itself.
The fact that antipsychotic drugs have little usefulness as antianxiety
agents in nonschizophrenics did not shake this opinion. Neither did the dis-
covery of more powerful antianxiety agents such as Librium (chlordiaze-
poxide) and Valium (diazepam), even after they were shown to be almost
useless in treating schizophrenia.
The next dramatic change in understanding schizophrenia came in the
1960’s with the discovery of monoamine neurotransmitters, including dopa-
mine, and the discovery that these chemical systems in the brain are strongly
affected in opposite ways by psychotogenic drugs, such as cocaine and am-
phetamine, and antipsychotic drugs, such as chlorpromazine. Carefully
conducted twin and adoption studies confirmed the role of genetic factors
in schizophrenia and encouraged the search for the mechanism by which
genes influenced the risk for developing schizophrenia. In the following de-
cades, evidence that prenatal and perinatal factors are instrumental in the
development of schizophrenia has led to the emerging consensus that
schizophrenia should be considered from a neurodevelopmental perspec-
tive.

Bowers, Malcolm B. Retreat from Sanity: The Structure of Emerging Psychosis.
New York: Human Sciences Press, 1974. A fascinating description, often
in the words of patients, of the experiences many people have in the very
early stages of psychosis. Especially interesting are descriptions of “peak”
and “psychedelic” experiences resulting from sensory alterations during
the onset of the disorder.
W. H. Freeman, 1991. An excellent, well-written book that is easily accessi-
ble to the general reader. Highly recommended.
Gottesman, Irving I., James Shields, and Daniel R. Hanson. Schizophrenia:
The Epigenetic Puzzle. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press,
1982. More technical than Schizophrenia Genesis but still accessible to any-
one with a solid background in genetics of the type obtained in a good
general biology course. Concentrates on genetic studies and gives com-
plete references to original technical articles.
Hirsch, Steven R., and Daniel R. Weinberger. Schizophrenia. Malden, Mass.:
744
Blackwell Science, 1995. A comprehensive review by two masters in the

field.
Kraepelin, Emil. Clinical Psychiatry. Translated by A. Ross Diefendorf. Del-
mar, N.Y.: Scholars’ Facsimiles & Reprints, 1981. A facsimile reprint of the
seventh (1907) edition of Kraepelin’s classic text. Reveals the origins of
the study of schizophrenia and other mental disorders.
Maj, Mario, and Norman Sartorius. Schizophrenia. New York: John Wiley &
Sons, 1999. This book is an integration of the worldwide research litera-
ture on schizophrenia.
Myslobodsky, Michael S., and Ina Weiner. Contemporary Issues in Modeling
Psychopathology. Boston: Kluwer Academic, 2000. Presents several theories
of schizophrenic psychopathology and empirical approaches to and evi-
dence from tests of those theories.
Raine, Adrian, Todd Lencz, and Sarnoff A. Mednick. Schizotypal Personality.
New York: Cambridge University Press, 1995. An overview of the less se-
vere schizophrenia-like disorder seen in some relatives of patients with
schizophrenia. Discusses links (and differences) between schizotypal per-
sonality and schizophrenia.
Snyder, Solomon H. Madness and the Brain. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1974.
Written in a lively, breezy style, this short volume deals with biomedical
factors in many psychological disorders, including schizophrenia. Espe-
cially interesting is Snyder’s discussion of drug effects, neurotransmit-
ters, and schizophrenia.
Torrey, Edwin Fuller. Surviving Schizophrenia: A Family Manual. Rev. ed. New
York: Perennial Library, 1988. One of the best books available for the
general reader on schizophrenia. Intended primarily for family members
of schizophrenics, this book is appropriate for anyone who is interested
in the disorder, including mental health care workers. Torrey writes won-
derfully and pulls no punches when dealing with outmoded theories and
poorly done experiments. Many libraries have only the first edition; the
revised edition is recommended.
William B. King; updated by Loring J. Ingraham
See also: Abnormality: Psychological Models; Diagnosis; Drug Therapies;

Madness: Historical Concepts; Psychosurgery; Schizophrenia: Background,
Types, and Symptoms.
745
Self
Type of psychology: Personality; developmental psychology; social
psychology; consciousness
Fields of study: Attitudes and behavior; general constructs and issues;
personality theory; social perception and cognition
The self is a term that is widely used and variously defined. It has been examined by
personality theorists as a central structure. Social cognitive psychology has explored the
individual and interpersonal processes that influence such dimensions as self-systems,
self-concept, self-consciousness, and self-efficacy. Recent research has challenged psy-
chology to rethink its concept of the self.
Key concepts
• being-in-the-world
• identity
• identity crisis
• narrative
• self-awareness
• self-concept
• self-efficacy
• self-in-relation
• self-system
• subjectivity
The concept of the self was invoked in Western thought long before the ad-
vent of the discipline of psychology. During the Renaissance and Enlighten-
ment, scholars often depicted humans as having a soul, spirit, or metaphysi-
cal essence. The famous argument by French Renaissance philosopher
René Descartes (1596-1650), “I think, therefore I am,” placed its fundamen-
tal confidence in the assumption that the “I”—an active, unique identity—
could be directly experienced through introspection and therefore trusted
to exist. Descartes’s dualistic formulation of the mind-body relation set the
stage for a number of assumptions about the self: that the self is an active,
unitary, core structure of the person which belongs to and is consciously ac-
cessible to the individual.
During the Enlightenment, empiricist and associationist philosophers re-
tained the mind-body distinction but emphasized the material, objectively
observable behaviors of the body, with more stress on observable informa-
tion, as seen in the rephrasing of Descartes by Scottish philosopher David
Hume (1711-1776): “I sense, therefore I am.” William James (1842-1930),
philosopher and founder of American scientific psychology, recognized
that the personal experience of one’s own stream of consciousness—the
sense of “I” or subjectivity—is fleeting and fluid and less measurable than
the objective “me” with its body, relationships, and belongings. However, he
746
Self
considered the self to be made up of both subjective and objective compo-

nents, a perspective reflected in the various theories of the self present in
modern psychology.
Many psychologists believe that there is an internal self in potentia that
takes shape and grows as long as an adequate environment is provided. Oth-
ers emphasize a social component, suggesting that the self develops directly
out of interpersonal interactions.
Psychoanalytic and Psychodynamic Theories

Sigmund Freud (1856-1939), Austrian founder of psychoanalysis at the turn
of the twentieth century, had little use in his tripartite theory of the psyche
for the idea of self as one’s central identity. He conceptualized the ego as an
important but secondary structure that mediates between the instincts of
the id and the strictures of the superego. However, other psychodynamic
theorists of the first half of the twentieth century returned to the idea of a
center of personality. Carl Jung (1875-1961), a Swiss psychiatrist, thought of
the self as an important archetype—an energized symbol in the collective
unconscious—that organizes and balances the contradictory influences of
other archetypes and, in fact, transcends opposing forces within the psyche.
The archetype itself is an inborn potential, while its actual development is
informed by personal experiences. Karen Horney (1885-1952), a German
psychiatrist, believed that each individual is born with a real self, containing
healthy intrinsic potentials and capabilities. However, because of basic anxi-
ety and a belief that one is unlovable, some individuals become alienated
from their real selves and pursue an unrealistic idealized self. Margaret
Mahler (1897-1985), a Hungarian-born pediatrician and psychoanalyst, de-
scribed the separation-individuation process of the first three years of life, by
which a child achieves individual personhood through psychologically sepa-
rating from other people.
In contrast, Harry Stack Sullivan (1892-1949), an American psychiatrist,
believed that personality and self can never be fully disconnected from in-
terpersonal relations. His concept of the self-system is thus a set of enduring
patterns of relating to others that avoids anxiety by striving for others’ ap-
proval (the “good-me”), avoiding their disapproval (the “bad-me”), and dis-
sociating from whatever causes their revulsion (the “not-me”). Heinz Kohut
(1931-1981), Austrian founder of self psychology, also stressed that healthy
selfhood is only attained through satisfying, empathically attuned interac-
tions between infants and caregivers. Caregivers initially provide the self
with a sense of goodness and strength and are therefore termed self-objects.
The healthy self then develops its own ambitions, ideals, and skills, while de-
privation from self-objects results in an injured self.
Developmental Theories
While these psychodynamic theorists focused on the emotional and rela-
tional dimensions of early development, others, such as German-born Erik
747
Psychology Basics
Erikson (1902-1994), also emphasized cognitive and identity development

over the entire life span. Erikson’s theory, in which the ego confronts a se-
ries of psychosocial crises, recognized such childhood stages as autonomy
versus shame and doubt, initiative versus guilt, and industry versus inferior-
ity as important to ego development. However, it was his conceptualization
of the identity crisis during adolescence that has been highly influential on
modern research on self-concept and self-esteem. By searching out and
eventually choosing life strategies, values, and goals, the adolescent estab-
lishes a sense of inner assuredness and self-definition, which serve to pro-
mote healthy intimacy, productivity, and integration later in life. James Mar-
cia, an American developmental psychologist, demonstrated in the 1960’s,
1970’s, and 1980’s that adolescents who actively explore the question “Who
am I?” and achieve their own sense of identity are more likely to have posi-
tive outcomes, including high self-esteem, self-direction, and mature rela-
tionships. Erikson, Marcia, and other developmental scholars recognize
that the task of establishing identity can be facilitated or hampered by the
values and traditions presented in families and social structures.
Humanistic and Existential/Phenomenological Perspectives

Since the 1920’s, humanistic and existential traditions have focused on the
human being as a whole, and division into parts or structures is resisted inso-
far as it leads to dehumanizing the person. Thus, the self as such is often re-
named or deemphasized in these theories. Gordon Allport (1897-1967), an
American psychologist, used the concept of “proprium” to describe the
unique, holistic organization of personality and awareness that develops
over the life span, culminating in ownership of one’s own consciousness in
adulthood. American psychologist Carl Rogers (1902-1987) also deempha-
sized the role of self, which he thought was merely one differentiated aspect
of one’s phenomenological, conscious experience. Rogers’s self-image was a
complex representation of the total organism as perceived through self-
reflection. Abraham Maslow (1908-1970), another American psychologist,
proposed that one of the most advanced human needs was the pull to be
true to one’s own nature. While he called this pull “self-actualization,” he
did not theorize the self to be a central structure but a unique range of ca-
pacities, talents, and activities. American existentialist psychologist Rollo
May (1909-1994) suggested that instead of thinking of a person as having a
central, internal self that is separated from the world, a person should be
considered to be a being-in-the-world (Dasein in German), who is in all ways
related to the physical and especially the social environment.
The Self as a Regulator of Individual Processes

Beginning in the 1950’s and accelerating through the turn of the twenty-
first century, much research on personality has moved away from extensive
personality theories toward empirically testable hypotheses. Models of the
self focus on describing and observing the mental mechanisms by which in-
748
Self
dividuals moderate and control their internal processes and their interac-
tions with the world within specific social traditions and expectations.
Albert Bandura, the American founder of social cognitive psychology,
conceptualizes the person as part of an interactive triad consisting of indi-
vidual, behavior, and environment. Like radical behaviorism, social cogni-
tive theory assumes that all human behavior is ultimately caused by the ex-
ternal environment. However, Bandura also describes individuals as having
cognitions with which they regulate their own behavior, through the estab-
lishment of guiding performance standards. His idea of the self-system con-
sists of internal motivations, emotions, plans, and beliefs which are orga-
nized into three processes: self-observation, judgmental processes, and self-
reaction. In self-observation, the individual consciously monitors his or her
own behavior and describes it. Through judgmental processes, values are
placed on the observations, according to personal standards internalized
from past experience and comparisons to others. The self-reaction is the
self-system’s way of punishing, rewarding, changing, or continuing with re-
newed motivation the behavior that has been self-observed.
Bandura’s concept of self-observation has been further refined in re-
search on self-awareness, self-consciousness, and self-monitoring. American
social psychologists such as Robert Wicklund, Arnold Buss, Mark Davis, and
Stephen Franzoi have defined self-awareness as a state of focusing attention
on oneself, while self-consciousness is defined as a traitlike tendency to
spend time in the state of such self-awareness. Most such research distin-
guishes between private self-awareness or self-consciousness, in which a per-
son attends to internal aspects of self, such as thoughts and emotions, and
public self-awareness or self-consciousness, in which a person attends to ex-
ternal aspects of self that can be observed by others, such as appearance,
physical movements, and spoken words. Private self-awareness and self-
consciousness have been associated with intense emotional responses, clear
self-knowledge, and actions that are consistent with one’s own attitudes and
values. Self-monitoring is related primarily to public self-consciousness and
is described by American psychologist Mark Snyder as the tendency to en-
gage in attempts to control how one is perceived in social interactions.
Snyder’s research suggests that high self-monitors use current situations to
guide their reactions more than do low self-monitors, which can lead to the
relationships of high self-monitors being dependent on situations or activi-
ties.
Social cognitive theory has also directed research on self-efficacy, the be-
lief that one will be capable of using one’s own behavior, knowledge, and
skills to master a situation or overcome an obstacle. For example, Bandura
showed in 1986 that people in recovery from a heart attack were more likely
to follow an exercise regimen when they learned to see themselves as having
physical efficacy. Perceived self-efficacy was demonstrated throughout the
1980’s and 1990’s as contributing to a wide range of behaviors, from weight
loss to maternal competence to managerial decision making.
749
Psychology Basics
A final theme coming to prominence since the 1970’s relates to identity

and self-concept. Self-concept has been defined by American psychologist
Roy Baumeister as one’s personal beliefs about oneself, including one’s at-
tributes and traits and one’s self-esteem, which is based on self-evaluations.
American developmental psychologists such as Jerome Kagan, Michael Lewis,
and Jeanne Brooks-Gunn found that by their second year, children become
capable of recognizing and cognitively representing as their own their ac-
tions, intentions, states, and competencies. With further development, peo-
ple appear to form not one unitary self-concept, but a collection of self-
schemas or ideas about themselves in relation to specific domains such as
school or work. American psychologist Hazel Markus has also found time to
be a relevant dimension of self-concept, in that persons develop possible
selves: detailed concepts of who they hope and fear to become in the future.
Identity is defined as who a person is, including not only the personal
ideas in the self-concept but also the public perceptions of a person in his or
her social context (for instance, birth name or roles in cultural institutions).
Identity consists of two major features: continuity or sameness of the person
over time and differentiation of the person as unique compared to others
and groups of others. As mentioned with regard to Erikson’s theory and
Marcia’s research, adolescence has been demonstrated to be a primary
stage for exploring the values, beliefs, and group memberships that consti-
tute identity. However, identity continues to evolve during adulthood with
changes in roles (such as student versus parent) and activities (work versus
retirement).
Neuropsychological Perspectives
From a neuropsychological perspective, brain functions underlie all dimen-
sions and activities of the self. Yet an important question is how the function-
ing of biophysical structures such as the brain and nervous system can give
rise to the self, which can be consciously experienced, either directly or
through its activity. This question relies on the same mind-body problem
that first arose with Descartes. One solution to this mental-physical divide
proposed by such neuroscientists as Australian Sir John Eccles and Hungar-
ian-born Michael Polanyi is the concept of emergent systems, or marginal
control of lower systems by the organizational rules of higher systems. As the
nervous system evolved into a complex set of structures, neural circuitry
gained a concomitant complexity of organized functioning such that a new
property, consciousness, emerged. This emergent property has capabilities
and activities (such as the experience of mental images) that are a result of
the organization of neural patterns but are not reducible to its component
neural parts, much as water molecules have different qualities from those of
hydrogen and oxygen atoms alone. Yet consciousness and thus experience
of the self are necessarily embodied in and constrained by these patterned
brain and biological processes.
Thus, the sense of self as having continuity relies on the capacity of sev-
750
Self
eral structures of the brain (such as the hippocampus and specialized areas
of the association cortex) for forming, storing, and retrieving personal
memories as well as representations of background bodily and emotional
states. A specific self-concept, as explored in social cognitive research, can
only be developed through the organizational capacity of the prefrontal cor-
tex to self-observe and construct cognitive schemas. The prefrontal cortex is
also involved in carrying out many actions attributed to the self, such as the
planned action of self-efficacy, and the techniques of presenting the self in a
particular light, as in self-monitoring. Research such as that by Antonio
Damasio, an American neurologist, indicates that when normal functioning
of specific neural circuits is disturbed, deficits also occur in these experi-
ences of self as knower and owner of mental and physical states. For exam-
ple, with anasagnosia, damage to the right somatosensory cortices impairs a
person’s ability to be aware of damage to the body or associated problems in
the functioning of the self. The body itself may become completely dis-
owned by the person, and the unified sense of “me” is fractured.
Culture and Gender Differences in the Experience of Self

Empirical and theoretical scholarship since the 1970’s has presented alter-
natives to the universality of the self across culture and gender, and has chal-
lenged the utility of the construct as heretofore defined. Humans’ experi-
ences of self have been found to vary substantially across cultures and
gender, especially regarding the importance of independence and separa-
tion versus interdependence and relationship. For example, American psy-
chologist Hazel Markus, Japanese psychologist Shinobu Kitayama, and their
colleagues found in their 1991 and 1997 studies that the concept of an indi-
vidualized self as uniquely differentiated from others is descriptive of Ameri-
cans’ psychological experience. In contrast, Japanese personal experience is
often more consistent with collective, relational roles, a conclusion that has
been replicated with other collectivist cultures.
Feminist psychologists working at the Stone Center in Massachusetts
have drawn on the developmental psychological work of Americans Nancy
Chodorow and Carol Gilligan, observing that many women find the notion
of a discrete and individualized self places too much emphasis on separa-
tion between people. This research group proposed the concept of self-in-
relation to capture the extent to which one’s core sense of being is defined
by one’s relationships with and commitments to other individuals. Likewise,
as American developmental psychologist Mary Field Belenky and her col-
leagues interviewed women about their learning processes, they found that
the sense of self as an individual, separate knower and speaker is only one
stage of development. The individualist stage is often followed by respect for
the ways one’s subjectivity is informed by empathy and intimacy with others.
These empirical observations suggest that theories of the self should attend
more carefully to the interplay of individual and interpersonal or social ex-
perience.
751
Psychology Basics
Postmodern, Dialogical, and Narrative Theories

The advancement since the 1970’s of postmodernism has led many psychol-
ogists to recognize that persons construct their own realities through social
rules, roles, and structures. Kenneth Gergen, an American social psycholo-
gist, proposes that the self gains its unity and identity from the consistency of
the social roles a person plays. He points out that the more a person’s roles
multiply and conflict, as is common in fast-paced technological societies,
the less cohesive and the more obsolete the concept of self becomes.
New Zealand-born cognitive psychologist Rom Harré and American psy-
chologists Edward Sampson and Frank Richardson have each advanced al-
ternative theories in which the concept of self is still viable but which em-
phasize the necessity of recognizing the multiplicity of perspectives within a
self. Drawing on the sociological traditions of symbolic interactionism, espe-
cially the “looking-glass self” of American sociologists George Herbert Mead
and Charles Cooley, these theorists see the self as constructed only through
intimate involvement in interpersonal interaction and especially language,
which allow one to reflect on oneself and create the social bonds that define
one as a self. The unique and specific manner with which one articulates
oneself appears to reflect one’s culture and social audience but also one’s
beliefs and commitments about identity.
American developmental psychologist Dan McAdams has led research
on the narratives people tell to describe and explain their lives to themselves
and others, concluding that the linguistic construction of the self is a contin-
uous and central task of the entire life span. Jerome Bruner, an American
cognitive psychologist, suggests that through narrative, the various dimen-
sions of self—public and private, structure and activity—become interre-
lated in meaningful stories and serve to promote both the growth of the in-
dividual and the survival of human culture.

Bandura, Albert. “The Self-System in Reciprocal Determinism.” American
Psychologist 33 (1978): 344-358. Lays out major concepts of social cogni-
tive theory with respect to the role of the self-system. Theory and re-
search are well elaborated and accessible to nonprofessionals.
Damasio, Antonio R. Descartes’ Error: Emotion, Reason, and the Human Brain.
New York: Avon Books, 1994. Provides a review of neural circuitry and an
overview of modern neurological research on personality and the self, es-
pecially regarding the role of the body and emotions in reasonable,
planned action. The content is complex but is presented in an engaging
and straightforward style.
Derlega, Valerian J., Barbara A. Winstead, and Warren H. Jones. Personality:
Contemporary Theory and Research. Chicago: Nelson-Hall, 1999. Provides
clear overviews of modern research in self-concept, identity, self-aware-
ness, and self-consciousness.
Gergen, Kenneth J. The Saturated Self. New York: Basic Books, 1991. This
752
Self
influential text is written for nonprofessionals to describe how modern

society has undermined traditional concepts of the self. The author’s
nontechnical, entertaining style makes this a good introduction to post-
modernism and its new theories of self.
Hall, Calvin S., Gardner Lindzey, and John B. Campbell. Theories of Personal-
ity. 4th ed. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1998. A popular text used in un-
dergraduate and graduate courses, explaining the major theories’ tenets
about the self and personality.
Kitayama, Shinobu, Hazel Rose Markus, Hisaya Matsumoto, and Vinai Nora-
sakkunkit. “Individual and Collective Processes in the Construction of
the Self: Self-Enhancement in the United States and Self-Criticism in Ja-
pan.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 72, no. 6 (1997): 1245-
1267. Explores the role of culture in people’s experiences of and formu-
lations of self and describes cross-cultural differences in the maintenance
of the self.
Lewis, Michael, and Jeanne Brooks-Gunn. Social Cognition and the Acquisition
of Self. New York: Plenum Press, 1979. Describes the authors’ classic series
of studies on development of self-recognition and other aspects of self-
concept and places the empirical work in the context of self theories and
philosophy of science.
Snodgrass, Joan Gay, and Robert L. Thompson, eds. The Self Across Psychology.
New York: New York Academy of Sciences, 1997. This text is written at a
fairly high level of professional conceptualization, yet provides a diverse
representation of empirical and theoretical approaches to studying the
self.
Stevens, Richard. Understanding the Self. Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Sage Publica-
tions, 1996. An undergraduate text integrating various perspectives on
the self into other topics of psychology, such as phenomenology and
biopsychology.
Mary L. Wandrei
See also: Analytic Psychology: Jacques Lacan; Analytical Psychology: Carl

Jung; Cognitive Psychology; Consciousness; Crowd Behavior; Ego Psychol-
ogy: Erik Erikson; Gender-Identity Formation; Identity Crises; Multiple Per-
sonality; Personality Theory; Psychoanalytic Psychology and Personality:
Sigmund Freud; Self-Esteem; Social Psychological Models: Erich Fromm;
Social Psychological Models: Karen Horney; Thought: Study and Measure-
ment.
753
Self-Esteem
Fields of study: Childhood and adolescent disorders; cognitive
development; social perception and cognition
Self-esteem research examines how individuals come to feel as they do about themselves.
Psychologists seek to understand how self-esteem develops and what can be done to
change negative views of the self once they have been established.
Key concepts
• attributions
• identity negotiation
• inheritable traits
• self-concept
• self-efficacy
• self-esteem
“Self-esteem” is a term with which almost everyone is familiar, yet it is not

necessarily easily understood. Psychologist William James gave the first clear
definition in 1892 when he said that self-esteem equals success divided by
pretensions. In other words, feelings of self-worth come from the successes
an individual achieves tempered by what the person had expected to
achieve. If the person expected to do extremely well on an exam (his or her
pretensions are quite high) and scores an A, then his or her self-esteem
should be high. If, however, the person expected to do well and then scores
a D, his or her self-esteem should be low.
This important but simplistic view of self-esteem started a movement to-
ward a better understanding of the complex series of factors that come to-
gether to create the positive or negative feelings individuals have about who
they are. Once a person has developed a self-concept (a global idea of all the
things that define who and what a person is), that person is likely to exhibit
behaviors that are consistent with that self-concept. If a young woman be-
lieves that she is a good tennis player, then she is likely to put herself in situa-
tions in which that factor is important. Once she behaves (in this case, plays
her game of tennis), she is likely to receive feedback from others as to how
she did. This feedback determines how she will feel about her tennis-playing
ability. Over time, these specific instances of positive or negative feedback
about tennis-playing ability will come together to create the more global
feelings of positivity or negativity a person has about the self in general.
Even though an individual may believe that she is good at tennis, her abil-
ity may not live up to those expectations, and she may receive feedback tell-
ing her so (for example, losing in the early rounds of a tournament). In this
case, the individual may come to feel somewhat negative about her tennis
ability. If this continues to happen, she will adjust her view of her ability and
come to believe that she is not a good tennis player after all. To the extent
754
Self-Esteem
that the person truly wanted to be good, this realization can cause her to feel
quite negative about all aspects of her self. When this happens, the person is
said to have developed low self-esteem.
Role of Attributions
The reality of how self-esteem develops, however, is more complicated than
this example demonstrates. People do not always accept the feedback that
others offer, and they may believe that their failure means nothing more
than having an off day. In order to understand the impact that success and
failure will have on self-esteem, it is important to understand the kinds of at-
tributions people make for their successes and failures. When a person suc-
ceeds or fails, there are three levels of attributions that can be made for ex-
plaining the occurrence. First, the individual must decide if the event
occurred because of something internal (something inside caused it to hap-
pen) or something external (something in the environment caused it to
happen). Second, it must be decided whether the event occurred because of
a stable factor (because it happened this time, it will happen again) or a tem-
porary circumstance (it probably will not happen again). Finally, it must be
decided whether the event occurred because of something specific (this fail-
ure resulted because of poor tennis ability) or something global (failure re-
sulted at this undertaking because of lack of ability to do anything).
It is easy to see that the kinds of attributions individuals make for their
successes and failures will have a profound impact on how a particular event
influences their self-esteem. If a decision is made that a failure at tennis oc-
curred because of something internal (lack of ability), stable (the ability will
never be present), and global (lack of any ability), then a failure is going to
damage self-esteem severely. Self-esteem is created through the blending of
expectations for success, actual levels of success, and the kinds of attribu-
tions made for why success or failure occurred.
Cyclic Perpetuation
Once positive or negative self-esteem has developed, it will perpetuate itself
in a cycle. If a person believes that he is a failure, he may put himself into sit-
uations in which he is destined to fail. If he does not think he can succeed,
he may not put forth the amount of effort that success would require. Simi-
larly, if a person believes that he is a success, he will not let one little failure
cause him to change his entire opinion of himself. Self-esteem, once it is cre-
ated, is very difficult to change. If a person dislikes who she is, yet someone
else tries to tell her that she is wonderful, she probably will not believe that
person. More likely, she will wonder what this person could possibly want
from her that he or she is willing to lie and be so nice to get it. On the other
hand, if the person feels positive about herself, a single instance of failure
will be written off as bad luck, poor effort, or a simple fluke. A negative self-
esteem cycle, once it gets started, is very difficult to change, and learning how
to break this cycle is the single greatest challenge to self-esteem therapists.
755
Psychology Basics
Understanding Negative Self-Esteem

Understanding self-esteem has considerable practical importance in daily
life. If it is believed that all successes come from external sources (luck or
someone’s pity), then good things coming from others can be seen as an at-
tempt to degrade the individual or offer a bribe. People feeling this way re-
late to others in a judgmental way and cause them to turn away. When others
turn away, the person takes it as a signal that he or she was correct about his
or her unworthiness, and the negative self-esteem level is perpetuated.
If this negative self-esteem cycle is to be broken, it is important to con-
vince the person of the critical point made by George Herbert Mead. Ac-
cording to Mead, self-esteem is a product of people’s interpretation of the
feedback that they receive from others. A person with low self-esteem often
misinterprets that feedback. If someone with low self-esteem is told, “You
look really nice today,” he or she is likely to misinterpret that to mean, “You
usually look terrible; what did you do different today?”
Ralph Turner has said that the self is not fixed and that the person with
low self-esteem must be convinced that he or she is not at the mercy of a self:
He or she can be, and is, the creator of a self. It helps to put the person into a
situation in which he or she can succeed with no possibility for the wrong at-
tributions to be made. If a person cannot read, this failure will generalize to
other situations and is likely to be considered a stable and global deficiency.
If this person is taught to read, however, even a person with low self-esteem
would find it difficult to argue that the success was situational. In this way, the
person begins to see that he or she can take control and that failures need
not be catastrophic for the other self-conceptions he or she might hold.
A person with negative self-esteem is extremely difficult to help. It takes
more than the providing of positive feedback to assist such a person. Imag-
ine a series of circles, one inside the other, each one getting smaller. Take
that smallest, innermost circle and assign it a negative value. This represents
an overall negative self-esteem. Then assign negative values to all the outer
circles as well. These represent how the person feels about his or her specific
attributes.
If positive messages are directed toward a person with negative values as-
signed to all these layers of self-esteem, they will not easily penetrate the neg-
ative layers; they will be much more likely to bounce off. Negative messages,
on the other hand, will easily enter the circles and will strengthen the
negativity. Penetration of all the negative layers can, however, sometimes be
achieved by a long-term direction of positive and loving messages toward
the person with low self-esteem. In effect, the innermost circle, that of
global self-esteem, will eventually be exposed. Self-esteem can then be im-
proved if enough positive, loving messages can be directed at the level of the
person’s global self-esteem. This is a difficult process, partly because as soon
as the person’s negative self-image comes into serious question, confusion
about his or her identity results; living in self-hate, although often painful, is
still more secure than suddenly living in doubt.
756
Self-Esteem
Once the negative signs have been replaced with positive ones, the new
self-esteem level will be as impervious to change as the negative one was.
Now, when the person enters a situation, he or she will have more realistic
expectations as to what he or she can and cannot do. The person has been
taught to make realistic attributions about success and failure. Most impor-
tant, the individual has been taught that one need not succeed at everything
to be a worthy person. William James suggested in 1892 that striving does as
much to alleviate self-esteem problems as actual success. Once the individ-
ual is convinced that setting a goal and striving, rather than not trying at all,
is all it takes to feel good about himself or herself, the person is truly on the
way to having high self-esteem.
Importance of Childhood and Adolescence

An interest in self-esteem developed along with interest in psychological
questions in general. Early psychologists such as Sigmund Freud, Carl Jung,
William James, and others all realized that an important part of what makes
individuals think and act the way they do is determined by the early experi-
ences that create their sense of self and self-esteem. A very important aspect
Image not available
Feedback from parents

plays a crucial role in
the development of a
child’s self-esteem.
(CLEO Photography)
757
Psychology Basics
of psychological inquiry has been asking how and why people perceive and
interpret the same event so differently. Self-esteem and self-concept play a
big role in these interpretations. Knowing an individual’s self-esteem level
helps one to predict how others will be perceived, what kind of other indi-
viduals will be chosen for interaction, and the kinds of attitudes and beliefs
the person may hold.
An understanding of childhood development and adolescence would be
impossible without an understanding of the forces that combine to create a
person’s sense of self-esteem. Adolescence has often been described as a
time of “storm and stress” because the teenager is trying to negotiate an
identity (create a sense of self and self-esteem that he or she would like to
have). Teenagers’ wishes and desires, however, are not the only things they
must consider. They are receiving pressure from parents, peers, and society
as a whole to be a certain kind of person and do certain kinds of things. Only
when self-esteem development is fully understood will it be known how to al-
leviate some of the trials and tribulations of adolescence and ensure that
teenagers develop a healthy and productive view of their worth.
Role in Contemporary Society

The role of self-esteem will probably be even greater as psychological in-
quiry moves ahead. Modern society continues to tell people that if they want
to succeed, they have to achieve more. Yet economic downturns and increas-
ing competition to enter colleges and careers make it difficult for young
people to live up to those expectations and feel good about who they are.
The large role that psychologists with experience in self-esteem enhance-
ment training will play in the future cannot be overemphasized. In order for
adults to lead healthy, productive, and satisfied lives, they must feel good
about who they are and where they are going. This requires an intimate un-
derstanding of the factors that combine to create people’s expectations for
success and the likelihood that they will be able to achieve that level of
success. Self-esteem development must be kept in mind in helping young
people create for themselves a realistic set of expectations for success and
an ability to make realistic attributions for why their successes and failures
occur.

Butler, Gillian. Overcoming Social Anxiety and Shyness: A Self-Help Guide Using
Cognitive-Behavioral Techniques. New York: New York University Press, 2001.
A practical guide to changing negative thought patterns in order to in-
crease self-esteem.
Coopersmith, Stanley. The Antecedents of Self-Esteem. Palo Alto, Calif.: Con-
sulting Psychologists Press, 1981. A well written and informative look at
the background factors that influence the development of self-esteem.
Includes statistics and figures but is fairly nontechnical, and the compre-
hensiveness of the book is well worth the effort.
758
Self-Esteem
Jones, Warren H., Jonathan M. Cheek, and Stephen R. Briggs. Shyness: Per-
spectives on Research and Treatment. New York: Plenum Press, 1986. Presents
a thorough view of the development of shyness and the impact it has on
social relationships. Many individuals with low self-esteem suffer from
shyness, and it is difficult to understand one without the other. The writ-
ing is technical; appropriate for a college audience.
Kernis, Michael. Efficacy, Angency, and Self-Esteem. New York: Plenum Press,
1995. A collection of papers that challenge existing notions of self-esteem
in modern therapy or offer suggestions for new areas of research.
Rosenberg, Morris. Society and the Adolescent Self-Image. Reprint. Collingdale,
Pa.: DIANE, 1999. Although written in the mid-1960’s, this is still one of
the best books available on self-esteem. Rosenberg’s influence remains
strong, and the self-esteem scale he included in this book is still widely
used to measure self-esteem. Appropriate for both college and high
school students.
Randall E. Osborne
See also: Affiliation and Friendship; Identity Crises; Self.
759
Sensation and Perception
Type of psychology: Sensation and perception
Fields of study: Auditory, chemical, cutaneous, and body senses; vision
The study of sensation and perception examines the relationship between input from
the world and the manner in which people react to it. Through the process of sensation,
the body receives various stimuli that are transformed into neural messages and trans-
mitted to the brain. Perception is the meaning and interpretation given to these mes-
sages.
Key concepts
• absolute threshold
• acuity
• attention
• sensory deprivation
• sensory receptors
Although the distinction between sensation and perception is not always

clear, psychologists attempt to distinguish between the two concepts. Sensa-
tion is generally viewed as the initial contact between organisms and their
physical environment. It focuses on the interaction between various forms
of sensory stimulation and how these sensations are registered by the sense
organs (nose, skin, eyes, ears, and tongue). The process by which an individ-
ual then interprets and organizes this information to produce conscious ex-
periences is known as perception.
The warmth of the sun, the distinctive sound of a jet airplane rumbling
down a runway, the smell of freshly baked bread, and the taste of an ice
cream sundae all have an impact on the body’s sensory receptors. The sig-
nals received are transmitted to the brain via the nervous system; there, in-
terpretation of the information is performed. The body’s sensory receptors
are capable of detecting very low levels of stimulation. Eugene Galanter’s
studies indicated that on a clear night, the human eye is capable of viewing a
candle at a distance of 30 miles (48 kilometers), while the ears can detect the
ticking of a watch 20 feet (6 meters) away in a quiet room. He also demon-
strated that the tongue can taste a teaspoon of sugar dissolved in 2 gallons
(about 7.5 liters) of water. People can feel a bee wing falling on the cheek
and can smell a single drop of perfume in a three-bedroom apartment.
Awareness of these faint stimuli demonstrates the absolute thresholds, de-
fined as the minimum amount of stimulus that can be detected 50 percent
of the time.
Signal Recognition
A person’s ability to detect a weak stimulus, often called a signal, depends
not only on the strength of the signal or stimulus but also on the person’s
760
The Sense of Touch
Skin surface
Merkel’s Free nerve

Epidermis disk endings
Meissner’s
corpuscle
Organ of Ruffini
Dermis
Pacinian
corpuscle
Hypodermis
The sensation of touch is produced by special receptors in the skin that respond to temperature
and pressure. (Hans & Cassidy, Inc.)
psychological state. For example, a child remaining at home alone for the
first time may be startled by an almost imperceptible noise. In a normal set-
ting, with his or her parents at home, the same noise or signal would proba-
bly go unnoticed. Scientists who study signal detection seek to explain why
people respond differently to a similar signal and why the same person’s re-
actions vary as circumstances change. Studies have shown that people’s reac-
tions to signals depend on many factors, including the time of day and the
type of signal.
Much controversy has arisen over the subject of subliminal signals—
signals that one’s body receives without one’s conscious awareness. It has
long been thought that these subliminal signals could influence a person’s
behaviors through persuasion. Many researchers believe that individuals do
sense subliminal sensations; however, it is highly unlikely that this informa-
tion will somehow change an individual’s behaviors. Researchers Anthony
Pratkanis and Anthony Greenwald suggest that in the area of advertising,
subliminal procedures offer little or nothing of value to the marketing prac-
titioner.
Adaptation and Selective Attention

An individual’s response to a stimulus may change over time. For example,
when a swimmer first enters the cold ocean, the initial response may be to
complain about the water’s frigidity; however, after a few minutes, the water
feels comfortable. This is an example of sensory adaptation—the body’s
ability to diminish sensitivity to stimuli that are unchanging. Sensory recep-
tors are initially alert to the coldness of the water, but prolonged exposure
761
Psychology Basics
reduces sensitivity. This is an important benefit to humans in that it allows

an individual not to be distracted by constant stimuli that are uninformative.
It would be very difficult to function daily if one’s body were constantly
aware of the fit of shoes and garments, the rumble of a heating system, or
constant street noises.
The reception of sensory information by the senses, and the transmission
of this information to the brain, is included under the term “sensation.” Of
equal importance is the process of perception: the way an individual selects
information, organizes it, and makes an interpretation. In this manner, one
achieves a grasp of one’s surroundings. People cannot absorb and under-
stand all the available sensory information received from the environment.
Thus, they must selectively attend to certain information and disregard
other material. Through the process of selective attention, people are able
to maximize information gained from the object of focus while at the same
time ignoring irrelevant material. To some degree, people are capable of
controlling the focus of their attention; in many instances, however, focus
can be shifted undesirably. For example, while one is watching a television
show, extraneous stimuli such as a car horn blaring may change one’s focus.
The fundamental focus of the study of perception is how people come to
comprehend the world around them through its objects and events. People
are constantly giving meaning to a host of stimuli being received from all
their senses. While research suggests that people prize visual stimuli above
other forms, information from all other senses must also be processed.
More difficult to understand is the concept of extrasensory perception
(ESP). More researchers are becoming interested in the possible existence
of extrasensory perception—perceptions that are not based on information
from the sensory receptors. Often included under the heading of ESP are
such questionable abilities as clairvoyance and telepathy. While psycholo-
gists generally remain skeptical as to the existence of ESP, some do not deny
that evidence may someday be available supporting its existence.
Five Laws of Grouping

Knowledge of the fields of sensation and perception assists people in under-
standing their environment. By understanding how and why people re-
spond to various stimuli, scientists have been able to identify important fac-
tors which have proved useful in such fields as advertising, industry, and
education.
Max Wertheimer discussed five laws of grouping that describe why cer-
tain elements seem to go together rather than remain independent. The
laws include the law of similarity, which states that similar objects tend to be
seen as a unit; the law of nearness, which indicates that objects near one an-
other tend to be seen as a unit; the law of closure, which states that when a
figure has a gap, the figure still tends to be seen as closed; the law of com-
mon fate, which states that when objects move in the same direction, they
tend to be seen as a unit; and the law of good continuation, which states that
762
objects organized in a straight line or a smooth curve tend to be seen as a

unit. These laws are illustrated in the figure on the following page.
Use in Advertising and Marketing

The laws of grouping are frequently used in the field of advertising. Adver-
tisers attempt to associate their products with various stimuli. For example,
David L. Loudon and Albert J. Della Bitta, after studying advertising dealing
with menthol cigarettes, noted that the advertisers often show mentholated
cigarettes in green, springlike settings to suggest freshness and taste. Simi-
larly, summertime soft-drink advertisements include refreshing outdoor
scenes depicting cool, fresh, clean running water, which is meant to be asso-
ciated with the beverage. Advertisements for rugged four-wheel-drive vehi-
cles use the laws of grouping by placing their vehicles in harsh, rugged cli-
mates. The viewer develops a perception of toughness and ruggedness.
The overall goal of advertisers is to provide consumers with appropriate
sensations that will cause them to perceive the products in a manner that the
advertisers desire. By structuring the stimuli that reach the senses, advertis-
ers can build a foundation for perceptions of products, making them seem
durable, sensuous, refreshing, or desirable. By using the results of numer-
ous research studies pertaining to perception, subtle yet effective manipula-
tion of the consumer is achieved.
Color Studies
Another area that has been researched extensively by industry deals with
color. If one were in a restaurant ordering dinner and received an orange
steak with purple French fries and a blue salad, the meal would be difficult
to consume. People’s individual perceptions of color are extremely impor-
tant. Variations from these expectations can be very difficult to overcome.
Researchers have found that people’s perceptions of color also influence
their beliefs about products. When reactions to laundry detergents were ex-
amined, detergent in a blue box was found to be too weak, while detergent
in a yellow box was thought to be too strong. Consumers believed, based on
coloration, that the ideal detergent came in a blue box with yellow accentua-
tion. Similarly, when individuals were asked to judge the capsule color of
drugs, findings suggested that orange capsules were frequently seen as stim-
ulants, white capsules as having an analgesic action, and lavender capsules
as having a hallucinogenic effect.
Studies have shown that various colors have proved more satisfactory
than others for industrial application. Red has been shown typically to be
perceived as a sign of danger and is used to warn individuals of hazardous
situations. Yellow is also a sign of warning. It is frequently used on highway
signs as a warning indicator because of its high degree of visibility in adverse
weather conditions. Instrument panels in both automobiles and airplanes
are frequently equipped with orange- and yellow-tipped instrument indica-
tors, because research has demonstrated that these colors are easily distin-
763
Psychology Basics
guished from the dark background of the gauges. Finally, industry has not
overlooked the fact that many colors have a calming and soothing effect on
people. Thus, soft pastels are often used in the workplace.
Use in Education
The field of education has also benefited from research in the areas of sensa-
tion and perception. Knowing how young children perceive educational
materials is important in developing ways to increase their skills and motiva-
tion. Textbook publishers have found that materials need to be visually at-
tractive to children in order to help them focus on activities. Graphics and il-
lustrations help the young learner to understand written materials. Size of
printed text is also important to accommodate the developmental level of
the student. For example, primers and primary-level reading series typically
have large print, to assist the student in focusing on the text. As the child’s
abilities to discriminate letters and numbers become more efficient with
age, the print size diminishes to that of the size of characters in adult books.
Similar techniques continue into high school and college; especially in in-
troductory courses, the design of texts use extensive amounts of color, along
with variation in page design. The reader’s eyes are attracted by numerous
stimuli to pictures, figures, definitions, and charts strategically placed on
each page. This technique allows the author to highlight and accent essen-
tial points of information.
Early Research
The study of sensation and perception began more than two thousand years
ago with the Greek philosophers and is one of the oldest fields in psychol-
ogy. There are numerous theories, hypotheses, and facts dealing with how
people obtain information about their world, what type of information they
obtain, and what they do with this information once it has been obtained.
None of this information has been sufficient to account for human percep-
tual experiences and perceptual behavior, so research in the area of sensa-
tion and perception continues.
The philosopher Thomas Reed made the original distinction between
sensations and perceptions. He proposed that the crucial difference be-
tween them is that perceptions always refer to external objects, whereas sen-
sations refer to the experiences within a person that are not linked to exter-
nal objects. Many psychologists of the nineteenth century proposed that
sensations are elementary building blocks of perceptions. According to
their ideas, perceptions arise from the addition of numerous sensations.
The sum of these sensations thus creates a perception. Other psychologists
believed that making a distinction between sensations and perceptions was
not useful.
The first psychologists saw the importance of perception when they real-
ized that information from the senses was necessary in order to learn, think,
and memorize. Thus, research pertaining to the senses was a central re-
764
search component of all the psychological laboratories established in Eu-

rope and the United States during the late nineteenth and early twentieth
centuries.
Applications in Modern Society

By studying perceptions, researchers can identify potential environmental
hazards that threaten the senses. Studying perception has also enabled peo-
ple to develop devices that ensure optimal performance of the senses. For
example, on a daily basis, one’s senses rely on such manufactured objects as
telephones, clocks, televisions, and computers. To be effective, these devices
must be tailored to the human sensory systems.
The study of sensations and perceptions has also made it possible to build
and develop prosthetic devices to aid individuals with impaired sensory
function. For example, hearing aids amplify sound for hard-of-hearing indi-
viduals; however, when all sounds are amplified to the same degree, it is of-
ten difficult for people to discriminate between sounds. From the work of
Richard Gregory, a British psychologist, an instrument was developed that
would amplify only speech sounds, thus allowing a person to attend more
adequately to conversations and tune out background noise.
Finally, understanding perception is important for comprehending and
appreciating the perceptual experience called art. When knowledge of per-
ception is combined with the process of perceiving artistic works, this under-
standing adds an additional dimension to one’s ability to view a work of art.

Goldstein, E. Bruce. Sensation and Perception. 6th ed. Pacific Grove, Calif.:
Wadsworth-Thomson Learning, 2002. Excellent overview of the field of
sensation and perception study. Chapters focus on subjects dealing with
vision, hearing, and touch as well as perceived speech and the chemical
senses.
Gregory, R. L. Eye and Brain: The Psychology of Seeing. 5th ed. New York: Ox-
ford University Press, 1998. A broad book on vision for the general
reader. Beneficial for students in the areas of psychology, biology, and
physiology. Includes many illustrations that help to explain complex mat-
ters in an understandable fashion.
Matlin, M. W. Sensation and Perception. 4th ed. Boston: Allyn & Bacon, 1997.
An introductory text covering all general areas of sensation and percep-
tion. Themes carried throughout the text are intended to provide addi-
tional structure for the material; these themes reflect the author’s eclec-
tic, theoretical orientation.
Schiff, William. Perception: An Applied Approach. Boston: Houghton Mifflin,
1980. Schiff’s book is concerned with how people can, and do, use their
senses to comprehend their world and their relation to it. Interesting
chapters cover such topics as social-event perception, personal percep-
tion, and individual differences in perception.
765
Psychology Basics
Sekuler, Robert, and Robert R. Blake. Perception. 4th ed. Boston: McGraw-
Hill, 2002. Sekuler and Blake attempt to explain seeing, hearing, smell-
ing, and tasting to students of perception. Extensive use of illustrations al-
lows the reader to understand materials more fully. A series of short illus-
trations is also used to depict additional concepts.
Eugene R. Johnson
See also: Nervous System; Senses.
766
Senses
Type of psychology: Sensation and perception
Fields of study: Auditory, chemical, cutaneous, and body senses; vision
Humans process information using at least five sensory modalities: sight, sound,
taste, smell, and the body senses, which include touch, temperature, balance, and
pain. Because people’s sensation and perception of external stimuli define their world,
knowledge of these processes is relevant to every aspect of daily life.
Key concepts
• cutaneous
• perception
• proximate
• receptor
• sensation
• ultimate studies
• Umwelt
Humans have five sense organs: the eyes, ears, taste buds, nasal mucosa, and
skin. Each sense organ is specialized to intercept a particular kind of envi-
ronmental energy and then to convert that energy into a message that the
brain can interpret. Together, these two processes are called sensation.
The first step of sensation, the interception of external energy, is done by
the part of the sense organ that is in direct contact with the environment.
Each sense organ has a specialized shape and structure designed to inter-
cept a particular form of energy. The second step, conversion of the cap-
tured energy into signals the brain can understand, is done by cells inside
the sense organ called receptors. Receptors are structures to which physi-
cists and engineers refer as transducers: They convert one form of energy
into another. Artificial transducers are common. Hydroelectric plants, for
example, intercept flowing water and convert it to electricity; then appli-
ances convert the electricity into heat, moving parts, sound, or light displays.
Receptors are biological transducers which convert environmental energy
intercepted by the sense organ into neural signals. These signals are then
sent to the brain, where they are interpreted through a process called per-
ception.
The eye, the best understood of all the sense organs, consists of a lens
which focuses light (a kind of electromagnetic energy) through a small hole
(the pupil) onto a sheet of cells (the retina). The retina contains the eye’s
receptor cells: the rods, which are sensitive to all wavelengths of light in the
visible spectrum, and three kinds of cones, which are sensitive to those wave-
lengths that the brain perceives as blue, green, and yellow.
The ear funnels air pressure waves onto the tympanic membrane (more
commonly known as the eardrum), where vibrations are transmitted to the
inner ear. In the inner ear, receptors called hair cells are stimulated by dif-
767
Psychology Basics
ferent frequency vibrations; they then send signals to the brain, which inter-
prets them as different pitches and harmonics.
Taste buds are small bumps on the tongue and parts of the throat which
are continuously bathed in liquid. Receptors in the taste buds intercept any
chemicals which have been dissolved in the liquid. Molecules of different
shapes trigger messages from different receptors. Humans have several
kinds of taste receptors which send signals the brain interprets as bitter, at
least two kinds of receptors which send signals interpreted as sweet, and one
kind of receptor each that sends messages interpreted as salty and sour.
The nasal mucosa, the sense organ for smell, is a layer of cells lining parts
of the nasal passageways and throat; it intercepts chemicals directly from in-
haled air. Apparently, cells in the nasal mucosa can produce receptor cells
(called olfactory receptors) throughout life. This way, people can develop
the capacity to smell “new” chemicals which they could not smell before.
New olfactory receptors seem to be created in response to exposure to novel
chemicals, analogous to the production of antibodies when the immune sys-
tem is exposed to foreign material. Because of this ability to create new olfac-
tory receptors, it is not possible to list and categorize all the different types
of smells.
The skin is the largest sense organ in the human body; its sense, touch, ac-
tually consists of several different senses, collectively referred to as the cuta-
neous senses. Receptors called mechanoreceptors are triggered by mechan-
Anatomy of the Human Eye
Retina
Iris
Choroid layer
Cornea
Sclera
Pupil Optic
Lens
nerve
Canal of
Schlemm Fovea
Central retinal
artery and vein
Hyaloid canal
Ciliary body
Vitreous body
768
Senses
Anatomy of the Inner Ear
Signals travel to brain’s

auditory center
Combined input
from both ears
Pinna
Semicircular
Cochlea canals
Incus
Auditory
nerve Malleus
Brain stem
Eustachian
Inner Middle Outer
tube Stapes Eardrum ear ear ear
ical movements of the skin and send signals that the brain interprets as
vibration, light or deep pressure, and stretching. Thermoreceptors inter-
cept heat passing in or out of the body through the skin; their signals are in-
terpreted by the brain as warmth and cold, respectively. Receptors which are
triggered when skin cells are damaged are called nociceptors; their signals
to the brain are interpreted as pain.
Animal Senses
Some animals have sense organs that humans do not and can thereby sense
and perceive stimuli that humans cannot. Many birds and probably a variety
of marine creatures can detect variations in the earth’s magnetic field; some
fish and invertebrates can detect electrical fields. Other animals have sense
organs similar to, but more sensitive than, those of humans; they can inter-
cept a broader range of energy or detect it at lower levels. Insects can see ul-
traviolet light, while pit vipers can sense infrared. Elephants can hear
infrasound, and mice can hear ultrasound. The olfactory sensitivity of most
animals far surpasses that of humans. Because of differences in sensory ap-
paratus, each animal experiences a different sensory reality; this is termed
each animal’s Umwelt.
Bioengineering Uses
One application of the knowledge of sensory modalities is in the field of bio-
engineering. Knowing that sense organs are biological transducers allows
the possibility of replacing damaged or nonfunctional sense organs with ar-
769
Psychology Basics
tificial transducers, the same way artificial limbs replace missing ones. To-
day’s most advanced artificial limbs can be connected directly to nerves that
send information from the motor (movement) areas of the brain; thus, a
person can direct movement of the artificial limb with neural messages via
thoughts. Similarly, bioengineers are researching the use of small sensors
that can be set up to send electrical signals directly to a person’s sensory
nerves or the sensory cortex of the brain. Researchers have already devel-
oped the first version of a hearing aid to help people who have nerve deaf-
ness in the inner ear but whose auditory processing centers in the brain are
still intact.
Human-Factors Engineering
Another field which applies the findings of experimental sensory psycholo-
gists is called human-factors engineering. People who design complicated
instrument panels (for example, in jet cockpits or nuclear reactors) must
have an understanding of what kinds of stimuli will elicit attention, what will
be irritating, and what will fade unnoticed into the background. Using
knowledge of how sound is transmitted and how the human brain perceives
sound, human-factors engineers have designed police and ambulance si-
rens which make one type of sound while the vehicle is moving quickly (the
air-raid-type wailing sound) and another while the vehicle is moving slowly,
as through a crowded intersection (alternating pulses of different pitches).
These two types of sounds maximize the likelihood that the siren will be no-
ticed in the different environmental settings. Research by human-factors en-
gineers has also prompted many communities to change the color of fire en-
gines from red to yellow; because red is difficult to see in twilight and
darkness, and bright yellow can be seen well at all times of day, yellow makes
a better warning color.
Research by human-factors engineers and environmental psychologists is
also used to improve commercial products and other aspects of day-to-day
living, answering questions such as, How loud should the music be in a den-
tist’s waiting office? What color packaging will attract the most buyers to a
product? How much salt does a potato chip need? How much light is neces-
sary to maximize production in a factory? Will noise in a domed stadium
cause damage to fans? Research on sensation and perception is applied in
almost every setting imaginable.
Influencing Animal Behavior

Knowledge of sensation and perception can also be used to influence the
behavior of other animals. Because people visit zoos during the daytime,
nocturnal animals are often housed in areas bathed in only red light. Most
nocturnal animals are colorblind, and as red light by itself is so difficult to
see, the animals are tricked into perceiving that it is nighttime and become
active for the viewers. Knowing that vultures have an exceptionally good
sense of smell and that they are attracted to the scent of rotting meat allowed
770
Senses
scientists to find an invisible but dangerous leak in a long, geographically

isolated pipeline; after adding the aroma of rotting meat into the pipeline
fuel, they simply waited to see where the vultures started circling—and knew
where they would find the leak.
Learning Theory
The knowledge that sensation and perception differ across species has also
influenced the biggest and perhaps most important field in all of psychol-
ogy: learning theory. The so-called laws of learning were derived from ob-
servations of animals during the acquisition of associations between two pre-
viously unassociated stimuli, between a stimulus and a response, or between
a behavior and a consequent change in the environment. These laws were
originally thought to generalize equally with regard to all species and all
stimuli. This belief, along with the prevailing Zeitgeist which held that learn-
ing was the basis of all behavior, led to the assumption that studies of any ani-
mal could serve as a sufficient model for discovering the principles guiding
human learning and behavior. It is now known that such is not the case.
Although laws of learning do generalize nicely in the acquisition of asso-
ciations between biologically neutral stimuli, each animal’s sensory appara-
tus is designed specifically to sense those stimuli that are relevant for its life-
style. How it perceives those stimuli will also be related to its lifestyle.
Therefore, the meaning of a particular stimulus may be different for differ-
ent species, so results from studies on one animal cannot be generalized to
another; neither can results from studies using one stimulus or stimulus mo-
dality be generalized to another.
Finally, it is important to note that scientific inquiry itself is dependent
upon human understanding of the human senses. Scientific method is
based on the philosophy of empiricism, which states that knowledge must
be obtained by direct experience using the physical senses (or extensions of
them). In short, all scientific data are collected through the physical senses;
thus, the entirety of scientific knowledge is ultimately based upon, and lim-
ited by, human understanding of, and the limitations of, the human senses.
Evolution of Study
In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Wilhelm Wundt, often
considered the founder of scientific psychology, aspired to study the most
fundamental units (or structures) of the mind. Wundt and other European
psychologists (called structuralists) focused much of their attention on the
description of mental responses to external stimuli—in other words, on sen-
sation and perception. Around the same time, educational philosopher Wil-
liam James developed functionalism in the United States. Functionalists
avoided questions about what was happening in the mind and brain and fo-
cused on questions about why people respond the way they do to different
stimuli.
Today, both the structuralist and the functionalist methodologies have
771
Psychology Basics
been replaced, but the fundamental questions they addressed remain. Psy-
chologists who study sensation and perception still conduct research into
how sense organs and the brain work together to produce perceptions
(proximate studies) and why people and other animals have their own par-
ticular Umwelts (ultimate studies). Results from proximate and ultimate
studies typically lead to different kinds of insights about the human condi-
tion. Proximate studies lead to solutions for real-world problems, while stud-
ies of ultimate functions provide enlightenment about the evolution of hu-
man nature and humans’ place in the world; they help identify what stimuli
were important throughout human evolutionary history.
For example, the human ear is fine-tuned so that its greatest sensitivity is
in the frequency range that matches sounds produced by the human voice.
Clearly, this reflects the importance of communication—and, in turn, coop-
eration—throughout human evolution. More specifically, hearing sensitiv-
ity peaks nearer to the frequencies produced by female voices than male
voices. This suggests that human language capacity may have evolved out of
mother-infant interactions rather than from the need for communication in
some other activity, such as hunting.
Stimuli Adaptations for Survival

Knowing what kinds and intensities of stimuli the human sense organs can
detect suggests what stimuli have been important for human survival; fur-
thermore, the way the brain perceives those stimuli says something about
their role. Most stimuli that are perceived positively are, in fact, good for
people; food tastes and smells “good” because without some kind of psycho-
logical inducement to eat, people would not survive. Stimuli that are per-
ceived negatively are those that people need to avoid; the fact that rotting
foods smell “bad” is the brain’s way of keeping one from eating something
that might make one sick. To give an example from another sensory modal-
ity, most adults find the sound of a crying baby bothersome; in order to stop
the sound, they address the needs of the infant. Cooing and laughing are re-
wards that reinforce good parenting.

Ackerman, Diane. A Natural History of the Senses. Reprint. New York: Vintage,
1991. A best-selling rumination on the senses, written by a poet. A re-
markable mixture of science and art.
Brown, Evan L., and Kenneth Deffenbacher. Perception and the Senses. New
York: Oxford University Press, 1979. This text differs from most text-
books on sensation in that it integrates ethological, cross-species informa-
tion with the traditional coverage of human sensory physiology and
psychophysics. Although technical, the book is user-friendly. Each chap-
ter has its own outline, glossary, and set of suggested readings.
Buddenbrock, Wolfgang von. The Senses. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan
Press, 1958. Easy-to-read descriptions of different Umwelts, with many fas-
772
Senses
cinating examples. Because the focus is almost entirely on ultimate expla-

nations rather than sensory mechanisms, new technologies have not
made this book outdated.
Gescheider, George. Psychophysics: The Fundamentals. 3d ed. Mahwah, N.J.:
Lawrence Erlbaum, 1997. A thorough introduction to psychophysics, fo-
cusing on measurement techniques and the theory of signal detection.
Hall, Edward Twitchell. The Hidden Dimension. 1969. Reprint. Garden City,
N.Y.: Anchor Books, 1990. Written by an anthropologist, this book on
cross-cultural differences in use of space includes three chapters on the
perception of space as influenced by each sensory modality. These pro-
vide good examples of using human factors and environmental psychol-
ogy to address real-world problems, particularly problems in architecture
and interpersonal communication.
Scharf, Bertram, ed. Experimental Sensory Psychology. Glenview, Ill.: Scott,
Foresman, 1975. Includes an introduction, a chapter on psychophysics,
a chapter on each sensory modality, and a postscript on the direction
of modern studies. Provides excellent detailed descriptions of sensory
mechanisms and psychophysical laws. Includes many diagrams, formulas,
and technical terms but is still very readable.
Seligman, Martin E. P. “On the Generality of the Laws of Learning.” Psycho-
logical Review 77, no. 5 (1970): 406-418. The article that triggered the on-
going debate over the generalizability of the results of learning studies
across different species and different types of stimuli. Although written
for a professional audience, the paper describes the basic assumptions of
learning studies, so previous familiarity with learning theory is not neces-
sary.
Stone, Herbert, and Joel L. Sidel. Sensory Evaluation Practices. 2d ed. Or-
lando, Fla.: Academic Press, 1997. Although written for professionals,
this text can provide the layperson with insight into the world of product
research. Mostly describes techniques for designing studies of the sen-
sory evaluation of food products, but most of the principles are generaliz-
able to other products and industries.
Linda Mealey
See also: Sensation and Perception.
773
Sexual Variants and Paraphilias
Field of study: Sexual disorders
Sexual variations, or paraphilias, are unusual sexual activities in that they deviate
from what is considered normal at a particular time in a particular society. Para-
philias include behaviors such as exhibitionism, voyeurism, and sadomasochism. It is
when they become the prime means of gratification, displacing direct sexual contact
with a consenting adult partner, that paraphilias are technically present.
Key concepts
• exhibitionism
• fetishism
• frotteurism
• sexual masochism
• sexual sadism
• transvestic fetishism
• voyeurism
• zoophilia
Paraphilias are sexual behaviors that are considered a problem for the per-
son who performs them or a problem for society because they differ from
the society’s norms. Psychologist John Money, who has studied sexual atti-
tudes and behaviors extensively, claims to have identified about forty such
behaviors.
Types of Paraphilias
exhibitionism. Exhibitionism is commonly called indecent exposure.
The term refers to behavior in which an individual, usually a male, experi-
ences recurrent, intense sexually arousing fantasies or urges about exposing
his genitals to an involuntary observer, who is usually a female. A disorder is
present if the individual acts on these urges or if the thoughts cause marked
distress. The key point in exhibitionistic behavior is that it involves observers
who are unwilling. After exposing himself, the exhibitionist often mastur-
bates while fantasizing about the observer’s reaction. Exhibitionists tend to
be most aroused by shock and typically flee if the observer responds by
laughing or attempts to approach the exhibitionist. Most people who ex-
hibit themselves are males in their twenties or thirties. They tend to be shy,
unassertive people who feel inadequate and are afraid of being rejected by
another person. People who make obscene telephone calls have similar
characteristics to the people who engage in exhibitionism. Typically, they
are sexually aroused when their victims react in a shocked manner. Many
masturbate during or immediately after placing an obscene call.
voyeurism. Voyeurism is the derivation of sexual pleasure through the
repetitive seeking or intrusional fantasies of situations that involve looking,
774
or “peeping,” at unsuspecting people who are naked, undressing, or en-

gaged in sexual intercourse. Most individuals who act on these urges mastur-
bate during the voyeuristic activity or immediately afterward in response to
what they have seen. Further sexual contact with the unsuspecting stranger
is rarely sought. Like exhibitionists, voyeurs are usually not physically dan-
gerous. Most voyeurs are not attracted to nude beaches or other places
where it is acceptable to look, because they are most aroused when the risk
of being discovered is high. Voyeurs tend to be men in their twenties with
strong feelings of inadequacy.
sadomasochism. Sadomasochistic behavior encompasses both sadism
and masochism; it is often abbreviated “SM.” The term “sadism” is derived
from name of the Marquis de Sade (1740-1814), a French writer and army
officer who was horribly cruel to people for his own erotic purposes. Sexual
sadism involves acts in which the psychological or physical suffering of the
victim, including his or her humiliation, is deemed sexually exciting. In mas-
ochism, sexual excitement is produced in a person by his or her own suffer-
ing; preferred means of achieving gratification include verbal humiliation
and being bound or whipped. The dynamics of the two behaviors are simi-
lar. Sadomasochistic behaviors have the potential to be physically danger-
ous, but most people involved in these behaviors participate in mild or sym-
bolic acts with a partner they can trust. Most people who engage in SM
activities are motivated by a desire for dominance or submission rather than
pain. Interestingly, many nonhuman animals participate in pain-inflicting
behavior before coitus. Some researchers think that the activity heightens
the biological components of sexual arousal, such as blood pressure and
muscle tension. It has been suggested that any resistance between partners
enhances sex, and SM is a more extreme version of this behavior. It is also
thought that SM offers people the temporary opportunity to take on roles
that are the opposite of the controlled, restrictive roles they play in everyday
life. Both sadism and masochism are considered disorders when the fanta-
sies, sexual urges, or behaviors cause significant distress or impairment in
social, occupational, or other important areas.
fetishism. Fetishism is a type of behavior in which a person becomes sex-
ually aroused by focusing on an inanimate object or part of the human body.
Many people are aroused by looking at undergarments, legs, or breasts, and
it is often difficult to distinguish between normal activities and fetishistic
ones. It is when a person becomes focused on the objects or body parts,
called fetishes, to the point of causing significant distress or impairment
that a disorder is present. Fetishists are usually males. Common fetish ob-
jects include women’s lingerie, high-heeled shoes, boots, stockings, leather,
silk, and rubber goods. Common body parts involved in fetishism are hair,
buttocks, breasts, and feet.
pedophilia. The term “pedophilia” is from the Greek language and
means “love of children.” It is characterized by a preference for sexual activ-
ity with prepubescent children and is engaged in primarily by men. The ac-
775
Psychology Basics
tivity varies in intensity and ranges from stroking the child’s hair to holding
the child while secretly masturbating, manipulating the child’s genitals, en-
couraging the child to manipulate his or her own genitals, or, sometimes,
engaging in sexual intercourse. Generally, the pedophile, or sexual abuser
of children, is related to, or an acquaintance of, the child, rather than a
stranger. Studies of imprisoned pedophiles have found that the men typi-
cally had poor relationships with their parents, drink heavily, show poor sex-
ual adjustment, and were themselves sexually abused as children. Pedo-
philes tend to be older than people convicted of other sex offenses. The
average age at first conviction is thirty-five. For a diagnosis of pedophilia, the
abuser should be at least sixteen years old and at least five years older than
the child or children who are abused.
transvestic fetishism. Transvestic fetishism involves dressing in cloth-
ing of the opposite sex to obtain sexual excitement. In the majority of cases,
it is men who are attracted to transvestism. Several studies show that cross-
dressing occurs primarily among married heterosexuals. The man usually
achieves sexual satisfaction simply by putting on the clothing, but some-
times masturbation and intercourse are engaged in while the clothing is be-
ing worn. A disorder is diagnosed if the fantasies, sexual urges, or behaviors
cause clinically significant distress or impairment. In some cases, gender
dysphoria, persistent discomfort with gender role or identity, is also present.
frotteurism. Frotteurism encompasses fairly common fantasies, sexual
urges, or behaviors of a person, usually a male, obtaining sexual pleasure by
pressing or rubbing against a fully clothed female in a crowded public place.
Often it involves the clothed penis rubbing against the woman’s buttocks or
legs and and thus appear accidental.
zoophilia and necrophilia. Zoophilia involves sexual contact between
humans and animals as the repeatedly preferred method of achieving sex-
ual excitement. In this disorder, the animal is preferred despite other avail-
able sexual outlets. Necrophilia is a rare dysfunction in which a person ob-
tains sexual gratification by looking at or having intercourse with a corpse.
Diagnosis and Therapy

A problem in the definition and diagnosis of sexual variations is that it is dif-
ficult to draw the line between normal and abnormal behavior. Patterns of
sexual behavior differ widely across history and within different cultures
and communities. It is impossible to lay down the rules of normality; how-
ever, attempts are made in order to understand behavior that differs from
the majority and in order to help people who find their own atypical behav-
ior to be problematic or to be problematic in the eyes of the law.
Unlike most therapeutic techniques in use by psychologists, many of the
treatments for paraphilias are painful, and the degree of their effectiveness
is questionable. Supposedly, the methods are not aimed at punishing the in-
dividual, but perhaps society’s lack of tolerance toward sexual deviations can
be seen in the nature of the available treatments. In general, all attempts to
776
treat the paraphilias have been hindered by the lack of information avail-
able about them and their causes.
Traditional counseling and psychotherapy alone have not been very ef-
fective in modifying the behavior of paraphiliacs, and it is unclear why the
clients are resistant to treatment. Some researchers believe that the behav-
ior might be important for the mental stability of paraphiliacs; if they did
not have the paraphilia, they would experience mental deterioration. An-
other idea is that, although people are punished by society for being sexu-
ally deviant, they are also rewarded for it. For the paraphilias that put the
person at risk for arrest, the danger of arrest often becomes as arousing and
rewarding as the sexual activity itself. Difficulties in treating paraphiliacs
may also be related to the emotionally impoverished environments that
many of them experienced throughout childhood and adolescence. Con-
victed sex offenders report more physical and sexual abuse as children than
do the people convicted of nonsexual crimes. It is difficult to undo the years
of learning involved.
Surgical castration for therapeutic purposes involves removal of the testi-
cles. Surgical castration for sexual offenders in North America is very un-
common, but the procedure is sometimes used in northern European coun-
tries. The reason castration is used as a treatment for sex offenders is the
inaccurate belief that testosterone, is necessary for sexual behavior. The
hormone testosterone is produced by the testicles. Unfortunately, reducing
the amount of testosterone in the blood system does not always change sex-
ual behavior. Furthermore, contrary to the myth that a sex offender has an
abnormally high sex drive, many sex offenders have a low sex drive or are
sexually dysfunctional.
In the same vein as surgical castration, other treatments use the adminis-
tration of chemicals to decrease desire in sex offenders without the removal
of genitalia. Estrogens have been fairly effective in reducing the sex drive,
but they sometimes make the male appear feminine by increasing breast size
and simulating other female characteristics. There are also drugs that block
the action of testosterone and other androgens but do not feminize the
body; these drugs are called antiandrogens. Used together with counseling,
antiandrogens do benefit some sex offenders, especially those who are
highly motivated to overcome the problem. More research on the effects of
chemicals on sexual behavior is needed; the extent of the possible side ef-
fects, for example, needs further study.
Aversion therapy is another technique that has been used to eliminate in-
appropriate sexual arousal. In aversion therapy, the behavior that is to be de-
creased or eliminated is paired with an aversive, or unpleasant, experience.
Most approaches use pictures of the object or situation that is problematic.
The pictures are then paired with something extremely unpleasant, such as
an electric shock or a putrid smell, thereby reducing arousal to the problem-
atic object or situation in the future. Aversion therapy has been found to be
fairly effective but is under ethical questioning because of its drastic nature.
777
Psychology Basics
For example, chemical aversion therapy involves the administration of a

nausea-inducing drug. Electrical aversion therapy involves the use of elec-
tric shock. An example of the use of electric shock would be to show a
pedophile pictures of young children whom he finds sexually arousing and
to give an electric shock immediately after showing the pictures, in an at-
tempt to reverse the pedophile’s tendency to be sexually aroused by chil-
dren.
Other techniques have been developed to help patients learn more so-
cially approved patterns of sexual interaction skills. In general, there has not
been a rigorous testing of any of the techniques mentioned. Furthermore,
most therapy is conducted while the offenders are imprisoned, providing a
less than ideal setting.
Disturbances of Courtship Behavior

Beliefs regularly change with respect to what sexual activities are considered
normal, so most therapists prefer to avoid terms such as “perversion,” in-
stead using “paraphilia.” Basically, “paraphilia” means “love of the unusual.”
Aspects of paraphilias are commonly found within the scope of normal be-
havior; it is when they become the prime means of gratification, replacing
direct sexual contact with a consenting adult partner, that paraphilias are
technically said to exist. People who show atypical sexual patterns might also
have emotional problems, but it is thought that most people who participate
in paraphilias also participate in normal sexual behavior with adult part-
ners, without complete reliance on paraphilic behaviors to produce sexual
excitement. Many people who are arrested for paraphilic behaviors do not
resort to the paraphilia because they lack a socially acceptable sex partner.
Instead, they have an unusual opportunity, a desire to experiment, or per-
haps an underlying psychological problem.
According to the approach of Kurt Freund and his colleagues, some
paraphilias are better understood as disturbances in the sequence of court-
ship behaviors. Freund has described courtship as a sequence of four steps:
location and appraisal of a potential partner; interaction that does not in-
volve touch; interaction that does involve touch; and genital contact. Most
people engage in behavior that is appropriate for each of these steps, but
some do not. The ones who do not can be seen as having exaggerations or
distortions in one or more of the steps. For example, Freund says that voy-
eurism is a disorder in the first step of courtship. The voyeur does not use an
acceptable means to locate a potential partner. An exhibitionist and an ob-
scene phone caller would have a problem with the second step: They have
interaction with people that occurs before the stage of touch, but the talking
and showing of exhibitionistic behaviors are not the normal courtship pro-
cedures. Frotteurism would be a disruption at the third step, because there
is physical touching that is inappropriate. Finally, rape would be a deviation
from the appropriate fourth step.
As a result of social and legal restrictions, reliable data on the frequency
778
of paraphilic behaviors are limited. Most information about paraphilias

comes from people who have been arrested or are in therapy. Because the
majority of people who participate in paraphilias do not fall into these two
categories, it is not possible to talk about the majority of paraphiliacs in the
real world. It is known, however, that males are much more likely to engage
in paraphilias than are females.

Allgeier, E. R., and A. R. Allgeier. “Atypical Sexual Activity.” In Sexual Interac-
tions. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1998. A highly readable description of
sexual variations. Contains photographs, charts, and tables which help
make the material understandable. Provides a multitude of references.
An excellent, thorough textbook.
Laws, D. Richard, and William O’Donohue, eds. Sexual Deviance. New York:
Guilford Press, 1997. Twenty-five essays providing a complete reference
on paraphilias such as exhibitionism, fetishism, masochism, voyeurism,
and transvestic fetishism.
Rosen, Michael A. Sexual Magic: The S/M Photographs. Reprint. San Fran-
cisco: Shaynew Press, 1992. Contains essays written by people who engage
in sadomasochistic activities. Includes photographs. In general, provides
a personal, honest look into the lives of real people, using a case-study ap-
proach.
Stoller, Robert J. “Sexual Deviations.” In Human Sexuality in Four Perspectives,
edited by Frank A. Beach and Milton Diamond. Baltimore: Johns Hop-
kins University Press, 1977. Provides a review of several common atypical
sexual behaviors, along with several case studies. Concise and readable.
Part of an interesting, well-rounded book on sexuality in general.
Weinberg, Thomas S., and G. W. Levi Kamel, eds. S and M: Studies in Sado-
masochism. Rev. ed. Buffalo, N.Y.: Prometheus Books, 1995. Composed of
eighteen articles that provide thought-provoking information on a vari-
ety of issues relating to sadism and masochism.
Deborah R. McDonald
See also: Abnormality: Psychological Models; Adolescence: Sexuality; Ho-

mosexuality.
779
Sleep
Field of study: Sleep
The study of sleep stages and functions involves descriptions of the electrophysio-
logical, cognitive, motor, and behavioral components of various sleep stages as well as
the potential functions served by each. The sleep-wake cycle is one of several human cir-
cadian rhythms that regulate human attention, alertness, and performance.
Key concepts
• circadian rhythms
• desynchronized electroencephalogram (EEG)
• hypnagogic imagery
• myoclonia
• nonrapid eye movement (NREM) sleep
• paradoxical sleep
• rapid eye movement (REM) sleep
• synchronized electroencephalogram (EEG)
Sleep, one of the most mysterious of human circadian rhythms (biological

cycles that fluctuate on a daily basis), can be characterized as a naturally in-
duced alteration in consciousness. Although the sleeper may appear to be
unconscious, many complex cognitive, physiological, and behavioral pro-
cesses occur during sleep. For example, parents may sleep through a nearby
police siren yet easily awaken to the sound of their crying infant.
Efforts to understand sleep have focused on behavioral and electrical
changes that occur each night. During every moment of a person’s life, the
brain, eyes, and muscles are generating electrical potentials that can be re-
corded by a polygraph. In polygraph use, minute electrical signals are con-
veyed through tiny disk electrodes attached to the scalp and face, which are
recorded by the instrument as wave patterns that can be described in terms
of frequency, amplitude, and synchronization. Frequency is measured by
the number of cycles that occur per second (cps), amplitude by the distance
between the peaks and troughs of waves, and synchronization by the regular,
repetitive nature of the waves.
Measuring Stages of Sleep

Use of the polygraph has resulted in the identification of four stages of
nonrapid eye movement (NREM) sleep, as well as a special stage referred to
as rapid eye movement (REM) sleep. Each stage is described in terms of
electrical changes in brain-wave patterns, speed and pattern of eye move-
ments, and muscular activity in the body. Brain-wave activity is measured by
the electroencephalogram (EEG), eye movement patterns by the electro-
oculogram (EOG), and muscle activity by the electromyogram (EMG).
Three EEG patterns can be described for NREM sleep. First, as a sleeper
780
Sleep
progresses from stages one through four, the waves increase in amplitude or
voltage from approximately 50 to 100 microvolts in stage one to about 100 to
200 microvolts in stage four. Second, the frequency of the waves decreases
gradually from 4 to 8 cps in stages one and two to 1 to 4 cps in stages three
and four. Last, the waves become progressively more synchronized from
stages one to four, so that by stage four, the waves assume a slow, regular pat-
tern sometimes called S sleep, for slow-wave sleep or synchronized sleep.
Each of these patterns is reflected in the type of brain-wave activity present,
with stages one and two consisting predominantly of theta waves and stages
three and four of delta waves.
In addition to the changes in brain electrical activity, the EMG records a
gradual diminution of muscular activity as the sleeper progresses through
each stage of NREM sleep. By the onset of stage four, the EMG is relatively
flat, revealing a deep state of muscular relaxation. In fact, virtually all physio-
logical activity is at its lowest during stage four, including respiration, heart
rate, blood pressure, digestion, and so on. In this sense, stage four is consid-
ered to be the deepest stage of sleep.
Cognitive Activity Cycles During Sleep

As stated previously, the sleeper is not in an unconscious state but is in a dif-
ferent level of consciousness. Cognitive activity is present in all stages of
NREM sleep. Hypnagogic imagery, consisting of dreamlike images some-
times indistinguishable from REM dreams, is present in stage one. Subjects
are easily awakened during this sleep stage, and regressions to a waking state
are quite common. Often, these regressions occur because of myoclonias,
which are brief jerking movements of the muscles. Because stage one is
sometimes viewed as a transitional state between sleeping and waking, it
should not be too surprising that sleep talking occurs primarily in this stage.
Stage one sleep lasts for approximately fifteen minutes.
The Sleep Cycle

REM Sleep
Awake
Depth of sleep (EEG)
4
3
2
1
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Hours
Over an eight-hour sleep period, the depth of sleep fluctuates and is punctuated by periods of
rapid-eye movement (REM). (Hans & Cassidy, Inc.)
781
Psychology Basics
The sleeper is somewhat more difficult to arouse during stage two, and
the cognitive activity present is more fragmentary than in stage one. If the
subject recalls any mental activity, it is rather sparse. Stage two also lasts for
approximately fifteen minutes.
It was once assumed that dreams only occur in REM sleep, but it is now
common knowledge that dreams of a different variety occur in stages three
and four. These dreams are not of the narrative or storylike variety found in
REM sleep; rather, they resemble nonsequential thoughts, images, sensa-
tions, or emotions. As might be expected in the deepest sleep stage, it is
quite difficult to awaken the sleeper who is in stage four. Paradoxically, a
subject awakened in stage four will often claim not to be sleeping. Finally,
sleepwalking, night terrors, and bed-wetting, all of which are developmental
disorders, occur predominantly in stage four. Stage three lasts approxi-
mately ten minutes, while the first episode of stage four usually lasts about
fifty minutes.
Suddenly, about ninety minutes after falling asleep, the subject rapidly re-
gresses back through the stages of NREM sleep to a special stage usually
called stage one-REM sleep, or sometimes simply REM sleep. Three major
changes occur in the electrical activity measured in this stage. First, the EEG
pattern becomes highly desynchronized, resembling a combination of wak-
ing and stage one-NREM brain-wave activity. For this reason, REM sleep is
sometimes called paradoxical sleep, because it is paradoxical that elements
of a waking EEG should be present in a sleeping condition. Second, the
EMG recordings become almost completely flat for most skeletal muscles,
resembling paralysis. Finally, there is an onset of rapid eye movements, as
measured by the EOG.
Cognitive activity, in the form of narrative or storylike dreams, is rich and
varied in REM sleep—hence the term “D sleep,” for dreaming or desynch-
ronized sleep. It is interesting to note that the rapid eye movements corre-
spond closely with dream content. For example, if a person dreams of some-
thing running from left to right, the direction of rapid eye movements will
also be left to right.
Throughout the remainder of the night, a cycle of approximately ninety
minutes will be established from one REM episode to the next. All together,
the sleeper will experience four to five REM episodes in a typical eight-hour
sleep period, with each one lasting for a longer interval than the previous
one. The first REM episode may last only five to ten minutes, while the final
one may be thirty to forty minutes or longer in duration. In contrast, S sleep
episodes decrease in length throughout the evening, and will disappear
completely after two to three episodes.
Study of Sleep Deprivation

Although a description of sleep stages can be provided with relative ease,
identifying a clear function for sleep is a more difficult proposition. Yet ap-
plications of sleep research are inextricably linked with the functions of
782
Sleep
sleep. For the typical layperson, the seemingly obvious function of sleep is to
repair and restore the body after daily mental and physical exertion. This
commonsense approach has been formalized by science as the repair and
restoration theory. One of the most frequently used methods to assess this
theory is to examine the mental and physical effects of sleep deprivation. If
the primary function of sleep is to repair the body, then loss of sleep should
disrupt cognitive, motor, and behavioral processes. Early laboratory re-
search with animals seemed to support this position. If sleep deprivation
persisted for a sufficient time, usually between three and twenty days, death
ensued in laboratory animals. Unfortunately, to maintain sleep deprivation
in animals, it is necessary to keep them active. Perhaps the continuous activ-
ity, rather than the sleep deprivation, killed the animals.
If it were possible to allow animals to rest and relax but not sleep, would
the sleep deprivation still prove fatal? This question was addressed by anec-
dotal accounts of human sleep deprivation during the Korean War. As a
means of extracting confessions from American soldiers, Korean military in-
telligence operatives commonly subjected prisoners of war to sustained
bouts of sleep deprivation. In the face of overwhelming exhaustion and
clear signs of personality disintegration, American soldiers were often in-
duced to sign confessions of their alleged war crimes. However, Randy
Gardner, a seventeen-year-old high school student, experienced sleep depri-
vation for 264 hours to get his name in the Guinness Book of World Records with
no apparent permanent effects and no profound temporary deficits. Why
would people respond in such radically different ways to sleep deprivation?
One hypothesis proposes that severe adverse effects arise as a function of
stress and inability to rest and relax, rather than from the loss of sleep. Fur-
thermore, laboratory investigations with volunteer subjects suggest that
those individuals who exhibit severe reactions to sleep deprivation almost al-
ways have some predisposition to abnormal behavior. Sleep researchers
would not deny that sleep serves to restore the body; however, rest and relax-
ation may serve the same restorative functions in the absence of sleep, which
would suggest that repair and restoration is not the sole or even primary
function of sleep.
Adaptive Theory of Sleep

To redress the shortcomings of the repair and restoration theory, an alterna-
tive theory of a need to sleep has been proposed. The adaptive or evolution-
ary theory postulates that the need to sleep arose in the course of biological
evolution as an adaptive mechanism to conserve energy during the evening
hours, when it would be inefficient to search for food and other resources.
Sleep, according to this view, serves a function similar to the hibernation ob-
served in several species of mammals. These animals reduce their metabolic
processes to barely detectable levels during winter to conserve energy when
food resources are scarce. To do otherwise would threaten the survival of
these animals. It is important to note that the adaptive theory still considers
783
Psychology Basics
sleep to be a real need; in essence, sleep is a remnant of the human evolu-

tionary past when human forebears did not have the convenience of twenty-
four-hour supermarkets to acquire their sustenance. Humans deprived of
sleep will become just as irritable and ill-tempered as a groundhog pre-
vented from hibernating.
Several predictions have been generated from the adaptive theory, most
of which have been supported by scientific observations. First, the theory
predicts that predators such as large cats and bears, which obtain most of
their nutrients in one large meal per day, would sleep much more than graz-
ing animals such as cattle and horses, who must eat frequently to survive. A
second prediction of the theory is that predators such as wolves and moun-
tain lions, which have few natural enemies, would sleep more than prey such
as rabbits and guinea pigs, which are at risk if they fail to maintain constant
vigilance. Finally, animals such as bats, which are well protected by the envi-
ronment in which they live, would sleep for relatively long periods of time.
These predictions are documented by scientific observations, which provide
support for the adaptive or evolutionary theory of sleep.
Clinical Applications
The functions of sleep are extremely important in clinical applications. If
the repair and restoration theory lacks strong scientific support, attempting
to recover lost sleep time may serve no functional purpose. Indeed, most
subjects expect to sleep for several hours longer than normal after staying
awake for twenty-four hours, presumably because they believe sleep is re-
quired for repair and restoration of the body. In practice, however, most sub-
jects report only four to six total hours of poor-quality sleep following such
deprivation. Even after 264 hours of sleep deprivation, Randy Gardner slept
for only fourteen hours and forty minutes the first evening, then resumed a
normal nocturnal sleep pattern of eight hours per evening.
Knowledge of sleep stages may be especially valuable in diagnosing and
treating sleep disorders, because the frequency, patterns, and symptoms of
these disorders may be associated with specific stages of sleep. For example,
knowledge of the muscular paralysis that accompanies REM sleep has been
instrumental in diagnosing the cause of male impotence. Partial or total erec-
tions are present in about 95 percent of REM periods. Therefore, men who
complain of impotence yet demonstrate normal REM erections can be diag-
nosed as suffering from psychologically based impotence. These patients
may benefit from psychotherapy or sexual counseling. In contrast, men who
do not achieve REM erections are diagnosed as suffering from organically
based impotence and require hormone therapy or surgical implantations.
Nocturnal enuresis, or bed-wetting, is a stage four developmental disor-
der present in about four million to five million children annually in the
United States. The exact cause of this disorder is undetermined, although
the extreme muscular relaxation during stage four sleep likely contributes
to its occurrence. To prevent nocturnal enuresis, the patient must learn to
784
Sleep
associate a full bladder with waking up. Typically, a special apparatus is

placed under the child, which sounds a loud buzzer when urine contacts it.
Eventually, the child will learn to associate the feeling of a full bladder with
waking up in the absence of the buzzer.
Emergence of Research
Because sleep is a universal human experience, it has probably interested
people since the dawn of humanity; however, scientific inquiry into sleep is a
relatively recent phenomenon. Early interest in sleep arose during the late
nineteenth century from a need to isolate the brain structure responsible
for lethargy syndromes. Similarly, the electrophysiological study of sleep origi-
nated with a discovery in 1875 by the English physiologist Richard Caton
that the brain continually produces low-voltage waves. This discovery was
largely ignored until 1929, when a German psychiatrist, Hans Berger, found
that he could record from large groups of neurons by attaching electrodes
to the scalp and the forehead. Berger’s discovery marked the beginning of
modern electroencephalography. With the advent of EEG recordings, it was
not long before A. L. Loomis, E. N. Harvey, and G. A. Hobart found, in 1937,
that EEG recordings could be used to differentiate stages of sleep. In 1952,
Nathaniel Kleitman at the University of Chicago gave Eugene Aserinsky, one
of his new graduate students, the assignment of watching the eye movements
of sleeping subjects. Aserinsky quickly noted the rapid, darting nature of eye
movements during certain times of the night, which differed from the usual
slow, rolling eye movements observed at other times. William Dement later
coined the term “REM sleep”; sleep in which slow, rolling eye movements
predominate later came to be known as NREM sleep (for nonrapid eye
movement sleep). Finally, in 1957, Dement and Kleitman presented the cur-
rent system of four NREM sleep stages and stage one-REM sleep.
Importance to Psychology of Consciousness

As a naturally induced alteration in consciousness that can be studied objec-
tively with electrophysiological recording equipment, sleep has assumed a
prominent role in the psychology of consciousness. Electrophysiological re-
cording techniques that were originally developed in sleep research are now
widely used to study other aspects of consciousness, such as hemispheric
asymmetries, meditation, sensory isolation, biofeedback, dreams, and drug
effects on the brain and behavior. In addition, sleep is one of the few alter-
ations in consciousness that plays a central role in several areas of psycholog-
ical inquiry. For example, physiological psychologists are concerned with
the neurobiological mechanisms underlying sleep, as well as the functions
of sleep. From their perspective, sleep is simply one of many human behav-
iors and cognitive processes whose biological basis must be ascertained. De-
velopmental psychologists are interested in age-related changes that occur
in sleep and attempt to develop applications of those findings for con-
cerned parents of young children. Finally, physicians and clinical psycholo-
785
Psychology Basics
gists are often presented with patients who suffer from physical or psycho-
logical stress as a function of sleep disorders. These professionals are
interested in developing effective drug and psychological therapies that can
be used to treat sleep-disordered patients. Sleep is a concern in many areas
of psychology.
Because sleep is universal in humans, it will continue to play a major role
in consciousness studies and throughout the discipline of psychology. Fu-
ture research will likely focus on applications of sleep research to industrial
settings that employ shift workers. The emphasis will be on reducing fatigue
and improving performance among employees by gradually adjusting them
to shift work and by changing employee work schedules infrequently. In ad-
dition, research will seek ways to improve diagnostic procedures and treat-
ments for a variety of sleep disorders, including insomnia, hypersomnia,
sleep apnea, narcolepsy, and enuresis. The focus will be on developing effec-
tive drug and psychological therapies. Finally, pure research will continue to
examine the functions of sleep, and to delineate more clearly the adverse ef-
fects of sleep, even those of a temporary nature.

Coren, Stanley. Sleep Thieves. New York: Free Press, 1997. A wide-ranging ex-
ploration of sleep research. Coren is one of the major researchers in the
relationship between sleep deficit and major industrial accidents, such as
the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill, the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear plant disaster,
and the 1986 Challenger space shuttle explosion.
Dement, William C. The Promise of Sleep. New York: Dell, 2000. Dement,
founder of the sleep disorders clinic at Stanford University, provides a
nontechnical, personal report of current findings in sleep research,
drawing a connection between sleep and general health. Offers a guide
to remedying sleep deficits and alleviating insomnia.
Empson, Jacob, and Michael B. Wang. Sleep and Dreaming. 3d ed. New York:
St. Martin’s Press, 2002. An overview of scientific sleep research and pop-
ular beliefs about sleep.
Hobson, J. Allan. Sleep. Reprint. New York: W. H. Freeman, 1995. A broad
and interdisciplinary view of sleep research, combining knowledge drawn
from neurology, psychology, and animal behavior studies. The nontechni-
cal language and lavish illustrations are two major advantages of this
book. Highly recommended for high school and college students.
Jouvet, Michel. The Paradox of Sleep. Translated by Laurence Gary. Cam-
bridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1999. The scientist who discovered the relation-
ship between REM sleep and dreaming discusses the stages of sleep, the
meaning and evolutionary function of dreams, and many other topics.
Richard P. Atkinson
See also: Brain Structure; Consciousness; Consciousness: Altered States;

Dreams.
786
Social Learning
Albert Bandura
Fields of study: Behavioral and cognitive models; cognitive learning
Bandura’s social learning theory, later called social cognitive theory, provides a theo-
retical framework for understanding and explaining human behavior; the theory em-
braces an interactional model of causation and accords central roles to cognitive, vi-
carious, and self-regulatory processes.
Key concepts
• determinism
• model
• observational learning
• outcome expectancies
• reciprocal determinism
• reinforcement
• self-efficacy
Social learning theory, later amplified as social cognitive theory by its

founder, social psychologist Albert Bandura, provides a unified theoretical
framework for analyzing the psychological processes that govern human be-
havior. Its goal is to explain how behavior develops, how it is maintained,
and through what processes it can be modified. It seeks to accomplish this
task by identifying the determinants of human action and the mechanisms
through which they operate.
Bandura lays out the conceptual framework of his approach in his book
Social Learning Theory (1977). His theory is based on a model of reciprocal
determinism. This means that Bandura rejects both the humanist and exis-
tentialist position viewing people as free agents and the behaviorist position
viewing behavior as controlled by the environment. Rather, external deter-
minants of behavior (such as rewards and punishments) and internal deter-
minants (such as thoughts, expectations, and beliefs) are considered part of
a system of interlocking determinants that influence not only behavior but
also the various other parts of the system. In other words, each part of the
system—behavior, cognition, and environmental influences—affects each
of the other parts. People are neither free agents nor passive reactors to ex-
ternal pressures. Instead, through self-regulatory processes, they have the
ability to exercise some measure of control over their own actions. They can
affect their behavior by setting goals, arranging environmental induce-
ments, generating cognitive strategies, evaluating goal attainment, and me-
diating consequences for their actions. Bandura accepts that these self-
regulatory functions initially are learned as the result of external rewards
787
Psychology Basics
and punishments. Their external origin, however, does not invalidate the
fact that, once internalized, they in part determine behavior.
Cognitive Mediating Factors

As self-regulation results from symbolic processing of information, Bandura
in his theorizing assigned an increasingly prominent role to cognition. This
was reflected in his book Social Foundations of Thought and Action: A Social Cog-
nitive Theory (1986), in which he no longer referred to his approach as social
learning but as social cognitive theory. People, unlike lower animals, use
verbal and nonverbal symbols (language and images) to process informa-
tion and preserve experiences in the form of cognitive representations. This
encoded information serves as a guide for future behavior. Without the abil-
ity to use symbols, people would have to solve problems by enacting various
alternative solutions until, by trial and error, they learned which ones re-
sulted in rewards or punishments. Through their cognitive abilities, how-
ever, people can think through different options, imagine possible out-
comes, and guide their behavior by anticipated consequences. Symbolic
capabilities provide people with a powerful tool to regulate their own behav-
ior in the absence of external reinforcements and punishments.
According to Bandura, the central mechanism of self-regulation is self-
efficacy, defined as the belief that one has the ability, with one’s actions, to
bring about a certain outcome. Self-efficacy beliefs function as determi-
nants of behavior by influencing motivation, thought processes, and emo-
tions in ways that may be self-aiding or self-hindering. Specifically, self-effi-
cacy appraisals determine the goals people set for themselves, whether they
anticipate and visualize scenarios of success or failure, whether they embark
on a course of action, how much effort they expend, and how long they per-
sist in the face of obstacles. Self-efficacy expectations are different from out-
come expectations. While outcome expectancies are beliefs that a given be-
havior will result in a certain outcome, self-efficacy refers to the belief in
one’s ability to bring about this outcome. To put it simply, people may be-
lieve that something can happen, but whether they embark on a course of
action depends on their perceived ability to make it happen.
Relevance to Observation and Modeling

Perhaps the most important contribution of social learning theory to the
understanding of human behavior is the concept of vicarious, or observa-
tional, learning, also termed learning through modeling. Before the advent
of social learning theory, many psychologists assigned a crucial role to the
process of reinforcement in learning. They postulated that without per-
forming responses that are followed by reinforcement or punishment, a per-
son cannot learn. In contrast, Bandura asserted that much of social behavior
is not learned from the consequences of trial and error but is acquired
through symbolic modeling. People watch what other people do and what
happens to them as a result of their actions. From such observations, they
788
Social Learning: Albert Bandura
form ideas of how to perform new behaviors, and later this information
guides their actions.
Symbolic modeling is of great significance for human learning because
of its enormous efficiency in transmitting information. Whereas trial-and-
error learning requires the gradual shaping of the behavior of individuals
through repetition and reinforcement, in observational learning, a single
model can teach complex behaviors simultaneously to any number of peo-
ple. According to Bandura, some elaborate and specifically human behavior
patterns, such as language, might even be impossible to learn if it were not
for symbolic modeling. For example, it seems unlikely that children learn to
talk as a result of their parents’ reinforcing each correct utterance they emit.
Rather, children probably hear and watch other members of their verbal
community talk and then imitate their behavior. In a similar vein, complex
behaviors such as driving a car or flying a plane are not acquired by trial and
error. Instead, prospective drivers or pilots follow the verbal rules of an in-
structor until they master the task.
In summary, Bandura’s social learning theory explains human action in
terms of the interplay among behavior, cognition, and environmental influ-
ences. The theory places particular emphasis on cognitive mediating factors
such as self-efficacy beliefs and outcome expectancies. Its greatest contribu-
tion to a general theory of human learning has been its emphasis on learning
by observation or modeling. Observational learning has achieved the status
of a third learning principle, next to classical and operant conditioning.
Studies of Learning and Performance

From its inception, social learning theory has served as a useful framework
for the understanding of both normal and abnormal human behavior. A
major contribution that has important implications for the modification of
human behavior is the theory’s distinction between learning and perfor-
mance. In a now-classic series of experiments, Bandura and his associates
teased apart the roles of observation and reinforcement in learning and
were able to demonstrate that people learn through mere observation.
In a study on aggression, an adult model hit and kicked a life-size inflated
clown doll (a “Bobo” doll), with children watching the attack in person or
on a television screen. Other children watched the model perform some in-
nocuous behavior. Later, the children were allowed to play in the room with
the Bobo doll. All children who had witnessed the aggression, either in per-
son or on television, viciously attacked the doll, while those who had ob-
served the model’s innocuous behavior did not display aggression toward
the doll. Moreover, it was clearly shown that the children modeled their ag-
gressive behaviors after the adult. Those who had observed the adult sit on
the doll and hit its face, or kick the doll, or use a hammer to pound it, imi-
tated exactly these behaviors. Thus, the study accomplished its purpose by
demonstrating that observational learning occurs in the absence of direct
reinforcement.
789
Psychology Basics
In a related experiment, Bandura showed that expected consequences,

while not relevant for learning, play a role in performance. A group of chil-
dren watched a film of an adult model behaving aggressively toward a Bobo
doll and being punished, while another group observed the same behavior
with the person being rewarded. When the children subsequently were al-
lowed to play with the Bobo doll, those who had watched the model being
punished displayed fewer aggressive behaviors toward the doll than those
who had seen the model being rewarded. When the experimenter then of-
fered a reward to the children for imitating the model, however, all chil-
dren, regardless of the consequences they had observed, attacked the Bobo
doll. This showed that all children had learned the aggressive behavior from
the model but that observing the model being punished served as an inhib-
iting factor until it was removed by the promise of a reward. Again, this study
showed that children learn without reinforcement, simply by observing how
others behave. Whether they then engage in the behavior, however, de-
pends on the consequences they expect will result from their actions.
Disinhibitory Effects
Models not only teach people novel ways of thinking and behaving but also
can strengthen or weaken inhibitions. Seeing models punished may inhibit
similar behavior in observers, while seeing models carry out feared or for-
bidden actions without negative consequences may reduce their inhibi-
tions.
The most striking demonstrations of the disinhibitory effects of observa-
tional learning come from therapeutic interventions based on modeling
principles. Baudura, in his book Principles of Behavior Modification (1969),
shows how social learning theory can provide a conceptual framework for
the modification of a wide range of maladaptive behaviors. For example, a
large number of laboratory studies of subjects with a severe phobia of snakes
showed that phobic individuals can overcome their fear of reptiles when
fearless adult models demonstrate how to handle a snake and directly assist
subjects in coping successfully with whatever they dread.
Self-Efficacy Mechanism
In later elaborations, the scope of social learning theory was amplified to in-
clude self-efficacy theory. Self-efficacy is now considered the principal mecha-
nism of behavior change, in that all successful interventions are assumed to
operate by strengthening a person’s self-perceived efficacy to cope with diffi-
culties.
How can self-efficacy be strengthened? Research indicates that it is in-
fluenced by four sources of information. The most important influence
comes from performance attainments, with successes heightening and fail-
ures lowering perceived self-efficacy. Thus, having people enact and master
a difficult task most powerfully increases their efficacy percepts. A second in-
fluence comes from vicarious experiences. Exposing people to models
790
works because seeing people similar to oneself successfully perform a diffi-

cult task raises one’s own efficacy expectations. Verbal persuasion is a third
way of influencing self-efficacy. Convincing people that they have the ability
to perform a task can encourage them to try harder, which indeed may
lead to successful performance. Finally, teaching people coping strategies
to lower emotional arousal can also increase self-efficacy. If subsequently
they approach a task more calmly, the likelihood of succeeding at it may in-
crease.
Bandura and his associates conducted a series of studies to test the idea
that vastly different modes of influence all improve coping behavior by
strengthening self-perceived efficacy. Severe snake phobics received inter-
ventions based on enactive, vicarious, cognitive, or emotive treatment (a
method of personality change that incorporates cognitive, emotional, and
behavioral strategies, designed to help resist tendencies to be irrational, sug-
gestible, and conforming) modalities. The results confirmed that the de-
gree to which people changed their behavior toward the reptiles was closely
associated with increases in self-judged efficacy, regardless of the method
of intervention. It is now widely accepted among social learning theorists
that all effective therapies ultimately work by strengthening people’s self-
perceptions of efficacy.
Theoretical Influences
Social learning theory was born into a climate in which two competing and
diametrically opposed schools of thought dominated psychology. On one
hand, psychologists who advocated psychodynamic theories postulated that
human behavior is governed by motivational forces operating in the form of
largely unconscious needs, drives, and impulses. These impulse theories
tended to give circular explanations, attributing behavior to inner causes
that were inferred from the very behavior they were supposed to cause. They
also tended to provide explanations after the fact, rather than predicting
events, and had very limited empirical support.
On the other hand, there were various types of behavior theory that
shifted the focus of the causal analysis from hypothetical internal determi-
nants of behavior to external, publicly observable causes. Behaviorists were
able to show that actions commonly attributed to inner causes could be pro-
duced, eliminated, and reinstated by manipulating the antecedent (stimu-
lus) and consequent (reinforcing) conditions of the person’s external envi-
ronment. This led to the proposition that people’s behavior is caused by
factors residing in the environment.
Social learning theory presents a theory of human behavior that to some
extent incorporates both viewpoints. According to Bandura, people are nei-
ther driven by inner forces nor buffeted by environmental stimuli; instead,
psychological functioning is best explained in terms of a continuous recip-
rocal interaction of internal and external causes. This assumption, termed re-
ciprocal determinism, became one of the dominant viewpoints in psychology.
791
Psychology Basics
An initial exposition of social learning theory was presented in Bandura

and Richard H. Walters’s text Social Learning and Personality Development
(1963). This formulation drew heavily on the procedures and principles of
operant and classical conditioning. In his later book Principles of Behavior
Modification, Bandura placed much greater emphasis on symbolic events
and self-regulatory processes. He argued that complex human behavior
could not be satisfactorily explained by the narrow set of learning principles
behaviorists had derived from animal studies. He incorporated principles
derived from developmental, social, and cognitive psychology into social
learning theory.
Evolution of Theoretical Development

During the 1970’s, psychology had grown increasingly cognitive. This devel-
opment was reflected in Bandura’s 1977 book Social Learning Theory, which
presented self-efficacy theory as the central mechanism through which peo-
ple control their own behavior. Over the following decade, the influence of
cognitive psychology on Bandura’s work grew stronger. In Social Foundations
of Thought and Action, he finally disavowed his roots in learning theory and
renamed his approach “social cognitive theory.” This theory accorded cen-
tral roles to cognitive, vicarious, self-reflective, and self-regulatory processes.
Social learning/social cognitive theory became the dominant concep-
tual approach within the field of behavior therapy. It has provided the con-
ceptual framework for numerous interventions for a wide variety of psycho-
logical disorders and probably will remain popular for a long time. Bandura,
its founder, was honored with the Award for Distinguished Scientific Contri-
butions to Psychology from the American Psychological Foundation in 1980
in recognition of his work.

Bandura, Albert. Principles of Behavior Modification. New York: Holt, Rinehart
and Winston, 1969. Presents an overview of basic psychological princi-
ples governing human behavior within the conceptual framework of so-
cial learning. Reviews theoretical and empirical advances in the field of
social learning, placing special emphasis on self-regulation and on sym-
bolic and vicarious processes. Applies these principles to the conceptual-
ization and modification of a number of common behavior disorders
such as alcoholism, phobias, and sexual deviancy.
__________. Social Foundations of Thought and Action: A Social Cognitive Theory.
Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1986. Presents a comprehensive
coverage of the tenets of current social cognitive theory. Besides address-
ing general issues of human nature and causality, provides an impressive
in-depth analysis of all important aspects of human functioning, includ-
ing motivational, cognitive, and self-regulatory processes.
__________. Social Learning Theory. Reprint. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-
Hall, 1986. Lays out Bandura’s theory and presents a concise overview of
792
its theoretical and experimental contributions to the field of social learn-

ing. Redefines many of the traditional concepts of learning theory and
emphasizes the importance of cognitive processes in human learning.
Evans, Richard I. Albert Bandura, the Man and His Ideas: A Dialogue. New York:
Praeger, 1989. An edited version of an interview with Bandura. Easy to
read, presenting Bandura’s thoughts on the major aspects of his work in
an accessible form. The spontaneity of the discussion between Evans and
Bandura gives a glimpse of Bandura as a person.
Feist, Jess, and Gregory Feist. Theories of Personality. 5th ed. Boston: McGraw-
Hill, 2001. Chapter 11 of this book contains an excellent summary of
Bandura’s work. Gives an easy-to-read overview of his philosophical posi-
tion (reciprocal determinism), discusses his theory (including observa-
tional learning and self-regulatory processes), and presents a summary of
relevant research conducted within the framework of social cognitive the-
ory. An ideal starting point for those who would like to become familiar
with Bandura’s work.
Edelgard Wulfert
See also: Aggression; Cognitive Behavior Therapy; Cognitive Social Learning:

Walter Mischel; Learning; Phobias.
793
Social Psychological Models
Erich Fromm
Fields of study: Humanistic-phenomenological models; psychodynamic
and neoanalytic models
Fromm studied the effects of political, economic, and religious institutions on human
personality. Fromm’s work provides powerful insight into the causes of human unhap-
piness and psychopathology as well as ideas about how individuals and social institu-
tions could change to maximize mental health and happiness.
Key concepts
• dynamic adaptation
• escape from freedom
• freedom from external constraints
• freedom to maximize potential
• mental health
• personality
• productive love
• productive work
The approach of Erich Fromm (1900-1980) to the study of human personal-

ity starts from an evolutionary perspective. Specifically, Fromm maintained
that humans, like all other living creatures, are motivated to survive and that
survival requires adaptation to their physical surroundings. Humans are,
however, unique in that they substantially alter their physical surroundings
through the creation and maintenance of cultural institutions. Conse-
quently, Fromm believed, human adaptation occurs primarily in response to
the demands of political, economic, and religious institutions.
Fromm made a distinction between adaptations to physical and social
surroundings that have no enduring impact on personality (static adapta-
tion—for example, an American learning to drive on the left side of the
road in England) and adaptation that does have an enduring impact on per-
sonality (dynamic adaptation—for example, a child who becomes humble
and submissive in response to a brutally domineering, egomaniacal parent).
Fromm consequently defined personality as the manner in which individu-
als dynamically adapt to their physical and social surroundings in order to
survive and reduce anxiety.
Human adaptation includes the reduction of anxiety for two reasons.
First, because humans are born in a profoundly immature and helplessly de-
pendent state, they are especially prone to anxiety, which, although unpleas-
ant, is useful to the extent that it results in signs of distress (such as crying)
which alert others and elicit their assistance. Second, infants eventually ma-
794
Social Psychological Models: Erich Fromm
ture into fully self-conscious human beings who, although no longer help-
less and dependent, recognize their ultimate mortality and essential isola-
tion from all other living creatures.
Fromm believed that humans have five basic inorganic needs (as op-
posed to organic needs associated with physical survival) resulting from
the anxiety associated with human immaturity at birth and eventual self-
consciousness. The need for relatedness refers to the innate desire to
acquire and maintain social relationships. The need for transcendence sug-
gests that human beings have an inherent drive to become creative individu-
als. The need for rootedness consists of a sense of belonging to a social
group. The need for identity is the need to be a unique individual. The need
for a frame of orientation refers to a stable and consistent way of perceiving
the world.
Freedom and Individual Potential

Mental health for Fromm consists of realizing one’s own unique individual
potential, and it requires two kinds of freedom that are primarily dependent
on the structure of a society’s political, economic, and religious institutions.
Freedom from external constraints refers to practical concerns such as free-
dom from imprisonment, hunger, and homelessness. This is how many peo-
ple commonly conceive of the notion of freedom. For Fromm, freedom
from external constraints is necessary, but not sufficient, for optimal mental
health, which also requires the freedom to maximize one’s individual poten-
tial.
Freedom to maximize individual potential entails productive love and
productive work. Productive love consists of interpersonal relationships
based on mutual trust, respect, and cooperation. Productive work refers to
daily activities that allow for creative expression and provide self-esteem.
Fromm hypothesized that people become anxious and insecure if their
need for transcendence is thwarted by a lack of productive work and love.
Many people, he believed, respond to anxiety and insecurity by an “escape
from freedom”: the unconscious adoption of personality traits that reduce
anxiety and insecurity at the expense of individual identity.
Personality Types and Freedom Escape

Fromm described five personality types representing an escape from free-
dom. The authoritarian person reduces anxiety and insecurity by fusing
himself or herself with another person or a religious, political, or economic
institution. Fromm distinguished between sadistic and masochistic authori-
tarians: The sadistic type needs to dominate (and often hurt and humiliate)
others, while the masochistic type needs to submit to the authority of others.
The sadist and the masochist are similar in that they share a pathetic depen-
dence on each other. Fromm used the people in Nazi Germany (masoch-
ists) under Adolf Hitler (a sadist) to illustrate the authoritarian personality
type.
795
Psychology Basics
Destructive individuals reduce anxiety and insecurity by destroying other

persons or things. Fromm suggested that ideally people derive satisfaction
and security through constructive endeavors, but noted that some people
lack the skill and motivation to create and therefore engage in destructive
behavior as an impoverished substitute for constructive activities.
Withdrawn individuals reduce anxiety and insecurity by willingly or un-
willingly refusing to participate in a socially prescribed conception of reality;
instead, they withdraw into their own idiosyncratic versions of reality. In one
social conception, for example, many devout Christians believe that God
created the earth in six days, that Christ was born approximately two thou-
sand years ago, and that he has not yet returned to Earth. The withdrawn in-
dividual might singularly believe that the earth was hatched from the egg of
a giant bird a few years ago and that Christ had been seen eating a ham-
burger yesterday. Psychiatrists and clinicians today would generally charac-
terize the withdrawn individual as psychotic or schizophrenic.
Self-inflated people reduce anxiety and insecurity by unconsciously adopt-
ing glorified images of themselves as superhuman individuals who are vastly
superior to others. They are arrogant, strive to succeed at the expense of oth-
ers, are unable to accept constructive criticism, and avoid experiences that
might disconfirm their false conceptions of themselves.
Finally, Fromm characterized American society in the 1940’s as peopled
by automaton conformists, who reduce anxiety and insecurity by uncon-
sciously adopting the thoughts and feelings demanded of them by their cul-
ture. They are then no longer anxious and insecure, because they are like ev-
eryone else around them. According to Fromm, automaton conformists are
taught to distrust and repress their own thoughts and feelings during child-
hood through impoverished and demoralizing educational and socializing
experiences. The result is the acquisition of pseudothoughts and pseudo-
feelings, which people believe to be their own but which are actually socially
infused. For example, Fromm contended that most Americans vote the
same way that their parents do, although very few would claim that parental
preference was the cause of their political preferences. Rather, most Ameri-
can voters would claim that their decisions are the result of a thorough and
rational consideration of genuine issues (a pseudothought) instead of a
mindless conformity to parental influence (a genuine thought—or, in this
case, a nonthought).
Impact of Historical Constraints

In Escape from Freedom (1941), Fromm applied his theory of personality to a
historical account of personality types by a consideration of how political,
economic, and religious changes in Western Europe from the Middle Ages
to the twentieth century affected “freedom from” and “freedom to.” Fromm
argued that the feudal political system of the Middle Ages engendered very
little freedom from external constraints. Specifically, there was limited
physical mobility; the average person died in the same place that he or she
796
was born, and many people were indentured servants who could not leave
their feudal lord even if they had somewhere to go. Additionally, there was
no choice of occupation: One’s job was generally inherited from one’s fa-
ther.
Despite the lack of freedom from external constraints, however, eco-
nomic and religious institutions provided circumstances that fostered free-
dom to maximize individual potential through productive work and pro-
ductive love. Economically, individual craftsmanship was the primary means
by which goods were produced. Although this was time-consuming and inef-
ficient by modern standards, craftsmen were responsible for the design and
production of entire products. A shoemaker would choose the design and
materials, make the shoes, and sell the shoes. A finished pair of shoes thus
represented a tangible manifestation of the creative energies of the pro-
ducer, thus providing productive work.
Additionally, the crafts were regulated by the guild system, which con-
trolled access to apprenticeships and materials and set wages and prices in
order to guarantee maximum employment and a fair profit to the crafts-
men. The guilds encouraged relatively cooperative behavior between crafts-
men and consequently engendered productive love. Productive love was
also sustained by the moral precepts of the then-dominant Catholic church,
which stressed the essential goodness of humankind, the idea that human
beings had free will to choose their behavior on Earth and hence influence
their ultimate fate after death, the need to be responsible for the welfare of
others, and the sinfulness of extracting excessive profits from commerce
and accumulating money beyond that which is necessary to exist comfort-
ably.
The dissolution of the feudal system and the consequent transition to
parliamentary democracy and capitalism provided the average individual
with a historically unprecedented amount of freedom from external con-
straints. Physical mobility increased dramatically as the descendants of serfs
were able to migrate freely to cities to seek employment of their choosing;
however, according to Fromm, increased freedom from external constraints
was acquired at the expense of the circumstances necessary for freedom to
maximize individual potential through productive work and productive
love.
Impact of Capitalism
Capitalism shifted the focus of commerce from small towns to large cities
and stimulated the development of fast and efficient means of production,
but assembly-line production methods divested the worker of opportunities
for creative expression. The assembly-line worker has no control over the
design of a product, does not engage in the entire production of the prod-
uct, and has nothing to do with the sale and distribution of the product.
Workers in a modern automobile factory might put on hub caps or install ra-
dios for eight hours each day as cars roll by on the assembly line. They have
797
Psychology Basics
no control over the process of production and no opportunity for creative

expression, given the monotonous and repetitive activities to which their
job confines them.
In addition to the loss of opportunities to engage in productive work, the
inherent competitiveness of capitalism undermined the relatively coopera-
tive interpersonal relationships engendered by the guild system, transform-
ing the stable small-town economic order into a frenzied free-for-all in
which people compete with their neighbors for the resources necessary to
survive, hence dramatically reducing opportunities for people to acquire
and maintain productive love. Additionally, these economic changes were
supported by the newly dominant Protestant churches (represented by the
teachings of John Calvin and Martin Luther), which stressed the inherent
evilness of humankind, the lack of free will, and the notion of predetermina-
tion—the idea that God has already decided prior to one’s birth if one is to
be consigned to heaven or hell after death. Despite the absence of free will
and the idea that an individual’s fate was predetermined, Protestant theolo-
gians claimed that people could get a sense of God’s intentions by their ma-
terial success on Earth, thus encouraging people to work very hard to accu-
mulate as much as possible (the so-called Protestant work ethic) as an
indication that God’s countenance is shining upon them.
Call to Embrace Positive Freedom

In summary, Fromm argued that the average person in Western industrial
democracies has freedom from external constraints but lacks opportunities
to maximize individual potential through productive love and productive
work; the result is pervasive feelings of anxiety and insecurity. Most people
respond to this anxiety and insecurity by unconsciously adopting personal-
ity traits that reduce anxiety and insecurity, but at the expense of their indi-
viduality, which Fromm referred to as an escape from freedom. For Fromm,
psychopathology is the general result of the loss of individuality associated
with an escape from freedom. The specific manifestation of psychopath-
ology depends on the innate characteristics of the individual in conjunction
with the demands of the person’s social environment.
Fromm argued that while escaping from freedom is a typical response to
anxiety and insecurity, it is not an inevitable one. Instead, he urged people
to embrace positive freedom through the pursuit of productive love and
work, which he claimed would require both individual and social change.
Individually, Fromm advocated a life of spontaneous exuberance made pos-
sible by love and being loved. He described the play of children and the
behavior of artists as illustrations of this kind of lifestyle. Socially, Fromm
believed strongly that the fundamental tenets of democracy should be re-
tained but that capitalism in its present form must be modified to ensure ev-
ery person’s right to live, to distribute resources more equitably, and to pro-
vide opportunities to engage in productive work.
798
Theoretical Influences
Fromm’s ideas reflect the scientific traditions of his time as well as his exten-
sive training in history and philosophy, in addition to his psychological back-
ground. Fromm is considered a neo-Freudian (along with Karen Horney,
Harry Stack Sullivan, and others) because of his acceptance of some of
Freud’s basic ideas (specifically, the role of unconsciously motivated behav-
iors in human affairs and the notion that anxiety-producing inclinations are
repressed or prevented from entering conscious awareness) while rejecting
Freud’s reliance on the role of biological instincts (sex and aggression) for
understanding human behavior. Instead, the neo-Freudians were explicitly
concerned with the influence of the social environment on personality de-
velopment.
Additionally, Fromm was very much influenced by Charles Darwin’s the-
ory of evolution, by existential philosophy, and by the economic and social
psychological ideas of Karl Marx. Fromm’s use of adaptation in the service
of survival to define personality is derived from basic evolutionary theory.
His analysis of the sources of human anxiety, especially the awareness of
death and perception of isolation and aloneness, is extracted from existen-
tial philosophy. The notion that human happiness requires productive love
and work and that capitalism is antithetical to mental health was originally
proposed by Marx. Fromm’s work has never received the attention that it de-
serves in America because of his open affinity for some of Marx’s ideas and
his insistence that economic change is utterly necessary to ameliorate the
unhappiness and mental illness that pervade American society. Neverthe-
less, his ideas are vitally important from both a theoretical and practical per-
spective.

Becker, Ernest. The Birth and Death of Meaning. 2d ed. Reprint. New York:
Free Press, 1985. Becker presents a general description of Fromm’s ideas
embedded in a broad interdisciplinary consideration of human social
psychological behavior.
Fromm, Erich. Anatomy of Human Destructiveness. 1973. Reprint. New York:
Henry Holt, 1992. An in-depth examination of the destructive personal-
ity type.
__________. The Art of Loving. 1956. Reprint. New York: HarperCollins,
2000. A detailed analysis of how to love and be loved. Distinguishes be-
tween genuine love and morbid dependency.
__________. Escape from Freedom. 1941. Reprint. New York: Henry Holt, 1995.
Fromm’s early seminal work, in which his basic theory about the relation-
ship between political, economic, and religious institutions and personal-
ity development was originally articulated. All of Fromm’s later books are
extensions of ideas expressed here.
__________. Marx’s Concept of Man. 1962. Reprint. New York: Frederick
Ungar, 1982. An introduction to Marx’s ideas, including a translation
799
Psychology Basics
of Marx’s economic and philosophical manuscripts of 1844.

__________. The Revolution of Hope: Toward a Humanized Technology. New
York: Harper & Row, 1968. A detailed discussion of how capital-based
economies can be transformed to provide opportunities for productive
work without sacrificing productive efficiency, technological advances, or
democratic political ideals.
Sheldon Solomon
See also: Psychoanalytic Psychology and Personality: Sigmund Freud; Self;

Self-Esteem; Social Psychological Models: Karen Horney.
800
Social Psychological Models
Karen Horney
Fields of study: Personality theory; psychodynamic and neoanalytic
models; psychodynamic therapies
Horney’s social psychoanalytic theory focuses on how human relationships and cul-
tural conditions influence personality formation. The theory describes how basic anxi-
ety, resulting from childhood experiences, contributes to the development of three neu-
rotic, compulsive, rigid personality styles: moving toward others, moving away from
others, and moving against others. Normal personality is characterized by flexibility
and balance among interpersonal styles.
Key concepts
• basic anxiety
• externalization
• idealized self
• neurosis
• neurotic trends
• search for glory
• self-realization
• tyranny of the should
Karen Horney (1885-1952) spent the major part of her career explaining
how personality patterns, especially neurotic patterns, are formed, how they
operate, and how they can be changed in order to increase individual poten-
tial. In contrast to Sigmund Freud’s view that people are guided by instincts
and the pleasure principle, Horney proposed that people act out desires to
achieve safety and satisfaction in social relationships. She was optimistic
about the possibility for human growth and believed that, under conditions
of acceptance and care, people move toward self-realization, or the develop-
ment of their full potential. She wrote almost exclusively, however, about
personality problems and methods for solving them.
Role of Culture
Horney believed that it is impossible to understand individuals or the mech-
anisms of neurosis (inflexible behaviors and reactions, or discrepancies be-
tween one’s potential and one’s achievements) apart from the cultural con-
text in which they exist. Neurosis varies across cultures, as well as within the
same culture, and it is influenced by socioeconomic class, gender, and his-
torical period. For example, in The Neurotic Personality of Our Time (1937),
Horney noted that a person who refuses to accept a salary increase in a West-
ern culture might be seen as neurotic, whereas in a Pueblo Indian culture,
this person might be seen as entirely normal.
801
Psychology Basics
The neurotic person experiences culturally determined problems in an

exaggerated form. In Western culture, competitiveness shapes many neu-
rotic problems because it decreases opportunities for cooperation, fosters a
climate of mistrust and hostility, undermines self-esteem, increases isola-
tion, and encourages people to be more concerned with how they appear to
others than with fulfilling personal possibilities. It fosters the overvaluing of
external success, encourages people to develop grandiose images of superi-
ority, and leads to intensified needs for approval and affection as well as to
the distortion of love. Moreover, the ideal of external success is contradicted
by the ideal of humility, which leads to further internal conflict and, in many
cases, neurosis.
Role of the Family

Cultural patterns are replicated and transmitted primarily in family environ-
ments. Ideally, a family provides the warmth and nurturance that prepares
children to face the world with confidence. When parents have struggled
unsuccessfully with the culture, however, they create the conditions that
Image not available
Karen Horney. (Courtesy

of Marianne Horney
Eckardt, M.D.)
802
Social Psychological Models: Karen Horney
lead to inadequate parenting. In its most extreme form, the competitiveness

of the larger culture leads to child abuse, but it can also lead to parents’ pre-
occupation with their own needs, an inability to love and nurture effectively,
or a tendency to treat children as extensions of themselves. Rivalry, overpro-
tectiveness, irritability, partiality, and erratic behavior are other manifesta-
tions of parental problems.
Within a negative environment, children experience fear and anger, but
they also feel weak and helpless beside more powerful adults. They recog-
nize that expressing hostility directly might be dangerous and result in pa-
rental reprisals or loss of love. As a result, children repress legitimate anger,
banishing it to the unconscious. By using the defense mechanism of reac-
tion formation, they develop emotions toward parents that are the opposite
of anger, and they experience feared parents as objects of admiration.
Children unconsciously turn their inner fears and anger against themselves
and lose touch with their real selves. As a result, they develop basic anxi-
ety, or the feeling of being alone and defenseless in a world that seems hos-
tile.
Defense and Coping Strategies

In order to cope with basic anxiety, individuals use additional defensive
strategies or neurotic trends to cope with the world. These involve three pri-
mary patterns of behavior: moving away from others, moving toward others,
and moving against others. In addition, neurotic individuals develop an ide-
alized self, an unrealistic, flattering distortion of the self-image that encour-
ages people to set unattainable standards, shrink from reality, and com-
pulsively search for glory (compulsive and insatiable efforts to fulfill the
demands of the idealized self) rather than accept themselves as they are.
Horney wrote about these in rich detail in Our Inner Conflicts: A Construc-
tive Theory of Neurosis (1945), a highly readable book. The person who moves
toward others believes: “If I love you or give in, you will not hurt me.” The
person who moves against others believes: “If I have power, you will not hurt
me.” The person who moves away from others thinks: “If I am independent
or withdraw from you, you will not hurt me.”
The person who moves toward others has chosen a dependent or compli-
ant pattern of coping. The person experiences strong needs for approval,
belonging, and affection and strives to live up to the expectations of others
through behavior that is overconsiderate and submissive. This person sees
love as the only worthwhile goal in life and represses all competitive, hostile,
angry aspects of the self. The moving-against type, who has adopted an ag-
gressive, tough, exploitive style, believes that others are hostile, that life is a
struggle, and that the only way to survive is to win and to control others. This
person sees herself or himself as strong and determined, and represses all
feelings of affection for fear of losing power over others. Finally, the moving-
away type, who has adopted a style of detachment and isolation, sees himself
or herself as self-sufficient, private, and superior to others. This person re-
803
Psychology Basics
presses all emotion and avoids any desire or activity that would result in de-
pendency on others.
The interpersonal patterns that Horney discussed are no longer known
as neurotic styles but as personality disorders. Many of the behaviors that she
described can be seen in descriptions of diagnostic categories that appear in
the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of
Mental Disorders: DSM-IV-TR (rev. 4th ed., 2000), such as dependent person-
ality disorder, narcissistic personality disorder, and obsessive-compulsive
personality disorder. Like Horney’s original criteria, these categories de-
scribe inflexible and maladaptive patterns of behavior and thinking that are
displayed in various environments and result in emotional distress or im-
paired functioning.
Use of Psychoanalysis
In her practice of psychoanalysis, Horney used free association and dream
analysis to bring unconscious material to light. In contrast to Freud’s more
passive involvement with patients, she believed that the psychoanalyst should
play an active role not only in interpreting behavior but also in inquiring
about current behaviors that maintain unproductive patterns, suggesting al-
ternatives, and helping persons mobilize energy to change.
Horney also made psychoanalysis more accessible to the general popula-
tion. She suggested that by examining oneself according to the principles out-
lined in her book Self-Analysis (1942), one could increase self-understanding
and gain freedom from internal issues that limit one’s potential. Her sugges-
tions indicate that a person should choose a problem that one could clearly
identify, engage in informal free association about the issue, reflect upon
and tentatively interpret the experience, and make specific, simple choices
about altering problematic behavior patterns. Complex, long-standing is-
sues, however, should be dealt with in formal psychoanalysis.
Influences
Horney was one of the first individuals to criticize Freud’s psychology of
women. In contrast to Freudian instinct theory, she proposed a version of
psychoanalysis that emphasized the role that social relationships and cul-
ture play in human development. She questioned the usefulness of Freud’s
division of the personality into the regions of the id, ego, and superego, and
she viewed the ego as a more constructive, forward-moving force within the
person.
Horney’s work was enriched by her contact with psychoanalysts Harry
Stack Sullivan, Clara Thompson, and Erich Fromm, who also emphasized
the role of interpersonal relationships and sociocultural factors and were
members at Horney’s American Institute of Psychoanalysis when it was first
established. Horney’s work also resembled Alfred Adler’s personality the-
ory. Her concepts of the search for glory and idealized self are similar to
Adler’s concepts of superiority striving and the superiority complex. Fur-
804
Social Psychological Models: Karen Horney
thermore, Adler’s ruling type resembles the moving-against personality, his

getting type is similar to the moving-toward personality, and his avoiding
type is closely related to the moving-away personality.
Contributions to the Field

Horney anticipated many later developments within cognitive, humanistic,
and feminist personality theory and psychotherapy. Abraham Maslow, who
was inspired by Horney, built his concept of self-actualization on Horney’s
optimistic belief that individuals can move toward self-realization. Carl Rog-
ers’s assumptions that problems are based on distortions of real experience
and discrepancies between the ideal and real selves are related to Horney’s
beliefs that unhealthy behavior results from denial of the real self as well as
from conflict between the idealized and real selves. In the field of cognitive
psychotherapy, Albert Ellis’s descriptions of the mechanisms of neurosis re-
semble Horney’s statements. He borrowed the phrase “tyranny of the
should” from Horney and placed strong emphasis on how “shoulds” influ-
ence irrational, distorted thinking patterns. Finally, Horney’s notion that
problems are shaped by cultural patterns is echoed in the work of feminist
psychotherapists, who believe that individual problems are often the conse-
quence of external, social problems.

Horney, Karen. Neurosis and Human Growth: The Struggle Toward Self-Realiza-
tion. 1950. Reprint. New York: W. W. Norton, 1991. Presents Horney’s the-
ory in its final form. Describes the ways in which various neurotic pro-
cesses operate, including the tyranny of the should, neurotic claims, self-
alienation, and self-contempt. Discusses faulty, neurotic solutions that are
developed as a way to relieve internal tensions through domination, de-
pendency, resignation, or self-effacement.
__________. The Neurotic Personality of Our Time. 1937. Reprint. New York:
W. W. Norton, 1994. Outlines the manner in which culture influences
personality difficulties and describes typical behavior problems that re-
sult from the exaggeration of cultural difficulties in one’s life.
__________. New Ways in Psychoanalysis. 1939. Reprint. New York: W. W.
Norton, 2000. Describes major areas of agreement and disagreement
with Sigmund Freud as well as important elements of Horney’s theory;
highly controversial when first published.
__________. Our Inner Conflicts: A Constructive Theory of Neurosis. 1945. Re-
print. New York: W. W. Norton, 1993. Identifies and describes, through
rich detail and examples, the three neurotic trends of moving toward oth-
ers, moving away from others, and moving against others. Highly read-
able and a good introduction to Horney’s main ideas.
__________. Self-Analysis. 1942. Reprint. New York: W. W. Norton, 1994. Pro-
vides guidance for readers who may wish to engage in informal free asso-
ciation, self-discovery, and personal problem solving.
805
Psychology Basics
Quinn, Susan. A Mind of Her Own: The Life of Karen Horney. Reading, Mass.:
Addison-Wesley, 1988. Readable, honest, fascinating biography of Horney’s
life; provides insights into personal factors that influenced Horney’s the-
oretical and clinical work.
Westkott, Marcia. The Feminist Legacy of Karen Horney. New Haven, Conn.:
Yale University Press, 1986. This book integrates Karen Horney’s early pa-
pers on the psychology of women with the more complete personality
theory that emerged over time.
Carolyn Zerbe Enns
See also: Individual Psychology: Alfred Adler; Psychoanalysis; Psychoana-

lytic Psychology and Personality: Sigmund Freud; Social Psychological Models:
Erich Fromm; Women’s Psychology: Karen Horney; Women’s Psychology:
Sigmund Freud.
806
Speech Disorders
Type of psychology: Language
Fields of study: Behavioral therapies; infancy and childhood; organic
disorders
Speech disorders may have an organic or learned origin, and they often affect a per-
son’s ability to communicate efficiently. As a result of a speech disorder, a person may
exhibit a number of effects on behavior, such as the avoidance of talking with others
and low self-esteem.
Key concepts
• communication
• self-esteem
• speech
• vocal folds
The ability to communicate is one of the most basic human characteristics.

Communication is essential to learning, working, and, perhaps most impor-
tant, social interaction. Normal communication involves hearing sounds,
interpreting and organizing sounds, and making meaningful sounds. The
ear takes in sounds, changes them into electrical impulses, and relays these
impulses to the brain. The brain interprets the impulses, assigns meaning,
and prepares a response. This response is then coded into the precisely co-
ordinated changes in muscles, breath, vocal folds, tongue, jaw, lips, and so
on that produce understandable speech.
Between 5 percent and 10 percent of Americans experience speech or
language difficulties, often referred to as speech disorders. For these indi-
viduals, a breakdown occurs in one of the processes of normal communica-
tion described above. People with speech disorders may exhibit one or more
of the following problems: They may be difficult to understand, use and pro-
duce words incorrectly, consistently use incorrect grammar, be unable to
hear appropriately or to understand others, consistently speak too loudly,
demonstrate a hesitating speech pattern, or simply be unable to speak.
Speech disorders can be categorized as one of three disorder types: disor-
ders of articulation, of fluency, or of voice. Articulation disorders are diffi-
culties in the formation and stringing together of sounds to produce words.
Fluency disorders, commonly referred to as stuttering, are interruptions in
the flow or rhythm of speech. Finally, voice disorders are characterized by
deviations in a person’s voice quality, pitch, or loudness.
Types of Speech Disorders

Articulation disorders are the most common types of speech errors in chil-
dren. Articulation errors may take the form of substitutions, omissions, or
distortions of sounds. An example of a substitution would be the substitu-
807
Psychology Basics
tion of the w sound for the r sound, as in “wabbit” for “rabbit.” Substitutions
are the most common form of articulation errors. An example of an omis-
sion would be if the d sound was left out of the word “bed,” as in “be_.”
Finally, sounds can also be distorted, as in “shleep” for “sleep.”
Stuttering is defined as an interruption in the flow or rhythm of speech.
Stuttering can be characterized by hesitations, interjections, repetitions, or
prolongations of a sound, syllable, word, or phrase. “I wa-wa-want that” is an
example of a part-word repetition, while “I, I, I want that” is an example of a
whole-word repetition. When a word or group of words such as “uh,” “you
know,” “well,” or “oh” is inserted into an utterance, it is termed an interjec-
tion. “I want uh, uh, you know, uh, that” is an example of a sentence contain-
ing interjections. There may also be secondary behaviors associated with
DSM-IV-TR Criteria for Speech Disorders

Phonological Disorder (DSM code 315.39)
Failure to use developmentally expected speech sounds appropriate for
age and dialect
Examples include errors in sound production, use, representation, or orga-
nization (substitutions of one sound for another, omissions of sounds such as fi-
nal consonants)
Speech sound production difficulties interfere with academic or occupa-
tional achievement or with social communication
deprivation is present, speech difficulties exceed those usually associated with
these problems
Stuttering (DSM code 307.0)
Disturbance in the normal fluency and time patterning of speech inappro-
priate for age
Characterized by frequent occurrences of one or more of the following:
• sound and syllable repetitions
• sound prolongations
• interjections
• broken words (such as pauses within a word)
• audible or silent blocking (filled or unfilled pauses in speech)
• circumlocutions (word substitutions to avoid problematic words)
• words produced with an excess of physical tension
• monosyllabic whole-word repetitions
Fluency disturbance interferes with academic or occupational achieve-

ment or with social communication
If speech-motor or sensory deficit is present, speech difficulties exceed
those usually associated with these problems
808
Speech Disorders
stuttering. In order for an individual to extricate himself or herself from a

stuttering incident, secondary behaviors may be used. A stutterer may blink
the eyes, turn the head, tap his or her leg, look away, or perform some other
interruptive behavior to stop the stuttering. In therapy, secondary behaviors
are very difficult to extinguish.
While articulation disorders and stuttering are often seen in children,
voice disorders are common among adults. Voice disorders are categorized
into disorders of pitch, intensity, nasality, and quality. A person with a voice
disorder of pitch may have a vocal pitch which is too high. A person may
speak too softly and thus exhibit a voice disorder of intensity. Still others may
sound as though they talk through their nose (hypernasality) or always have
a cold (hyponasality). The most common voice disorder is a disorder of
quality. Examples of disorders of vocal quality include a voice that sounds
hoarse, breathy, harsh, or rough. This type of voice disorder may be caused
by vocal abuse, or an overusage of the voice, and might be found among
singers, actors, or other individuals who abuse or overuse their voices. If the
vocal abuse continues, vocal nodules (like calluses) may appear on the vocal
folds. Vocal nodules may be surgically removed, and a person may be put on
an extended period of vocal rest.
Speech disorders may be caused by a variety of factors. They may result
from physical problems, health problems, or other problems. Physical prob-
lems such as cleft lip and palate, misaligned teeth, difficulty in controlling
movements of the tongue, injury to the head, neck, or spinal cord, poor
hearing, mental retardation, and cerebral palsy can contribute to poor artic-
ulation. The exact causes of stuttering are not known; however, a variety of
factors are thought to be involved, including learning problems, emotional
difficulties, biological defects, and neurological problems. Problems with
voice quality can be caused by too much strain on the vocal folds (for exam-
ple, yelling too much or clearing the throat too often), hearing loss, inflam-
mation or growths on the vocal folds (vocal nodules), or emotional prob-
lems.
Speech and Communication

Speaking, hearing, and understanding are essential to human communica-
tion. A disorder in one or more of these abilities can interfere with a per-
son’s capacity to communicate. Impaired communication can influence all
aspects of life, creating many problems for an individual. Behavioral effects
resulting from the speech disorder can be found in both children and
adults. Children with speech disorders can experience difficulties in learn-
ing and find it hard to establish relationships with others. Speech disorders
in adults can adversely affect social interactions and often create emotional
problems, which may interfere with a person’s ability to earn a living. Disor-
ders such as those described above can interfere with a person’s relation-
ships, independence, well-being, and ability to learn. People who have trou-
ble communicating thoughts and ideas may have trouble relating to others,
809
Psychology Basics
possibly resulting in depression and isolation. Furthermore, job opportuni-

ties are often limited for people who cannot communicate effectively. Thus,
they may have trouble leading independent, satisfying lives. Emotional
problems may develop in people who exhibit speech disorders as a result of
embarrassment, rejection, or poor self-image. Finally, learning is difficult
and frustrating for people with speech disorders. As a consequence, their
performance and progress at school and on the job can suffer.
When trying to communicate with others, individuals with speech disor-
ders may experience other negative behavioral effects as a result of the dis-
order. These effects include frustration, anxiety, guilt, and hostility. The
emotional experience of speech-disordered persons is often a result of their
experiences in trying to communicate with others. Both the listener and the
speech-disordered person react to the disordered person’s attempts to com-
municate. In addition, the listener’s reactions may influence the disordered
individual. These reactions may include embarrassment, guilt, frustration,
and anger and may cause the disordered individual to experience a sense of
helplessness that can subsequently lower the person’s sense of self-worth.
Many speech-disordered people respond to their problem by being overly
aggressive, by denying its existence, by projecting reactions in listeners, or
by feeling anxious or timid.
Treatment and Prevention

Treatment of speech disorders attempts to eliminate or minimize the disor-
der and related problems. Many professionals may be involved in providing
therapy, special equipment, or surgery. In therapy, specialists teach clients
more effective ways of communicating. They may also help families learn to
communicate with the disordered individual. Therapy may also include
dealing with the negative behavioral effects of having a speech disorder,
such as frustration, anxiety, and a feeling of low self-worth. In some cases,
surgery can correct structural problems that may be causing speech disor-
ders, such as cleft palate or misaligned teeth. For children with articulation
disorders, therapy begins with awareness training of the misarticulations
and the correct sound productions. After awareness is established, the new
sound’s productions are taught. For individuals who exhibit voice disorders,
therapy is designed to find the cause of the disorder, eliminate or correct
the cause, and retrain the individuals to use their voices correctly. Therapy
for stutterers, however, is an entirely different matter. There are many meth-
ods for treating stuttering. Some are called “cures,” while others help indi-
viduals live with their stuttering. Still other types of stuttering therapy help
the stutterer overcome his or her fear of communicating or help him or her
develop a more normal breathing pattern.
Though there are many ways to treat speech disorders, disorder preven-
tion is even more important. Certain things can be done to help prevent
many speech disorders. All the methods focus on preventing speech disor-
ders in childhood. Children should be encouraged to talk, but they should
810
Speech Disorders
not be pushed into speaking. Pushing a child may cause that child to associ-
ate anxiety or frustration with communicating. Infants do not simply start
talking; they need to experiment with their voice, lips, and tongue. This ex-
perimentation is often called babbling, and it should not be discouraged.
Later on, one can slowly introduce words and help with correct pronuncia-
tion. When talking with young children, one should talk slowly and natu-
rally, avoiding “baby talk.” Children will have difficulty distinguishing be-
tween the baby-talk word (for example, “baba”) and the real word (“bottle”).
Having children point to and name things in picture books and in real-
world surroundings allows them to put labels (words) on the objects in their
environment. Increases in the number of labels a child has learned can sub-
sequently increase the number of topics about which the child can commu-
nicate. It is most important to listen to what the child is trying to say rather
than to how the child is saying it. Such prevention strategies will encourage
positive behavioral effects regarding the act of communicating. These posi-
tive effects include feelings of self-efficiency, independence, and a positive
self-image.
Speech-Language Pathology
Early identification of a speech disorder improves the chances for successful
treatment, and early treatment can help prevent a speech disorder from de-
veloping into a lifelong handicap. Professionals who identify, evaluate, and
treat communication disorders in individuals have preparations in the field
of speech-language pathology. A speech-language pathologist is a profes-
sional who has been educated in the study of human communication, its de-
velopment, and its disorders. By evaluating the speech and language skills of
children and adults, the speech-language pathologist determines if commu-
nication problems exist and decides on the most appropriate way of treating
these problems.
Speech-language pathology services are provided in many public and pri-
vate schools, community clinics, hospitals, rehabilitation centers, private
practices, health departments, colleges and universities, and state and fed-
eral governmental agencies. There are more than fourteen hundred clini-
cal facilities and hundreds of full-time private practitioners providing
speech services to people throughout the United States. Service facilities ex-
ist in many cities in every state. A speech-language pathologist will have a
master’s or doctoral degree and should hold a Certificate of Clinical Com-
petence (CCC) from the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association
or a license from his or her state.
Responsibilities of a speech-language pathologist include evaluation and
diagnosis, therapy, and referral to other specialists involved with speech dis-
orders. By gathering background information and by direct observation
and testing, the speech-language pathologist can determine the extent of
the disorder as well as a probable cause. The speech-language pathologist
chooses an appropriate treatment to correct or lessen the communication
811
Psychology Basics
problem and attempts to help the patient and family understand the prob-
lem. When other treatment is needed to correct the problem, the patient is
referred to another specialist. Audiologists, special educators, psychologists,
social workers, neurologists, pediatricians, otolaryngologists (also known as
ear, nose, and throat specialists), and other medical and dental specialists
may be involved in the diagnosis and treatment of a speech disorder. For ex-
ample, psychologists may be best suited to treat the emotional or behavioral
aspects of having a speech disorder (that is, anxiety, frustration, anger, de-
nial, and so on). Otolaryngologists are often involved in the diagnosis of
voice disorders. Audiologists determine whether an individual’s hearing is
affecting or causing a speech disorder.
Speech disorders can affect anyone at any time. The chances are good
that everyone at one time has either had or known someone with a speech
disorder. Because communication is so overwhelmingly a part of life, disor-
dered speech is not something to take lightly. With good prevention, early
identification, and early treatment, lifelong difficulties with communication
can be prevented.

Curlee, Richard F. “Counseling in Speech, Language, and Hearing.” Semi-
nars in Speech and Language 9, no. 3 (1988). In his introductory article to
this issue, Curlee presents a clear and interesting overview of counseling
strategies for the speech-language pathologist. Counseling of parents
and spouses of persons with speech disorders is detailed.
Riekehof, Lottie L. The Joy of Signing. 2d ed. Springfield, Mo.: Gospel Pub-
lishing House, 1987. A comprehensive book of sign language. Includes
origins of the signs, usage of the signs, and sign variations.
Shames, George H., and Norma B. Anderson, eds. Human Communication
Disorders. Boston: Allyn & Bacon, 2001. This general text covers a wide
range of communication disorders. Includes a section on speech-language
pathology as a profession. Also includes sections on cleft palate, aphasia,
and cerebral palsy.
The Speech Foundation of America. Counseling Stutterers. Memphis, Tenn.:
Author, 1989. The Speech Foundation of America is a nonprofit, charita-
ble organization dedicated to the prevention and treatment of stuttering.
It provides a variety of low-cost publications about stuttering and stutter-
ing therapy. This publication is written to give clinicians a better under-
standing of the counseling aspect of therapy and to suggest ways in which
it can be used most effectively.
__________. Therapy for Stutterers. Memphis, Tenn.: Author, 1989. A general
guide to help those who work or plan to work in therapy with adult and
older-adolescent stutterers.
Jennifer A. Sanders Wann and Daniel L. Wann
See also: Language.

812
Stress
Type of psychology: Stress
Fields of study: Coping; critical issues in stress; stress and illness
The stress response consists of physiological arousal, subjective feelings of discomfort,
and the behavioral changes people experience when they confront situations that they
appraise as dangerous or threatening. Because extreme situational or chronic stress
causes emotional distress and may impair physical functioning, it is important to
learn effective stress coping strategies.
Key concepts
• cognitive appraisal
• emotion-focused coping
• learned helplessness
• problem-focused coping
• stressor
In the past, the term “stress” designated both a stimulus (a force or pres-
sure) and a response (adversity, affliction). More recently, it has usually
been used to denote a set of changes that people undergo in situations that
they appraise as threatening to their well-being. These changes involve phys-
iological arousal, subjective feelings of discomfort, and overt behaviors. The
terms “anxiety” and “fear” are also used to indicate what people experience
when they appraise circumstances as straining their ability to cope with
them.
The external circumstances that induce stress responses are called stress-
ors. Stressors have a number of important temporal components. Exposure
to them may be relatively brief, with a clear starting and stopping point
(acute stressors), or may persist for extended periods without clear demar-
cation (chronic stressors). Stressors impinge on people at different points
in their life cycles, sometimes occurring “off time” (at times that are incom-
patible with personal and societal expectations of their occurrence) or at a
“bad time” (along with other stressors). Finally, stress may be induced by the
anticipation of harmful circumstances that one thinks one is likely to con-
front, by an ongoing stressor, or by the harmful effects of stressors already en-
countered. All these factors affect people’s interpretations of stressful events,
how they deal with them, and how effective they are at coping with them.
Although there are some situations to which almost everyone responds
with high levels of stress, there are individual differences in how people re-
spond to situations. Thus, though most people cringe at the thought of hav-
ing to parachute from an airplane, a substantial minority find this an excit-
ing, challenging adventure. Most people avoid contact with snakes, yet
others keep them as pets. For most people, automobiles, birds, and people
with deep voices are largely neutral objects, yet for others they provoke a
stress reaction that may verge on panic.
813
Psychology Basics
The key concept is cognitive appraisal. Situations become stressors for an

individual only if they are construed as threatening or dangerous by that in-
dividual. As demonstrated in a study of parachuters by psychologists Walter
D. Fenz and Seymour Epstein, stress appraisals can change markedly over
the course of exposure to a stressor, and patterns of stress arousal differ as a
function of experience with the stressor. Fenz and Epstein found that fear
levels of veteran jumpers (as evaluated by a self-report measure) were high-
est the morning before the jump, declined continuously up to the moment
of the jump, and then increased slightly until after landing. Fear levels for
novice jumpers, in contrast, increased up to a point shortly before the jump
and then decreased continuously. For both groups, the peak of stress oc-
curred during the anticipatory period rather than at the point of the great-
est objective danger, the act of jumping.
Measuring Stress
Stress reactions are measured in three broad ways: by means of self-report,
through behavioral observations, and on the basis of physiological arousal.
The self-report technique is the technique most commonly used by behav-
ioral scientists to evaluate subjective stress levels. The State Anxiety Scale of
the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory, developed by psychologist Charles Spiel-
berger, is one of the most widely used self-report measures of stress. Exam-
ples of items on this scale are “I am tense,” “I am worried,” and “I feel pleas-
ant.” Subjects are instructed to respond to the items in terms of how they
currently feel.
Self-report state anxiety scales may be administered and scored easily and
quickly. Further, they may be administered repeatedly and still provide valid
measures of momentary changes in stress levels. They have been criticized
by some, however, because they are face valid (that is, their intent is clear);
therefore, people who are motivated to disguise their stress levels can readily
do so.
Overt behavioral measures of stress include both direct and indirect ob-
servational measures. Direct measures focus on behaviors associated with
stress-related physiological arousal such as heavy breathing, tremors, and
perspiration; self-manipulations such as nail biting, eyeblinks, and postural
orientation; and body movement such as pacing.
Speech disturbances, both verbal (for example, repetitions, omissions,
incomplete sentences, and slips of the tongue) and nonverbal (for example,
pauses and hand movements), have been analyzed intensively, but no sin-
gle measure or pattern has emerged as a reliable indicant of stress. An-
other way in which people commonly express fear reactions is by means of
facial expressions. This area has been studied by psychologists Paul Ekman
and Wallace V. Friesen, who concluded that the facial features that take on
the most distinctive appearance during fear are the eyebrows (raised and
drawn together), the eyes (open, lower lid tensed), and the lips (stretched
back).
814
Stress
Indirect observational measures involve evaluating the degree to which

people avoid feared objects. For example, in one test used by clinical psy-
chologists to assess fear level, an individual is instructed to approach a
feared stimulus (such as a snake) and engage in increasingly intimate inter-
actions with it (for example, looking at a caged snake from a distance, ap-
proaching it, touching it, holding it). The rationale is that the higher the
level of fear elicited, the earlier in the sequence the person will try to avoid
the feared stimulus. Other examples include asking claustrophobics (peo-
ple who are fearful of being in an enclosed space) to remain in a closed
chamber as long as they can and asking acrophobics (people who fear
heights) to climb a ladder and assessing their progress.
Physiological arousal is an integral component of the stress response.
The most frequently monitored response systems are cardiovascular re-
sponses, electrodermal responses, and muscular tension. These measures
are important in their own right as independent indicants of stress level, and
in particular as possible indices of stress-related diseases.
Ulcers and Learned Helplessness

The concept of stress has been used to help explain the etiology of certain
diseases. Diseases that are thought to be caused in part by exposure to stress
or poor ability to cope with stress are called psychophysiological or psycho-
somatic disorders. Among the diseases that seem to have strong psychologi-
cal components are ulcers and coronary heart disease. The role of stress in
ulcers was highlighted in a study by Joseph V. Brady known as the “executive
monkey” study. In this study, pairs of monkeys were yoked together in a re-
straining apparatus. The monkeys received identical treatment except that
one member of each pair could anticipate whether both of them would be
shocked (it was given a warning signal) and could control whether the shock
was actually administered (if it pressed a lever, the shock was avoided). Thus,
one monkey in each pair (the “executive monkey”) had to make decisions
constantly and was responsible for the welfare of both itself and its partner.
Twelve pairs of monkeys were tested, and in every case the executive mon-
key died of peptic ulcers within weeks, while the passive member of each
pair remained healthy. This experiment was criticized because of flaws in its
experimental design, but it nevertheless brought much attention to the im-
portant role that chronic stress can play in the activation of physiological
processes (in this case, the secretion of hydrochloric acid in the stomach in
the absence of food) that can be damaging or even life threatening.
Although being in the position of a business executive who has to make
decisions constantly can be very stressful, research indicates that it may be
even more damaging to be exposed to stress over long periods and not have
the opportunity to change or control the source of stress. People and ani-
mals who are in aversive situations over which they have little or no control
for prolonged periods are said to experience learned helplessness. This con-
cept was introduced by psychologist Martin E. P. Seligman and his col-
815
Psychology Basics
leagues. In controlled research with rats and dogs, he and his colleagues
demonstrated that exposure to prolonged stress that cannot be controlled
produces emotional, motivational, and cognitive deficits. The animals show
signs of depression and withdrawal, they show little ability or desire to mas-
ter their environment, and their problem-solving ability suffers.
Learned helplessness has also been observed in humans. Seligman refers
to Bruno Bettelheim’s descriptions of some of the inmates of the Nazi con-
centration camps during World War II, who, when faced with the incredible
brutality and hopelessness of their situation, gave up and died without any
apparent physical cause. Many institutionalized patients (for example, nurs-
ing home residents and the chronically ill) also live in environments that are
stressful because they have little control over them. Seligman suggests that
the stress levels of such patients can be lowered and their health improved if
they are given as much control as possible over their everyday activities
(such as choosing what they want for breakfast, the color of their curtains,
and whether to sleep late or wake up early).
Stress and Control

Research findings have supported Seligman’s suggestions. For example,
psychologists Ellen Langer and Judith Rodin told a group of elderly nursing
home residents that they could decide what they wanted their rooms to look
like, when they wanted to go see motion pictures, and with whom they
wanted to interact. A second, comparable group of elderly residents, who
were randomly assigned to live on another floor, were told that the staff
would care for them and try to keep them happy. It was found that the resi-
dents in the first group became more active and reported feeling happier
than those in the second group. They also became more alert and involved
in different kinds of activities, such as attending movies and socializing. Fur-
ther, during the eighteen-month period following the intervention, 15 per-
cent of the subjects in the first group died, whereas 30 percent of the sub-
jects in the second group died.
Altering people’s perception of control and predictability can also help
them adjust to transitory stressful situations. Studies by psychologists Ste-
phen Auerbach, Suzanne Miller, and others have shown that for people who
prefer to deal with stress in active ways (rather than by avoiding the source of
stress), adjustment to stressful surgical procedures and diagnostic examina-
tions can be improved if they are provided with detailed information about
the impending procedure. It is likely that the information enhances their
sense of predictability and control in an otherwise minimally controllable
situation. Others, who prefer to control their stress by “blunting” the stressor,
show better adjustment when they are not given detailed information.
Reaction to Stress
Physiologist Walter B. Cannon was among the first scientists to describe how
people respond to stressful circumstances. When faced with a threat, one’s
816
Stress
body mobilizes for “fight or flight.” One’s heart rate increases, one begins
to perspire, one’s muscles tense, and one undergoes other physiological
changes to prepare for action either to confront the stressor or to flee the sit-
uation.
Physician Hans Selye examined the fight-or-flight response in more detail
by studying physiological changes in rats exposed to stress. He identified
three stages of reaction to stress, which he collectively termed the general
adaptation syndrome (GAS). This includes an initial alarm reaction, fol-
lowed by a stage of resistance, and finally by a stage of exhaustion, which re-
sults from long-term unabated exposure to stress and produces irreversible
physiological damage. Selye also brought attention to the idea that not only
clearly aversive events (for example, the death of a spouse or a jail sentence)
but also events that appear positive (for example, a promotion at work or
meeting new friends) may be stressful because they involve changes to
which people must adapt. Thus, these ostensibly positive events (which he
called eustress) will produce the nonspecific physiological stress response
just as obviously negative events (which he called distress) will.
How an individual cognitively appraises an event is the most important
determinant of whether that event will be perceived as stressful by that per-
son. Psychologist Richard Lazarus has delineated three important cognitive
mechanisms (primary appraisals, secondary appraisals, and coping strate-
gies) that determine perceptions of stressfulness and how people alter ap-
praisals. Primary appraisal refers to an assessment of whether a situation is
neutral, challenging, or potentially harmful. When a situation is judged to
be harmful or threatening, a secondary appraisal is made of the coping op-
tions or maneuvers that the individual has at his or her disposal. Actual cop-
ing strategies that may be used are problem focused (those that involve al-
tering the circumstances that are eliciting the stress response) or emotion
focused (those that involve directly lowering physiological arousal or the
cognitive determinants of the stress response). Psychologists have used con-
cepts such as these to develop stress management procedures that help peo-
ple control stress in their everyday lives.

Goldberger, Leo, and Shlomo Breznitz, eds. The Handbook of Stress: Theoreti-
cal and Clinical Aspects. 2d ed. New York: Free Press, 1993. A wide-ranging
collection of essays on the diagnosis and treatment of stress. A good start-
ing point for investigating the field.
Greenberg, Jerrold S. Comprehensive Stress Management. 7th ed. New York:
McGraw-Hill, 2001. An easy-to-read text giving an overview of psycho-
logical and physiological stress responses and stress-management tech-
niques. Separate sections on applications to occupational stress, the col-
lege student, the family, and the elderly.
Janis, Irving Lester. Psychological Stress. 1958. Reprint. New York: Academic
Press, 1974. Describes some of Janis’s early investigations evaluating rela-
817
Psychology Basics
tionships between stress and behavior. The focus is on his pioneering

study evaluating the relationship between preoperative stress levels in
surgical patients and their ability to adapt to the rigors of the postopera-
tive convalescent period.
Monat, Alan, and Richard S. Lazarus, eds. Stress and Coping. 2d ed. New York:
Columbia University Press, 1985. This anthology consists of twenty-six
brief readings under the headings of effects of stress, stress and the envi-
ronment, coping with the stresses of living, coping with death and dying,
and stress management.
Rabin, Bruce S. Stress, Immune Function, and Health: The Connection. New
York: Wiley-Liss, 1999. A psychoneuroimmunological approach to the
physiological effects of stress.
Sapolsky, Robert. Why Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers: An Updated Guide to Stress, Stress-
Related Diseases, and Coping. New York: W. H. Freeman, 1998. An enter-
taining comparison of the physiology of stress in humans and other mam-
mals, written by a neuroscientist. Argues that the human nervous system
evolved to cope with short-term stressors, and that stress-related diseases,
such as heart disease and diabetes, are the result of living in an environ-
ment that produces long-term stress instead.
Silver, R. L., and C. Wortman. “Coping with Undesirable Life Events.” In Hu-
man Helplessness, edited by Judy Garber and Martin E. P. Seligman. New
York: Academic Press, 1980. Silver and Wortman examine the behavioral
consequences of encountering and adjusting to cataclysmic stressful
events such as a disabling accident, a serious illness, or the death of a
loved one.
Stephen M. Auerbach
See also: Stress: Physiological Responses; Stress-Related Diseases.
818
Stress
Behavioral and Psychological Responses
Fields of study: Coping; critical issues in stress; stress and illness
Stress is an adaptive reaction to circumstances that are perceived as threatening. It mo-

tivates people and can enhance performance. Learning to cope with adversity is an im-
portant aspect of normal psychological development, but exposure to chronic stress can
have severe negative consequences if effective coping mechanisms are not learned.
Key concepts
• circumplex model
• coping strategies
• daily hassles
• phobias
• state anxiety
• trait anxiety
The term “stress” is used to designate how human beings respond when they
confront circumstances that they appraise as dangerous or threatening and
that tax their coping capability. Stressful events (stressors) elicit a wide range
of responses in humans. They not only bring about immediate physiological
changes but also affect one’s emotional state, the use of one’s intellectual
abilities and one’s efficiency at solving problems, and one’s social behavior.
When experiencing stress, people take steps to do something about the
stressors eliciting the stress and to manage the emotional upset they are pro-
ducing. These maneuvers are called coping responses. Coping is a key con-
cept in the study of the stress process. Stress-management intervention tech-
niques are designed to teach people the appropriate ways to cope with the
stressors that they encounter in their everyday lives.
Anxiety and Phobias

The emotional state most directly affected by stress is anxiety. In fact, the
term “state anxiety” is often used interchangeably with the terms “fear” and
“stress” to denote a transitory emotional reaction to a dangerous situation.
Stress, fear, and state anxiety are distinguished from trait anxiety, which is
conceptualized as a relatively stable personality disposition or trait. Accord-
ing to psychologist Charles Spielberger, people high in trait or “chronic”
anxiety interpret more situations as dangerous or threatening than do peo-
ple who are low in trait anxiety, and they respond to them with more intense
stress (state anxiety) reactions. Instruments that measure trait anxiety ask
people to characterize how they usually feel, and thus they measure how
people characteristically respond to situations. Measures of trait anxiety
819
Psychology Basics
(such as the trait anxiety scale of the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory) are espe-
cially useful in predicting whether people will experience high levels of
stress in situations involving threats to self-esteem or threat of failure at
evaluative tasks.
The recently developed two-dimensional circumplex model (see the fig-
ure “Circumplex Model”) has been adopted as a model for illustrating how
emotion relates to stress. The activation-deactivation dimension of the
circumplex relates to how much the emotion invokes a sense of alertness,
energy, and mobilization, in contrast to the deactivation end of the contin-
uum that connotes drowsiness and lethargy. The second dimension of the
circumplex relates to the degree of pleasantness/unpleasantness associated
with the emotion. For example, perceived stress and anxiety relate to un-
pleasant activation. In contrast, serenity is associated with deactivation and
positive affect. Richard Lazarus has argued that the relational meaning of a
stressful event determines the particular emotion associated with the event.
For example, the relational meaning of anger is “a demeaning offense
against me and mine.” The relational meaning of anxiety is “facing an un-
certain or existential threat.” The relational meaning of fright is “facing an
immediate, concrete, and overwhelming physical danger.” Coping alters
the emotion by either changing reality (problem-focused coping) or chang-
ing the interpretation of the event (emotion-focused coping).
Common phobias or fears of specific situations, however, especially when
the perceived threat has a strong physical component, are not related to in-
dividual differences in general trait anxiety level. Measures of general trait
anxiety are therefore not good predictors of people’s stress levels when they
are confronted by snakes, an impending surgical operation, or the threat of
electric shock. Such fears can be reliably predicted only by scales designed
to evaluate proneness to experience fear in these particular situations.
Seemingly minor events that are a constant source of irritation can be
very stressful, as can more focalized events that require major and some-
times sudden readjustments. Psychologists Richard Lazarus and Susan Folk-
man have dubbed these minor events “daily hassles.” The media focus atten-
tion on disasters such as plane crashes, earthquakes, and epidemics that
suddenly disrupt the lives of many people, or on particularly gruesome
crimes or other occurrences that are likely to attract attention. For most
people, however, much of the stress of daily life results from having to deal
with ongoing problems pertaining to jobs, interpersonal relationships, and
everyday living circumstances.
Often, people have no actual experience of harm or unpleasantness re-
garding things that they come to fear. For example, many people are at least
somewhat uneasy about flying on airplanes or about the prospect of having a
nuclear power plant located near them, though few people have personally
experienced harm caused by these things. Although people tend to pride
themselves on how logical they are, they are often not very rational in ap-
praising how dangerous or risky different events actually are. For example,
820
Stress: Behavioral and Psychological Responses
there is great public concern about the safety of nuclear reactors, though
they have, in fact, caused few deaths.
Positive Stress
People tend to think of stress as being uniformly negative—something to be
avoided or at least minimized as much as possible. Psychologists Carolyn
Aldwin and Daniel Stokols point out, however, that studies using both ani-
mals and humans have indicated that exposure to stress also has beneficial
effects. Being handled by humans is stressful for rats, but rats handled as in-
fants are less fearful, are more exploratory, are faster learners, and have
more robust immune systems later in life. In humans, physical stature as
adults is greater in cultures that expose children to stress (for example, cir-
cumcision, scarification, sleeping apart from parents) than in those that are
careful to prevent stress exposure—even when nutrition, climate, and other
relevant variables are taken into account. Although failure experiences in
dealing with stressful circumstances can inhibit future ability to function un-
der stress, success experiences enable learning of important coping and
problem-solving skills that are then used to deal effectively with future stress-
ful encounters. Such success experiences also promote a positive self-
concept and induce a generalized sense of self-efficacy that, in turn, en-
hances persistence in coping with future stressors.
Psychologists Stephen Auerbach and Sandra Gramling note that stress is
a normal, adaptive reaction to threat. It signals danger and motivates people
to take defensive action. Over time, individuals learn which coping strate-
gies are successful for them in particular situations. This is part of the nor-
mal process of mental growth and maturation.
Stress can, however, cause psychological problems if the demands posed
by stressors overwhelm a person’s coping capabilities. If a sense of being
overwhelmed and unable to control events persists over a period of time,
one’s stress signaling system ceases to work in an adaptive way. One misreads
and overinterprets the actual degree of threat posed by situations, makes
poor decisions as to what coping strategies to use, and realizes that one is
coping inefficiently. A cycle of increasing distress and ineffective coping
may result. Some people who have experienced high-level stress for ex-
tended periods or who are attempting to deal with the aftereffects of trau-
matic stressors may become extremely socially withdrawn and show other
signs of severe emotional dysfunction.
In severe cases where these symptoms persist for over a month, a psycho-
logical condition known as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) may de-
velop. Common symptoms of PTSD include reliving the traumatic event,
avoiding anything that reminds the person of the event, insomnia, night-
mares, wariness, poor concentration, chronic irritability resulting in angry
or aggressive outbursts, and a numbing of emotions. The symptom of numb-
ing of emotions has been referred to as alexithymia, a condition in which
the person lacks the ability to define and express their emotions to them-
821
Psychology Basics
selves and others. James Pennebaker believes that although alexithymics

cannot express their emotions, these emotions are still present in an un-
conscious cycle of rumination; this suppression and rumination of negative
thoughts is associated with increased psychological and physiological
arousal. That is, it takes a lot of work to inhibit one’s emotions.
Although anxiety is the most common emotion associated with stress,
chronic stress may induce chronic negative emotions such as hostility and
depression. Chronic hostility and depression have been shown to have dam-
aging effects on social relationships and physical health. The known physi-
cal costs of chronic stress include poor immune functioning, not engaging
in health-promoting activities (such as exercise and following the advice of a
physician), and a shortened life expectancy.
When people are faced with a stressful circumstance that overwhelms
their coping mechanisms, they may react with depression and a sense of de-
feat and hopelessness. According to Martin Seligman, learned helplessness
is the result of a person coming to believe that events are uncontrollable or
hopeless, and it often results in depression.
Assessing and Measuring Stress

The fact that stress has both positive and negative effects can be exemplified
in many ways. Interpersonally, stress brings out the “worst” and the “best” in
people. A greater incidence of negative social behaviors, including less al-
truism and cooperation and more aggression, has generally been observed
in stressful circumstances. Psychologist Kent Bailey points out that, in addi-
tion to any learning influences, this may result from the fact that stress sig-
nals real or imagined threats to survival and is therefore a potent elicitor of
regressive, self-serving survival behaviors. The highly publicized murder of
Kitty Genovese in Queens, New York, in 1964, which was witnessed by thirty-
eight people (from the safety of their apartments) who ignored her pleas for
help, exemplifies this tendency. So does the behavior during World War II of
many Europeans who were aware of the oppression of Jews and other minor-
ities by the Nazis but who turned their heads. Everyone has heard, however,
of selfless acts of individual heroism being performed by seemingly ordinary
people who in emergency situations rose to the occasion and risked their
own lives to save others. After the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Cen-
ter on September 11, 2001, firefighters continued to help victims and fight
fires after more than two hundred of their fellow firefighters had been killed
in the buildings’ collapse. In addition, in stressful circumstances in which
cooperation and altruism have survival value for all concerned, as in the
wake of a natural disaster, helping-oriented activities and resource sharing
are among the most common short-term reactions.
Stress may enhance as well as hinder performance. For example, the clas-
sic view of the relationship between stress and performance is represented
in the Yerkes-Dodson inverted-U model, which posits that both low and high
levels of arousal decrease performance, whereas intermediate levels en-
822
Circumplex Model
Activated (A)
(e.g., aroused, hyperactivated)
90°
Unpleasant Activated (UA) Pleasant Activated (PA)
(e.g., tense, nervous) (e.g., excited, elated)
135° 45°
A
UA PA
Unpleasant (U) Pleasant (P)
180° U P 0°
(e.g., miserable, unhappy) (e.g., happy, pleased)
UD PD
D
225° 315°
Unpleasant Deactivated (UD) Pleasant Deactivated (PD)
(e.g., tired, bored) 270° (e.g., calm, relaxed)
Deactivated (D)
(e.g., quiet, still)
hance performance. Although this model has not been unequivocally vali-
dated, it seems to be at least partially correct, and its correctness may depen-
d upon the circumstances. On one hand, psychologists Gary Evans and
Sheldon Cohen concluded that, in learning and performance tasks, high
levels of stress result in reduced levels of working-memory capacity and
clearly interfere with performance of tasks that require rapid detection, sus-
tained attention, or attention to multiple sources of input. On the other
hand, psychologist Charles Spielberger found that in less complex tasks, as
learning progresses, high stress levels may facilitate performance.
Psychologist Irving Janis examined the relationship between preopera-
tive stress in surgical patients and how well they coped with the rigors of the
postoperative convalescent period. He found that patients with moderate
preoperative fear levels adjusted better after surgery than those with low or
high preoperative fear. He reasoned that patients with moderate fear levels
realistically appraised the situation, determined how they would deal with
the stressful aspects of the recovery period, and thus were better able to tol-
erate those stressors. Patients low in preoperative fear engaged in unrealistic
denial and thus were unprepared for the demands of the postoperative peri-
od, whereas those high in preoperative fear became overanxious and car-
ried their inappropriately high stress levels over into the recovery period, in
which that stress continued to inhibit them from realistically dealing with
the demands of the situation. Janis further found that giving people infor-
mation about what to expect before the surgery reduced their levels of fear
and stress and allowed them to recover from surgery more quickly.
823
Psychology Basics
Benefits of Control
Janis’s investigation was particularly influential because it drew attention to
the question of how psychologists can work with people to help them cope
with impending stressful events, especially those (such as surgery) that they
are committed to confronting and over which they have little control.
Research by Judith Rodin and others has shown that interventions de-
signed to increase the predictability of and perceived control over a stress-
ful event can have dramatic effects on stress and health. In one control-
enhancing intervention study, nursing home residents were told by the hos-
pital administrator to take responsibility for themselves, were asked to de-
cide what activities in which to participate, and were told what decisions for
which they were responsible. Patients who received the control-enhancing
intervention reported being happier in the nursing home, and the death
rate was half of that among nursing home residents who were told that it was
the staff’s responsibility to care for them. Rodin’s research has been repli-
cated by other researchers. More intensive stress reduction interventions
have even been shown to increase survival rates among patients with breast
cancer.
Findings by psychologists Thomas Strentz and Stephen Auerbach indi-
cate that in such situations it may be more useful to teach people emotion-
focused coping strategies (those designed to minimize stress and physiologi-
cal arousal directly) than problem-focused strategies (those designed to
change the stressful situation itself). In a study with volunteers who were ab-
ducted and held hostage for four days in a stressful simulation, they found
that hostages who were taught to use emotion-focused coping techniques
(such as deep breathing, muscular relaxation, and directed fantasy) ad-
justed better and experienced lower stress levels than those who were taught
problem-focused techniques (such as nonverbal communication, how to in-
teract with captors, and how to gather intelligence).
Finally, in a series of studies, Pennebaker and others have found that writ-
ing for just twenty minutes a day for three or four consecutive days about the
most stressful experience one has ever experienced has widespread benefi-
cial effects that may last for several months. In a series of studies, he found
that his writing task improved immune functioning, reduced illness and per-
ceived stress, and even improved students’ grade point averages. He believes
that his writing task may help people to release their inhibited emotions
about past stressful events. This release of emotions decreases physiological
arousal and psychological anxiety associated with repressing negative past
events.
Adaptive and Maladaptive Functions

Stress has many important adaptive functions. The experience of stress and
learning how to cope with adversity is an essential aspect of normal growth
and development. Coping strategies learned in particular situations must be
generalized appropriately to new situations. Exposure to chronic stress that
824
cannot be coped with effectively can have severe negative consequences.

Work by pioneering stress researchers such as Hans Selye brought attention
to the physiological changes produced by exposure to chronic stress, which
contribute to diseases such as peptic ulcers, high blood pressure, and car-
diovascular disorders. Subsequent research by psychiatrists Thomas Holmes
and Richard Rahe and their colleagues indicated that exposure to a rela-
tively large number of stressful life events is associated with the onset of
other diseases, such as cancer and psychiatric disorders, which are less di-
rectly a function of arousal in specific physiological systems.
Studies by these researchers have led psychologists to try to understand
how best to teach people to manage and cope with stress. Learning to cope
with stress is a complex matter because, as Lazarus has emphasized, the
stressfulness of given events is determined by how they are cognitively ap-
praised, and this can vary considerably among individuals. Further, the
source of stress may be in the past, the present, or the future. The prospect
of an impending threatening encounter (such as a school exam) may evoke
high-level stress, but people also experience stress when reflecting on past
unpleasant or humiliating experiences or when dealing with an immediate,
ongoing danger. Sometimes people deal with past, present, and future
stressors simultaneously.
It is important to distinguish among present, past, and future stressors,
because psychological and behavioral responses to them differ, and differ-
ent kinds of coping strategies are effective in dealing with them. For exam-
ple, for stressors that may never occur but are so aversive that people want to
avoid them if at all possible (for example, cancer or injury in an automobile
crash), people engage in preventive coping behavior (they stop smoking or
they wear seat belts) even though they are not currently experiencing a high
level of anxiety. In this kind of situation, an individual’s anxiety level some-
times needs to be heightened in order to motivate coping behavior.
When known stressors are about to affect one (for example, a surgical op-
eration the next morning), it is important for one to moderate one’s anxiety
level so that one can function effectively when actually confronting the
stressor. The situation is much different when one is trying to deal with a sig-
nificant stressor (such as sexual assault, death of a loved one, or a war experi-
ence) that has already occurred but continues to cause emotional distress.
Important aspects of coping with such stressors include conceptualizing
one’s response to the situation as normal and rational rather than “crazy” or
inadequate, and reinstating the belief that one is in control of one’s life and
environment rather than subject to the whims of circumstance.

Auerbach, Stephen M. “Assumptions of Crisis Theory and Temporal Model
of Crisis Intervention.” In Crisis Intervention with Children and Families, ed-
ited by Stephen M. Auerbach and Arnold L. Stolberg. Washington, D.C.:
Hemisphere, 1986. This chapter examines some basic issues pertaining
825
Psychology Basics
to psychological responses to extremely stressful events, including the

role of the passage of time, individual differences, and previous success in
dealing with stressful events. Crisis intervention and other stress-manage-
ment programs are also reviewed.
__________. “Temporal Factors in Stress and Coping: Intervention Implica-
tions.” In Personal Coping: Theory, Research, and Application, edited by B. N.
Carpenter. Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 1992. Focuses on how behavioral
and psychological stress responses differ depending on whether the
stressor is anticipated, is currently ongoing, or has already occurred. The
types of coping strategies that are likely to be most effective for each kind
of stressor are described, and many examples are given.
Davis, Martha, Elizabeth Eshelman, and Matthew McKay. The Relaxation and
Stress Reduction Workbook. 5th ed. Oakland, Calif.: New Harbinger, 2000.
An overview of techniques used to reduce stress. Sections include body
awareness, progressive relaxation, visualization, biofeedback, coping skills
training, job stress management, and assertiveness training.
Janis, Irving Lester. Stress and Frustration. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovano-
vich, 1971. Describes some of Janis’s early investigations evaluating rela-
tionships between stress and behavior. The focus is on his pioneering
study evaluating the relationship between preoperative stress levels in
surgical patients and their ability to adapt to the rigors of the postopera-
tive convalescent period.
Lazarus, Richard S. “From Psychological Stress to the Emotions: A History
of Changing Outlooks.” Annual Review of Psychology 44 (1993): 1-21. Dis-
cusses the history of the study and treatment of stress. Discusses his recent
research that has involved the cognitive-mediational approach to the ap-
praisal and coping processes that cause stress.
Miller, Todd, et al. “A Meta-analytic Review of Research on Hostility and
Physical Health.” Psychological Bulletin 119, no. 2 (1996): 322-348. Reviews
more than sixty studies on hostility and health to show that cynical people
have shorter life spans. In addition, those who display signs of anger are
at increased risk for heart disease.
Pennebaker, James W. Opening Up: The Healing Power of Expressing Emotions.
Rev. ed. New York: Guilford Press, 1997. Presents evidence that personal
self-disclosure not only benefits emotional health but also boosts physical
health. Explains how writing about problems can improve one’s physical
and psychological health.
Rodin, Judith, and Christine Timko. “Control, Aging and Health.” In Aging,
Health, and Behavior, edited by Marcia Ory, Ronald Abeles, and Paula
Lipman. Newbury Park, Calif.: Sage, 1992. Reviews research on the rela-
tionship among stress and health.
Russell, James A., and Lisa F. Barrett. “Core Affect, Prototypical Emotional
Episodes, and Other Things Called Emotion: Dissecting the Elephant.”
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 76 (1999): 805-819. This article
discusses the validation of the circumplex model of emotion.
826
Silver, R. L., and C. Wortman. “Coping with Undesirable Life Events.” In Hu-
man Helplessness, edited by Judy Garber and Martin E. P. Seligman. New
York: Academic Press, 1980. The authors examine the behavioral conse-
quences of encountering and adjusting to cataclysmic stressful events
such as a disabling accident, a serious illness, or the death of a loved one.
They review different theoretical formulations of reactions to stressful
events and examine whether people’s actual emotional and behavioral
reactions are consistent with theories. They emphasize social support, the
ability to find meaning in the outcome of the event, and experience with
other stressors as important factors that determine how well people ad-
just.
Stephen M. Auerbach; updated by Todd Miller
See also: Stress-Related Diseases.
827
Stress
Physiological Responses
Fields of study: Biology of stress; critical issues in stress; stress and illness
The human body contains a number of regulatory mechanisms that allow it to adapt
to changing conditions. Stressful events produce characteristic physiological changes
that are meant to enhance the likelihood of survival. Because these changes sometimes
present a threat to health rather than serving a protective function, researchers seek to
determine relationships among stressors, their physiological effects, and subsequent
health.
Key concepts
• fight-or-flight response
• general adaptation syndrome
• homeostasis
• parasympathetic nervous system
• stress response
• stressor
• sympathetic nervous system
Although the term “stress” is commonly used (if not overused) to refer to
various responses to events that individuals find taxing, the concept in-
volves much more. For centuries, scientific thinkers and philosophers have
been interested in learning about the interactions among the environment
(stressful events), the emotions, and the body. Much is now known about
this interaction, although there is still more left to discover. In the late twen-
tieth century, particularly, much has been learned about how stressful
events affect the activity of the body (or physiology). For example, it has
been established that these physiological responses to stressors sometimes
increase one’s vulnerability to a number of diseases. In order to understand
the body’s response to stressful events (or stressors), the general sequence
of events and the specific responses of various organ systems must be consid-
ered.
Almost all bodily responses are mediated, at least partially, by the central
nervous system: the brain and spinal cord. The brain takes in and analyzes
information from the external environment as well as from the internal en-
vironment (the rest of the body), and it regulates the body’s activities to opti-
mize adaptation or survival. When the brain detects a threat, a sequence of
events occurs to prepare the body to fight or to flee the threat. Walter B.
Cannon, in the early twentieth century, was the first to describe this “fight-
or-flight” response It is characterized by generalized physiological activa-
tion. Heart rate, blood pressure, and respiration increase to enhance the
828
Stress: Physiological Responses
amount of oxygen available to the tissues. The distribution of blood flow

changes to optimize efficiency of the tissues most needed to fight or flee:
Blood flow to the muscles, brain, and skin increases, while it decreases in the
stomach and other organs less important for immediate survival. Increased
sweating and muscle tension help regulate the body’s temperature and en-
hance movement if action is needed. Levels of blood glucose and insulin in-
crease to provide added energy sources, and immune function is depressed.
Brain activity increases, resulting in enhanced sensitivity to incoming infor-
mation and faster reactions to this information.
Taken together, these physiological changes serve to protect the organ-
ism and to prepare it to take action to survive threat. They occur quite rap-
idly and are controlled by the brain through a series of neurological and
hormonal events. When the brain detects a threat (or stressor), it sends its
activating message to the rest of the body through two primary channels, the
sympathetic nervous system (SNS) and the pituitary-adrenal axis. The SNS
is a branch of the nervous system that has multiple, diffuse neural connec-
tions to the rest of the body. It relays activating messages to the heart, liver,
muscles, and other organs that produce the physiological changes already
described. The sympathetic nervous system also stimulates the adrenal
gland to secrete two hormones, epinephrine and norepinephrine (formerly
called adrenaline and noradrenaline), into the bloodstream. Epinephrine
and norepinephrine further activate the heart, blood vessels, lungs, sweat
glands, and other tissues.
Also, the brain sends an activating message through its hypothalamus to
the pituitary gland, at the base of the brain. This message causes the pitu-
itary to release hormones into the bloodstream that circulate to the periph-
eral tissues and activate them. The primary “stress” hormone that the pitu-
itary gland releases is adrenocorticotropic hormone (ACTH), which in turn
acts upon the adrenal gland to cause the release of the hormone cortisol.
The actions of cortisol on other organs cause increases in blood glucose and
insulin, among many other reactions.
In addition to isolating primary stress mechanisms, research has demon-
strated that the body secretes naturally occurring opiates—endorphins and
enkephalins—in response to stress. Receptors for these opiates are found
throughout the body and brain. Although their function is not entirely
clear, some research suggests that they serve to buffer the effects of stressful
events by counteracting the effects of the SNS and stress hormones.
General Adaptation Syndrome

One can see that the human body contains a very sophisticated series of
mechanisms that have evolved to enhance survival. When stressors and the
subsequent physiological changes that are adaptive in the short run are
chronic, however, they may produce long-term health risks. This idea was
first discussed in detail in the mid-twentieth century by physiologist Hans
Selye, who coined the term “general adaptation syndrome” to describe the
829
Psychology Basics
body’s physiological responses to stressors and the mechanisms by which

these responses might result in disease.
Selye’s general adaptation syndrome involves three stages of physiologi-
cal response: alarm, resistance, and exhaustion. During the alarm stage, the
organism detects a stressor and responds with SNS and hormonal activation.
The second stage, resistance, is characterized by the body’s efforts to neu-
tralize the effects of the stressor. Such attempts are meant to return the body
to a state of homeostasis, or balance. (The concept of homeostasis, or the
tendency of the body to seek to achieve an optimal, adaptive level of activity,
was developed earlier by Walter Cannon.) Finally, if the resistance stage is
prolonged, exhaustion occurs, which can result in illness. Selye referred to
such illnesses as diseases of adaptation. In this category of diseases, he in-
cluded hypertension, cardiovascular disease, kidney disease, peptic ulcer,
hyperthyroidism, and asthma.
Selye’s general adaptation syndrome has received considerable attention
as a useful framework within which to study the effects of stressors on health,
but there are several problems with his theory. First, it assumes that all stress-
ors produce characteristic, widespread physiological changes that differ
only in intensity and duration. There is compelling evidence, however, that
different types of stressors can produce very different patterns of neural and
hormonal responses. For example, some stressors produce increases in
heart rate, while others can actually cause heart rate deceleration. Thus,
Selye’s assumption of a nonspecific stress response must be questioned.
Also, Selye’s theory does not take into account individual differences in
the pattern of response to threat. Research during the later twentieth cen-
tury demonstrated that there is considerable variability across individuals in
their physiological responses to identical stressors. Such differences may re-
sult from genetic or environmental influences. For example, some studies
have demonstrated that normotensive offspring of hypertensive parents are
more cardiovascularly responsive to brief stressors than individuals with
normotensive parents. Although one might conclude that the genes respon-
sible for hypertension have been passed on from the hypertensive parents,
these children might also have different socialization or learning histories
that contribute to their exaggerated cardiovascular reactivity to stressors.
Whatever the mechanism, this research highlights the point that individuals
vary in the degree to which they respond to stress and in the degree to which
any one organ system responds.
Stress and Illness

Coinciding with the scientific community’s growing acknowledgment that
stressful events have direct physiological effects, much interest has devel-
oped in understanding the relations between these events and the develop-
ment or maintenance of specific diseases. Probably the greatest amount of
research has focused on the link between stress and heart disease, the pri-
mary cause of death in the United States. Much empirical work also has fo-
830
cused on gastrointestinal disorders, diabetes, and pain (for example, head-

ache and arthritis). Researchers are beginning to understand the links
between stress and immune function. Such work has implications for the
study of infectious disease (such as flu and mononucleosis), cancer, and ac-
quired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS).
Several types of research paradigms have been employed to study the ef-
fects of stressors on health and illness. Longitudinal studies have identified a
number of environmental stressors that contribute to the development or
exacerbation of disease. For example, one study of more than four thousand
residents of Alameda County, California, spanning two decades, showed
that a number of environmental stressors such as social isolation were signif-
icant predictors of mortality from all causes. Other longitudinal investiga-
tions have linked stressful contexts such as loud noise, crowding, and low so-
cioeconomic status with the onset or exacerbation of disease.
A major drawback of such longitudinal research is that no clear conclu-
sions can be made about the exact mechanism or mechanisms by which the
stressor had its impact on health. Although it is possible, in the Alameda
County study, that the relationship between social isolation and disease was
mediated by the SNS/hormonal mechanisms already discussed, individuals
who are isolated also may be less likely to engage in behaviors such as eating
healthy diets, exercising, and maintaining preventive health care. Thus,
other research paradigms have been used to try to clarify the causal mecha-
nisms by which stressors may influence particular diseases. For example, lab-
oratory stress procedures are used by many scientists to investigate the influ-
ence of brief, standardized stressors on physiology. This type of research has
the advantage of being more easily controlled. That is, the researcher can
manipulate one or a small number of variables (for example, noise) in the
laboratory and measure the physiological effects. These effects are then
thought to mimic the physiological effects of such a variable in the natural
environment.
This research primarily is conducted to ask basic questions about the rela-
tions between stressors, physiology, and subsequent health. The findings
also have implications, however, for prevention and intervention. If a partic-
ular stressor is identified that increases risk of a particular disease, preven-
tion efforts could be developed to target the populations exposed to this
stressor. Prevention strategies might involve modifying the stressor, teaching
people ways to manage more effectively their responses to it, or both.
During the last two or three decades of teh twentieth century, applied re-
searchers attempted to develop intervention strategies aimed at controlling
the body’s physiological responses to stress. This work has suggested that a
number of stress management strategies can actually attenuate physiologi-
cal responsivity. Most strategies teach the individual some form of relaxation
(such as deep muscle relaxation, biofeedback, hypnosis, or meditation),
and most of this work has focused on populations already diagnosed with a
stress-related disease, such as hypertension, diabetes, or ulcer. The tech-
831
Psychology Basics
In biofeedback therapy,
patients monitor their own
physiological responses, such
as blood pressure or heart rate.
niques are thought to produce their effects by two possible mechanisms:

lowering basal physiological activation (or changing the level at which ho-
meostasis is achieved) or providing a strategy for more effectively respond-
ing to acute stressors to attenuate their physiological effects. Research has
not proceeded far enough to make any statements about the relative impor-
tance of these mechanisms. Indeed, it is not clear whether either mecha-
nism is active in many of the successful intervention studies. While research
does indicate that relaxation strategies often improve symptoms of stress-
related illnesses, the causal mechanisms of such techniques remain to be
clarified.
The Mind-Body Connection

The notion that the mind and body are connected has been considered
since the time of ancient Greece. Hippocrates described four bodily humors
(fluids) that he associated with differing behavioral and psychological char-
acteristics. Thus, the road was paved for scientific thinkers to consider the
interrelations among environment, psychological state, and physiological
state (that is, health and illness). Such considerations developed most rap-
idly in the twentieth century, when advancements in scientific methodology
permitted a more rigorous examination of the relationships among these
variables.
In the early twentieth century, as noted already, Cannon was the first to
document and discuss the “fight or flight response” to threatening events.
He also reasoned that the response was adaptive, unless prolonged or re-
peated. In the 1940’s, two physicians published observations consistent with
Cannon’s of an ulcer patient who had a gastric fistula, enabling the doctors
to observe directly the contents of the stomach. They reported that stomach
acids and bleeding increased when the patient was anxious or angry, thus
832
documenting the relations between stress, emotion, and physiology. Shortly

after this work was published, Selye began reporting his experiments on the
effects of cold and fatigue on the physiology of rats. These physical stressors
produced enlarged adrenal glands, small thymus and lymph glands (in-
volved in immune system functioning), and increased ulcer formation.
Psychiatrists took this information, along with the writings of Sigmund
Freud, to mean that certain disease states might be associated with particu-
lar personality types. Efforts to demonstrate the relationship between spe-
cific personality types and physical disease endpoints culminated in the de-
velopment of a field known as psychosomatic medicine. Research, however,
does not support the basic tenet of this field, that a given disease is linked
with specific personality traits. Thus, psychosomatic medicine has not re-
ceived much support from the scientific community. The work of clinicians
and researchers in psychosomatic medicine paved the way for late twentieth
century conceptualizations of the relations between stress and physiology.
Most important, biopsychosocial models that view the individual’s health
status in the context of the interaction between his or her biological vulnera-
bility, psychological characteristics, and socio-occupational environment
have been developed for a number of physical diseases.
Future research into individual differences in stress responses will further
clarify the mechanisms by which stress exerts its effects on physiology. Once
these mechanisms are identified, intervention strategies for use with pa-
tients or for prevention programs for at-risk individuals can be identified
and implemented. Clarification of the role of the endogenous opiates in the
stress response, for example, represents an important dimension in devel-
oping new strategies to enhance individual coping with stressors. Further in-
vestigation of the influence of stressors on immune function should open
new doors for prevention and intervention, as well.
Much remains to be learned about why individuals differ in their re-
sponses to stress. Research in this area will seek to determine the influence
of genes, environment, and behavior on the individual, elucidating the im-
portant differences between stress-tolerant and stress-intolerant individuals.
Such work will provide a better understanding of the basic mechanisms by
which stressors have their effects and should lead to exciting new preven-
tion and intervention strategies that will enhance health and improve the
quality of life.

Craig, Kenneth D., and Stephen M. Weiss, eds. Health Enhancement, Disease
Prevention, and Early Intervention: Biobehavioral Perspectives. New York:
Springer, 1990. Includes, among other chapters of interest, an excellent
chapter by Neal Miller (the “father of biofeedback”) on how the brain af-
fects the health of the body.
Feist, Jess, and Linda Brannon. Health Psychology: An Introduction to Behavior
and Health. 5th ed. Belmont, Calif.: Thomson/Wadsworth, 2004. Written
833
Psychology Basics
for undergraduate students. A very readable overview of the field of

health psychology. Provides the reader with chapters on stress and health,
and various stress-related diseases.
Fuller, M. G., and V. L. Goetsch. “Stress and Stress Management.” In Behavior
and Medicine, edited by Danny Wedding. 3d ed. Seattle: Hogrefe & Huber,
2001. Provides an overview of the field, focusing particularly on the physi-
ological response to stress.
Jacobson, Edmund. You Must Relax. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1934. A rare
classic which may be available in the special collections section of the li-
brary. Jacobson is considered the father of modern relaxation training.
This book is worth seeking for the pictures of Jacobson’s patients after
undergoing his relaxation procedure as well as for Jacobson’s thoughtful
insights.
Ornstein, Robert, and D. S. Sobel. “The Brain as a Health Maintenance Or-
ganization.” In The Healing Brain: A Scientific Reader, edited by Robert
Ornstein and Charles Swencionis. New York: Guilford Press, 1990. Dis-
cusses the body’s responses to stressors from an evolutionary perspective.
Selye, Hans. The Stress of Life. 2d ed. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1978. First pub-
lished in 1956. A thoroughly readable account of Selye’s work and think-
ing about stress and health. Available at most bookstores, a must for those
interested in learning more about stress.
Virginia L. Goetsch and Kevin T. Larkin
See also: Emotions; Endocrine System; Nervous System; Psychosomatic

Disorders; Stress: Behavioral and Psychological Responses; Stress-Related
Diseases.
834
Stress-Related Diseases
Field of study: Stress and illness
As a person undergoes stress, physical responses occur that have been associated with a
host of physical diseases. Understanding the stress-disease relationship, including how
to control and lower stress levels, is important in maintaining a healthy life.
Key concepts
• biofeedback
• endorphin
• general adaptation syndrome
• psychoneuroimmunology
• relaxation response
• stressor
• Type A personality
• Type B personality
The term “stress,” as it is used in the field of psychology, may be defined as

the physical or psychological disturbance an individual experiences as a re-
sult of what he or she perceives to be an adverse or challenging circum-
stance. Four observations concerning this definition of stress should be
made. First, stress is what the individual experiences, not the circumstance
causing the stress (the stressor). Second, individuals differ in what they per-
ceive to be stressful. What may be very stressful for one may not be at all
stressful for another. Hans Selye, the researcher who did more than anyone
else to make the medical community and the general public aware of the
concept and consequences of stress, once noted that, for him, spending the
day on the beach doing nothing would be extremely stressful. This differ-
ence in people’s perceptions is behind the familiar concept that events do
not cause stress. Instead, stress comes from one’s perception or interpreta-
tion of events.
Third, stress occurs in response to circumstances that are seen as negative,
but stress may also arise from challenging circumstances, even positive ones.
The well-known Social Readjustment Rating Scale developed by Thomas
Holmes and Richard Rahe includes both positive and negative life events. A
negative event, such as the death of a spouse, is clearly stressful; however,
marriage, generally viewed as a positive life event, can also be stressful.
Fourth, stressors can lead to stress-related disturbances that are psycho-
logical, physiological, or both. The psychological response is rather un-
predictable. A given stressor may result in one individual responding with
anger, another with depression, and another with a new determination to
succeed.
835
Psychology Basics
General Adaptation Syndrome

The physiological response is more predictable. Beginning in the 1930’s,
Selye began studying the human response to stressors. Eventually he identi-
fied what he termed the general adaptation syndrome (GAS) to describe the
typical pattern of physical responses. Selye divided the GAS into three
stages: alarm, resistance, and exhaustion.
The first stage begins when an individual becomes frightened, anxious,
or even merely concerned. The body immediately undergoes numerous
physical changes to cope with the stressor. Metabolism speeds up. Heart and
respiration rates increase. The hormones epinephrine, norepinephrine,
and cortisol are secreted. Sugar is released from the liver. The muscles tense.
Blood shifts from the internal organs to the skeletal musculature. These and
a host of other changes are aimed at helping the body cope, but the price
paid for this heightened state of arousal typically includes symptoms such as
headache, upset stomach, sleeplessness, fatigue, diarrhea, and loss of appe-
tite. The body’s increase in alertness and energy is accompanied by a low-
ered state of resistance to illness.
Obviously, people cannot remain in the alarm stage for long. If the
stressor is not removed, the body enters the resistance stage—a stage which
may last from minutes to days or longer. During this stage, the body seeks to
adapt to the stressor. The physical changes that occurred during the alarm
stage subside. Resistance to illness is actually increased to above-normal lev-
els. Because the body is still experiencing stress, however, remaining in this
stage for a long period will eventually lead to physical and psychological ex-
haustion—the exhaustion stage.
Selye has noted that over the course of life, most people go through the
first two stages many, many times. Such is necessary to adapt to the demands
and challenges of life. The real danger is found in not eliminating the
stressor. During the exhaustion stage, the body is very vulnerable to disease
and in extreme cases may suffer collapse or death. Although newer research
has found subtle differences in the stress response, depending on the
stressor involved, the basic findings of Selye have continued to be sup-
ported. In addition to the direct physiological effects of stress on the body,
indirect effects may also lead to illness. For example, stress may cause or
exacerbate behavioral risk factors such as smoking, alcohol use, and over-
eating.
Heart Disease and Immune Effects

Specific illnesses can also be caused or exacerbated by stress. For many years
Americans have been aware of the relationship between stress and heart dis-
ease. The biochemical changes associated with stress lead to higher blood
pressure, an increased heart rate, and a release of fat into the bloodstream.
If the fat is completely consumed by the muscles through physical activity
(for example, defending oneself from an attacker), no serious health conse-
quences follow. If, however, a person experiences stress without engaging in
836
physical activity (a more common scenario in Western culture), the fat is

simply deposited on the walls of the blood vessels. As these fatty deposits ac-
cumulate, life is threatened.
The work of two cardiologists, Meyer Friedman and Ray Rosenman, is of
particular importance to a discussion of heart disease and stress. Friedman
and Rosenman demonstrated, based originally on personal observation and
subsequently on clinical research, that there is a personality type that is par-
ticularly prone to heart disease. The personality type that is at the greatest
risk was found to be one which is highly stressed—impatient, hostile, hard-
driving, and competitive. They termed this a Type A personality. The low-
risk person, the Type B personality, is more patient, easygoing, and relaxed.
Numerous studies have examined health based on the Type A-Type B
concept. Virtually all have supported Friedman and Rosenman’s conclu-
sions. One major report, however, did not; subsequent analysis of that re-
port and other research generally has indicated that the aspects of the Type
A personality which are threatening to one’s health are primarily the hostil-
ity, cynicism, and impatience, not the desire to achieve.
A newer area of research that is even more fundamental to understand-
ing how stress is related to disease involves the immune system. As the physi-
ological changes associated with stress occur, the immune system is sup-
pressed. The immune system has two primary functions: to identify and
destroy hazardous foreign materials called antigens (these include bacteria,
viruses, parasites, and fungi) and to identify and destroy the body’s own cells
Physiological changes
produced by exposure to
chronic stress can contribute
to conditions such as high
blood pressure, peptic ulcers,
and cardiovascular disease.
(Digital Stock)
837
Psychology Basics
that have undergone changes associated with malignancy. Thus, if the im-
mune system is suppressed, the body is less able to detect and defend against
a host of diseases. An example of this effect again involves research with lab-
oratory rats. One such investigation involved placing tumor cells in the bod-
ies of rats. Some of the rats were then exposed to an abundance of stress.
Those that were given this treatment were less resistant to the cancer. Their
tumors were larger, and they developed sooner than those found in the
“low-stress” rats.
The recent growth of the field of psychoneuroimmunology focuses spe-
cifically on the chemical bases of communication between mind and body.
Research in this area provides evidence that the body’s immune system can
be influenced by psychological factors which produce stress. One study, for
example, showed that during students’ examination periods, the levels of
students’ antibodies that fight infections were lowest. Thus they were most
vulnerable to illness at that most stressful time. Health centers confirm that
students tend to report more illness during examination times.
As research continues, the number of specific diseases that can be linked
to stress grows. Stress-related diseases and disorders for which recent re-
search is available include acne, asthma, cancers (many types), colds, coro-
nary thrombosis, diabetes mellitus, gastric ulcers, herpes simplex (types 1
and 2), human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection, hyperlipidemia,
hypertension, infertility, irritable bowel syndrome, migraine headache, mono-
nucleosis syndrome, rheumatoid arthritis, streptococcal infection, stroke,
systemic lupus erythematosus, and tuberculosis.
Research has shown that stress may also play a role in depression, sleep
disturbances, ovulation, and brain atrophy associated with Alzheimer’s dis-
ease. Stress as a cause of stomach ulcers has been essentially negated, with
the discovery that these ulcers are generally caused by the bacterium
Helicobacter pylori, which can be treated with antibiotics. However, stress may
still play a role in decreasing the mucous lining of the stomach, which makes
it more vulnerable to ulcer formation. Some experts feel that there is no ill-
ness that is not in some way influenced by stress.
It should be emphasized that few, if any, of these physical problems are
caused solely by stress. Many other factors influence risk, including genetic
composition, gender, race, environmental conditions, nutritional state, and
so forth. Nevertheless, stress is frequently an important factor in determin-
ing initial resistance as well as the subsequent course of a given disease.
Stress Reduction and Coping

Why is it that some individuals who appear to live with many stressors gener-
ally avoid physical and psychological illness? This question is important be-
cause the answer can provide insight as to what the average person can and
should do to lower stress levels. Dispositional factors (optimistic versus pessi-
mistic, easygoing versus hard-driving, friendly versus hostile) are probably
most important in determining one’s stress level. The Type A-Type B re-
838
search noted above is an example of research demonstrating the influence

of dispositional factors.
Research with twins has found that temperament is largely inborn; how-
ever, any individual can choose to be more optimistic, generous, and pa-
tient. Norman Cousins is often cited as an example of a person who decided
to change his outlook and mental state in order to preserve his life. He had
read Selye’s The Stress of Life (1956), which describes how negative emotions
can cause physical stress and subsequent disease. Cousins, who had a rare
and painful illness from which he was told he would likely never recover, de-
cided that if negative emotions could harm one’s health, then positive emo-
tions could possibly return one’s health.
As Cousins describes his experience in Anatomy of an Illness as Perceived by
the Patient (1979), he left his hospital room for a more pleasant environ-
ment, began taking massive doses of vitamin C instead of massive doses of
drugs, and decided to stop worrying. To the surprise of his medical team, his
recovery began at once. Though this now-classic example is merely anec-
dotal, the research on disposition and stress would support the assumption
that Cousins’s decision to change his mental state and stop worrying—not
his avoidance of traditional medical care—was a truly important influence.
A related area of research has investigated how psychological hardiness
helps people resist stress. Studies by Suzanne Kobasa and her colleagues ex-
amined business executives who all had an obvious abundance of stressors
in their lives. In comparing those hardy individuals who handled the stress-
ors well with the nonhardy individuals, the researchers found that the two
groups differed in three important but basic ways.
The first was commitment. Stress-resistant executives typically possessed a
clear sense of values. They had clear goals and a commitment to those goals.
Less hardy executives were more likely to feel alienation. The second was
challenge. The hardy executives welcomed challenges and viewed change
rather than stability as the norm in life. Their less healthy counterparts
viewed change with alarm. The third factor was control. The hardy execu-
tives felt more in control of their lives. This aspect of Kobasa’s research over-
laps with research conducted since the 1960’s involving a concept known as
the “locus of control.” People with an internal locus of control are those in-
dividuals who believe they are influential rather than powerless in control-
ling the direction of their lives. This area of research has also found that
such a belief lowers stress.
Many years ago it was estimated that more than a thousand studies had
been completed that examined the relationship between physical fitness
and mental health. What has emerged from this heavily researched area is a
clear conclusion: Exercise can lower stress levels. Though regular, sustained
aerobic exercise is generally advocated, research has found that even some-
thing as simple as a daily ten-minute walk can have measurable beneficial ef-
fects. During exercise, there is a release of chemical substances, including
neurotransmitters called endorphins. Endorphins act to decrease pain and
839
Psychology Basics
produce feelings of well-being, somewhat like an opiate. Exposure to stress

has been shown to increase the level of endorphins in the body. For exam-
ple, studies were conducted with runners, one group using naloxone, a sub-
stance which blocks effects of opiates, and the other group a placebo which
had no effect on the body. After strenuous runs, those taking the placebo re-
ported feelings of euphoria, sometimes known as “runners’ high.” Those
taking naloxone reported no such feelings. Other chemicals are released
during exercise as well and include dopamine, which is thought to act as an
antidepressant. Thus there is abundant evidence of the stress-reducing ben-
efits of exercise.
Another approach to reducing stress involves learning to evoke a physical
“relaxation response,” a term coined by Harvard Medical School cardiolo-
gist Herbert Benson. Benson became intrigued by the ability of some people
who practice meditation to lower their blood pressure, heart rate, and oxy-
gen consumption voluntarily. He discovered that the process is not at all
mystical and can be easily taught. The process involves getting comfortable,
closing the eyes, breathing deeply, relaxing muscles, and relaxing one’s
mind by focusing on a simple word or phrase.
Others are helped by using an electronic device which closely monitors
subtle physiological changes. By observing these changes (typically on a
monitor), a person can, for example, learn to slow down a heart rate. This is
known as biofeedback training. Many other techniques and suggestions aris-
ing from research as well as common sense can lower stress. A strong social
support system has been found to be very important; disciplining oneself
not to violate one’s own value system is essential. Even having a pet that
needs love and attention has been found to lower stress.
Research and the Future

A general recognition that a relationship exists between mind and body is at
least as old as the biblical Old Testament writings. In the book of Proverbs,
for example, one reads, “A cheerful heart is good medicine,/ but a crushed
spirit dries up the bones” (Proverbs 17:22). Hippocrates (460-377 b.c.e.),
generally considered the “father of medicine,” sought to understand how
the body could heal itself and what factors could slow or prevent this pro-
cess. He clearly perceived a relationship between physical health and what is
now termed “stress,” though his understanding was shallow.
Several physiologists of the nineteenth century made contributions; how-
ever, it was not until the twentieth century that the classic studies of Ameri-
can physiologist Walter B. Cannon proved the link scientifically. Cannon
and his student Phillip Bard began their analysis of stress and physiological
arousal to disprove the idea espoused by others, that emotion follows physio-
logical arousal.
Cannon found a variety of stressors that led to the release of the hor-
mones adrenaline and noradrenaline (or, properly now, epinephrine and
norepinephrine). Heat, cold, oxygen deprivation, and fright all led to hor-
840
monal changes as well as a number of additional physiological adaptations.

Cannon was excited about this discovery and impressed with the body’s re-
markable ability to react to stressors. All these changes were aimed at pre-
paring the body for what Cannon termed the “fight-or-flight” response. It
was Selye’s task to build on Cannon’s work. His description of the reaction
subsequently termed the general adaptation syndrome first appeared in a
scientific journal in 1936. As knowledge of the stress concept began to
spread, interest by the public as well as the research community increased.
Literally tens of thousands of stress research studies conducted through-
out the world were completed during the last half of the twentieth century.
Of particular importance was the discovery by three American scientists that
the brain produces morphinelike antistress substances. The discovery of
these substances, named endorphins, won a 1977 Nobel Prize for the scien-
tists involved and opened a whole new area of research.
Research has shown that the brain itself produces neuropeptides, or
brain message transmitters, which may also be produced by macrophages—
white blood cells that attack viruses and bacteria. Because some forms of
stress-reduction, such as relaxation, also seem to result in production of
neuropeptides, if the brain could be caused to produce more of these sub-
stances, the immune system could be strengthened. The hope remains that
someday an endorphin-type drug could be used to counter some of the un-
healthy effects of stress, ensuring better health and longer lives. Better
health and longer lives are available even today, however, for all people who
are willing to make lifestyle changes based on current knowledge.
Bibliography
Benson, Herbert, and Eileen Stuart. The Wellness Book. New York: Simon &
Schuster, 1992. Written by a physician and author of The Relaxation Re-
sponse, a nurse, and associates of the Mind/Body Medical Institute of the
New England Deaconess Hospital and Harvard Medical School, this is a
self-help book on stress-related illness, very informative about mind-body
interactions and the role of stress in illness.
Brown, Barbara B. Between Health and Illness. Boston: Houghton Mifflin,
1984. One of many books available for the nonprofessional who simply
wants an overview of stress and its consequences. This easy-to-read book is
full of accurate information and practical suggestions.
Greenberg, Jerrold S. Comprehensive Stress Management. 6th ed. New York:
WCB/McGraw-Hill, 1999. This is an excellent source which includes nu-
merous self-tests, explains the scientific foundations of stress, and offers
methods and techniques used to reduce stress in a variety of life situa-
tions. Written in an introductory yet comprehensive textbook format,
this book is informative and easy to read.
Leonard, Brian, and Klara Miller, eds. Stress, the Immune System, and Psychia-
try. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1995. This book contains difficult read-
ing, with detailed studies from the field of psychoneuroimmunology. The
841
Psychology Basics
focus is on the immune system as related to various aspects of stress, in-

cluding discussions of depressive illness, schizophrenia, multiple sclero-
sis, and food allergies.
Managing Stress: From Morning to Evening. Alexandria, Va.: Time-Life Books,
1987. A good introduction to understanding and managing stress.
Written in clear, simple language and widely available, it provides an
overview of the sources of stress, the physiological changes associated
with stress, the effects of stress on the immune system, a way to assess
one’s own stress level, and suggestions for numerous approaches to man-
aging stress. Full of illustrations and photographs. A weakness is that the
book fails to address adequately the importance of dispositional factors,
focusing too heavily on some stress-reduction techniques that few are
likely to use.
Pelletier, Kenneth R. Mind as Healer, Mind as Slayer. New York: Dell Books,
1977. This well-known work examines how stress contributes to heart dis-
ease, cancer, arthritis, migraine, and respiratory disease. Sources of
stress, evaluation of personal stress levels, profiles of unhealthy personal-
ity traits, and means of preventing stress-related diseases are addressed.
Selye, Hans. The Stress of Life. Rev. ed. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1976. Ori-
ginally published in 1956, this is the most influential book ever written
about stress. It focuses on the relationship between a stressful life and
subsequent illness, but it is very technical. Those wanting a less difficult
introduction to Selye’s writings and work should read his Stress Without
Distress.
Wedding, Danny, ed. Behavior and Medicine. 3d ed. Seattle: Hogrefe & Huber,
2001. This is a large volume which covers an extensive area of behavior
and medicine, with a strong focus on stress, although it covers much addi-
tional territory. In addition to stress-related issues, including substance
abuse, stress management, pain, placebos, AIDS, cardiovascular risk, and
adherence to medical regimens, sections include assessment of patients,
foundations of behavioral science, love and work, and developmental is-
sues from infancy to death, dying and grief. The style is quite readable
and combines illustrations, relevant poetry, bibliographies, summaries,
and study questions at the end of each article.
Timothy S. Rampey; updated by Martha Oehmke Loustaunau
See also: Endocrine System; Nervous System; Stress: Behavioral and Psy-
chological Responses; Stress: Physiological Responses.
842
Structuralism and Functionalism
Date: 1879-1913
Fields of study: General constructs and issues; thought
Structualism and functionalism represent early schools of thought in psychology.

While the structuralists were devoted to discovering the elements of consciousness, the
functionalists believed that psychology should focus on understanding how conscious-
ness is useful or functional.
Key concepts
• applied psychology
• evolution
• imageless thought
• introspection
• stimulus error
• stream of consciousness
• voluntarism
Structuralism and functionalism were two of the earliest schools of thought

in psychology. To understand these early perspectives, it is important to con-
sider the sociohistorical context in which they developed. Psychology as an
independent scientific discipline was founded in 1879 by German scholar
Wilhelm Wundt (1832-1920) at the University of Leipzig. Wundt was a medi-
cally trained physiologist appointed to the department of philosophy at
Leipzig. In 1879, he established the first-ever laboratory devoted solely to
the experimental study of psychological issues. The German Zeitgeist was
conducive to this development. For example, the education reform move-
ment encouraged the development of university research and promoted ac-
ademic freedom. Furthermore, German scholars at the time accepted a
broader definition of science compared to their counterparts in many other
European countries.
Wundt defined psychology as the scientific study of conscious experience
and organized it into two broad areas: experimental psychology (the study
of sensation and perception, reaction time, attention, and feelings) and
Völkerpsychologie (cultural psychology, which included the study of language,
myth, and custom). Wundt made an important distinction between immedi-
ate and mediate experiences. Mediate experiences involve an interpreta-
tion of sensory input (“I see an apple”), whereas an immediate experience
consists of pure and unbiased sensory experiences (“I see a roundish, red
object”). Wundt emphasized the process of organizing and synthesizing the
elemental components of consciousness (the immediate experiences) into
higher-level thoughts. Because this process of apperception was considered
to be an act of will or volition, he often referred to his system as voluntarism.
843
Psychology Basics
One of Wundt’s students, Edward Bradford Titchener (1867-1927), an

Englishman who earned his Ph.D. under Wundt in 1892, ascended to prom-
inence by establishing the structural school of thought in psychology as a
professor at Cornell University. Functionalism soon arose as a school of
thought that opposed structuralism.
Titchener, it should be noted, considered structuralism to be a refined
extension of, and largely compatible with, Wundt’s work. Because Titchener
was the main translator of Wundt’s work into English and was widely consid-
ered to be a loyal and accurate representative of Wundt’s system, the term
“structuralism” at the time was used as a label for both Titchener’s and
Wundt’s work. This interpretative error, which is still propagated in some
textbooks, was not fully realized until the mid-1970’s, when scholars started
to examine Wundt’s original work in detail. There are some important dif-
ferences between Titchener’s structuralism and Wundt’s system of volunta-
rism. First, Titchener rejected the idea of a branch of cultural psychology.
Second, structural psychology neglected the study of apperception and fo-
cused almost exclusively on the identification of the elements of conscious-
ness. Finally, in a structuralist framework, the elements of consciousness
themselves were of utmost importance; mediate and immediate experi-
ences were considered the same event, viewed from different vantage
points. There was no need for a volitional process.
Structuralism
For Titchener, psychology was the study of consciousness. Whereas physics
was said to be concerned with assessing environmental events from an objec-
tive, external standard, psychology was concerned with examining how hu-
mans experience such events subjectively. For example, an hour spent lis-
tening to a boring speech and an hour spent playing an enjoyable game last
exactly the same length of time—3,600 seconds—but, psychologically, the
second event goes by more quickly.
In structuralism, consciousness is defined as the sum total of experiences
at any given moment, and the mind is defined as the sum of experiences
over the course of a lifetime. In order to understand consciousness and thus
the mind, psychology, according to structuralism, must be concerned with
three primary questions: First, what are the most basic elements of con-
sciousness? Just as chemists break down physical substances into their ele-
mental components, psychologists should identify the basic components of
consciousness. Second, how are the elements associated with one another?
That is, in what ways do they combine to produce complex experiences?
Third, according to Titchener, what underlying physiological conditions are
associated with the elements? Most of Titchener’s work was devoted to the
first goal of identifying the basic elements of consciousness. The primary
methodology used toward this end was systematic experimental introspec-
tion.
844
Introspection
A primary goal for structuralism was to identify the basic elements of con-
sciousness. Titchener reasoned that any science requires an observation of
its subject matter, and psychology was no different. As detailed in Titch-
ener’s classic work Experimental Psychology: A Manual of Laboratory Practice (4
vols., 1901-1905), introspection involved the systematic analysis and report-
ing of conscious experiences by highly trained researchers. Such individuals
were trained to report on the most basic of sensory experiences and to avoid
the stimulus error of reporting perceptual interpretations. For example, to
report seeing “an apple” or having “a headache” would be a stimulus error.
It would be more accurate, psychologically, to report seeing a “roundish, red
object” or experiencing a “throbbing sensation of moderate intensity in the
lower right part of the head.” This methodology was used by Wundt, but
Wundt emphasized quantitative judgments (such as size, weight, duration,
or intensity), whereas in Titchener’s system, descriptive reports were em-
phasized.
Titchener concluded that there were three basic elements of conscious-
ness: sensations, images, and feelings. Sensations were the most fundamen-
tal and were the building blocks of all perceptions. In his An Outline of Psy-
chology (1896), Titchener listed more than forty-four thousand elementary
sensations, including approximately thirty-two thousand visual, twelve thou-
sand auditory, and four taste sensations. It was held that these indivisible
sensations could be combined in any number of ways to produce unique
perceptions and ideas. Images are the building blocks for ideas and reflect
previous sensory experiences. It is possible to have an image of an apple
only because of past experiences with a particular combination of sensa-
tions. All feelings were viewed as reducible to experiencing a degree of
pleasantness or unpleasantness. (In contrast, Wundt postulated two other
dimensions: strain/relaxation and excitement/calmness.) A feeling, when
combined with certain sensations, can give rise to a complex emotional
state, such as love, joy, disgust, or fear.
Later in his career, Titchener asserted that each element of conscious-
ness could be characterized with regard to five basic dimensions: quality, in-
tensity, protensity (duration), attensity (clearness), and extensity (space).
Quality refers to the differentiation of sensations (an apple may be red or
green; the water may be hot or cold). Intensity refers to the strength or mag-
nitude of the quality (the extent to which the apple is red or the water is
cold). Protensity refers to the duration or length of a sensory experience.
Attensity refers to the clarity or vividness of the experience and reflects the
process of attention (sensations are clearer when they are the focus of atten-
tion). Some sensations, especially visual and tactile ones, can also be charac-
terized in terms of extensity (that is, they take up a certain amount of space).
Feelings were characterized only in terms of quality, intensity, and protensity.
Titchener believed that feelings dissipated when they were the subject of fo-
cused attention and therefore could not be experienced with great clarity.
845
Psychology Basics
Evaluation
Structuralism faded away after Titchener’s death in 1927. However, the ba-
sic tenets of structuralism had been under attack for years. First, there were
serious problems with introspection as a scientific methodology. The results
of such studies were frequently unreliable, and there was no way of objec-
tively verifying the content of someone’s consciousness. The controversy
over imageless thought was important. One group of researchers, most no-
tably a former follower of Wundt, Oswald Külpe (1862-1915), at the Univer-
sity of Würzburg, concluded, using introspection methodology, that some
thoughts occurred in the absence of any mentalistic sensations or images.
This was completely at odds with structuralism, and researchers loyal to the
structuralist position were not able to replicate the findings. On the other
hand, researchers sympathetic to the Würzburg school were able to repli-
cate the findings. Obviously, a theoretical bias was driving the results. It was
widely concluded that introspection was lacking the objectivity needed to
sustain a scientific discipline. Other methodologies were discouraged by
structuralists, in part because of the limited scope of psychology they prac-
ticed. In essence, structural psychology was limited to the study of the ele-
ments of consciousness in the healthy adult human. There was no place for
the use of nonhuman animals as subjects, no child psychology, and no con-
cern with the psychology of physical or mental illness. In addition, Titch-
ener was against applied research, that is, conducting research to help re-
solve practical problems. He felt that this would detract from the objectivity
of the study, and that academic researchers should be devoted to advance-
ment of pure knowledge. Finally, structuralism was criticized for focusing al-
most exclusively on the elements of consciousness without taking into seri-
ous consideration the idea that consciousness is experienced as a unified
whole, and that this whole is different from the sum of the elements.
Today, two major contributions of structuralism are recognized. The first
is the strong emphasis that Titchener and his followers placed on rigorous
laboratory research as the basis for psychology. While other methods are
used by modern psychologists (such as case studies and field research), the
emphasis on experimentation in practice and training remains dominant.
Second, structuralism provided a well-defined school of thought and set of
ideas that others could debate and oppose, with the ultimate result being
the development of new and different schools of thought. The most promi-
nent opposition to structuralism was functionalism.
Functionalism
Unlike structuralism, functionalism was not a formal school of psychologi-
cal thought. Rather, it was a label (originally used by Titchener) applied to a
general set of assumptions regarding the providence of psychology and a
loosely connected set of principles regarding the psychology of conscious-
ness. In many respects, functionalism was defined in terms of its opposition
or contrast to structuralism. For example, functionalists believed that psy-
846
chology should focus on the functions of mental life (in contrast to the
structuralist focus on elemental components); be concerned with using psy-
chology for practical solutions to problems (structuralists were, at best, in-
different to this concern); study not only healthy adult humans (the main
focus of attention of structuralists) but also nonhuman animals, children,
and nonhealthy individuals; employ a wide range of methodologies to in-
vestigate psychological issues (structuralists relied almost totally on intro-
spection); and examine individual differences, rather than being solely
concerned, like the structuralists, with the establishment of universal (no-
mothetic) principles.
While structuralism was imported to the United States by a British scholar
(Titchener) who received his psychological training in Germany (under
Wundt), functionalism had a distinctly American flair. The American Zeit-
geist at the time emphasized pragmatism and individuality. Such qualities
made American psychologists especially receptive to the revolutionary work
of Charles Darwin (1809-1882) on evolution and its subsequent application
(as “social Darwinism”) by anthropologist Herbert Spencer (1820-1903) to
education, business, government, and other social institutions. Other im-
portant developments that influenced functionalism include work by Sir
Francis Galton (1822-1911) on individual differences in mental abilities and
the work on animal psychology by George Romanes (1848-1894) and C.
Lloyd Morgan (1852-1936).
William James
William James (1842-1910) is considered the most important direct precur-
sor of functional psychology in the United States and one of the most emi-
nent psychologists ever to have lived. James earned his M.D. from Harvard
University in 1869 and subsequently became keenly interested in psychol-
ogy. Despite his severe bouts with depression and other ailments, he ac-
cepted a post at Harvard in 1872 to teach physiology. Shortly thereafter, in
1875, James taught the first psychology course offered in the United States,
“The Relations Between Physiology and Psychology,” and initiated a class-
room demonstration laboratory.
James published the two-volume The Principles of Psychology in 1890. This
work was immediately a great success and is now widely regarded as the most
important text in the history of modern psychology. Given the expansive-
ness of Principles—more than thirteen hundred pages arranged in twenty-
eight chapters—it is impossible to summarize fully, but it includes such top-
ics as the scope of psychology, functions of the brain, habit, methods of psy-
chology, memory, the consciousness of self, sensation, perception, reason-
ing, instinct, emotions, will, and hypnotism. In this text James presented
ideas that became central to functionalism. For example, in the chapter
“The Stream of Consciousness,” he criticized the postulate of structural psy-
chology that sensations constitute the simplest mental elements and must
therefore be the major focus of psychological inquiry. In contrast, James ar-
847
Psychology Basics
gued that conscious thought is experienced as a flowing and continuous

stream, not as a collection of frozen elements. In critiquing introspection,
the methodology championed by the structuralists, James asserted,
The rush of the thought is so headlong that it almost always brings us up at the
conclusion before we can arrest it. . . . The attempt at introspective analysis in
these cases is in fact like seizing a spinning top to catch its motion, or trying to
turn up the gas quickly enough to see how darkness looks.
With this new, expansive conceptualization of consciousness, James helped

pave the way for psychologists interested in broadening the scope and meth-
ods of psychology. What was to emerge was the school of functionalism, with
prominent camps at the University of Chicago and Columbia University.
The Chicago School

The Chicago school of functionalism is represented by the works of Ameri-
can scholars John Dewey (1859-1952), James Rowland Angell (1869-1949),
and Harvey A. Carr (1873-1954). Functionalism was launched in 1896 with
Dewy’s Psychological Review article, “The Reflex Arc Concept in Psychology.”
Here Dewey argued against reducing reflexive behaviors to discontinuous
elements of sensory stimuli, neural activity, and motor responses. In the
same way that James attacked elementalism and reductionism in the analysis
of consciousness, Dewey argued that it was inaccurate and artificial to do so
with behavior. Influenced by Darwin’s evolutionary theory of natural selec-
tion, Dewey asserted that reflexes should not be analyzed in terms of their
component parts but rather in terms of how they are functional for the or-
ganism; that is, how they help an organism adapt to the environment.
Angell crystalized the functional school in his 1907 Psychological Review
paper, “The Province of Functional Psychology.” In this work, three charac-
teristics of functionalism were identified: Functional psychology is inter-
ested in discerning and portraying the typical operations of consciousness
under actual life conditions, as opposed to analyzing and describing the ele-
mentary units of consciousness. Functional psychology is concerned with
discovering the basic utilities of consciousness, that is, how mental processes
help organisms adapt their surroundings and survive. Finally, functional
psychology recognizes and insists upon the essential significance of the
mind-body relationship for any just and comprehensive appreciation of
mental life itself.
Carr’s 1925 textbook Psychology: A Study of Mental Activity presents the
most polished version of functionalism. As the title suggests, Carr identified
such processes as memory, perception, feelings, imagination, judgment,
and will as the topics for psychology. Such psychological processes were con-
sidered functional in that they help organisms gain information about the
world, retain and organize that information, and then retrieve the informa-
tion to make judgments about how to react to current situations. In other
848
words, these processes were viewed as useful to organisms as they adapt their
environments.
The Columbia School

Another major camp of functionalism was at Columbia University and in-
cluded such notable psychologists as James McKeen Cattell (1860-1944),
Robert Sessions Woodworth (1869-1962), and Edward Lee Thorndike (1874-
1949).
In line with the functionalist’s embrace of applied psychology and the
study of individual differences, Cattell laid the foundation for the psycho-
logical testing movement that would become massive in the 1920’s and be-
yond. Under the influence of Galton, Cattell stressed the statistical analysis
of large data sets and the measurement of mental abilities. He developed
the order of merit methodology, in which participants rank-order a set of
stimuli (for instance, the relative appeal of pictures or the relative eminence
of a group of scientists) from which average ranks are calculated.
Woodworth is best known for his emphasis on motivation in what he
called dynamic psychology. In this system, Woodworth acknowledged the
importance of considering environmental stimuli and overt responses but
emphasized the necessity of understanding the organism (perceptions,
needs, or desires), representing therefore an early stimulis-organism-
response (S-O-R) approach to psychology.
Thorndike represented a bridge from functionalism to behaviorism, a
new school of thought that was led by John Broadus Watson (1878-1958)
and emerged around 1913. Thorndike was notable for his use of nonhuman
subjects, a position consistent with Darwin’s emphasis on the continuity
among organisms. He is also famous for his puzzle box research with cats,
which led to his Law of Effect, which states that when an association is fol-
lowed by a satisfying state of affairs, that association is strengthened. This
early operant conditioning research was later expanded on by the famous
behaviorist psychologist B. F. Skinner (1904-1990).
Evaluation
Functionalism paved the way for the development of applied psychology, in-
cluding psychological testing, clinical psychology, school psychology, and in-
dustrial and organizational psychology. Functionalism also facilitated the
use of psychological research with a wide variety of subjects beyond the
healthy adult male, including infants, children, the mentally ill, and nonhu-
man animals. Finally, functional psychologists used a wide variety of meth-
ods beyond that of introspection, including field studies, questionnaires,
mental tests, and behavioral observations. These developments were re-
sponsible, in part, for the United States becoming the world center for psy-
chological study by 1920. The term “functional psychology” faded from us-
age as it became clear that, by default, being simply a psychologist in the
United States meant being a functional psychologist. The shift in psycholog-
849
Psychology Basics
ical thought instigated by functionalism set the stage for the next major evo-
lutionary phase in American psychology, behaviorism.

Behnamin, Ludy T., Jr. “The Psychology Laboratory at the Turn of the Twen-
tieth Century.” American Psychologist 55 (2000): 318-321. This is a nontech-
nical and brief introduction to laboratory research in psychology from
1879 to 1900. The author discusses the importance of the laboratory for
establishing psychology as a scientific discipline separate from philoso-
phy.
Boring, E. G. A History of Experimental Psychology. 2d ed. New York: Appleton-
Century-Crofts, 1950. This is the classic text on the history of psychology,
written by one of Edward Titchener’s students. The first edition of 1925 is
also widely available.
Donnelly, M. E. Reinterpreting the Legacy of William James. Washington, D.C.:
American Psychological Association, 1992. This book explores how
James’s masterwork might have been revised in light of his later pluralis-
tic, pragmatic approach to psychology and philosophy. A distinguished
group of psychologists, philosophers, and historians contribute twenty-
three chapters that probe this and other questions in a broad-based col-
lection focused on the relevance of the works of James.
Hergenhahn, B. R. An Introduction to the History of Psychology. 4th ed. Bel-
mont, Calif.: Wadsworth/Thomson Learning, 2001. Another excellent
standard textbook on the history of psychology. Written for college stu-
dents; includes in-depth chapters on structuralism and functionalism.
Leys, R., and R. B. Evans. Defining American Psychology: The Correspondence Be-
tween Adolf Meyer and Edward Bradford Titchener. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins
University Press, 1990. Adolf Meyer was a highly influential psychiatrist
who exchanged a series of letters with Titchener in 1909 and again in
1918. This book represents an interesting firsthand look at how the new
science of psychology was being discussed and situated among other dis-
ciplines.
Shultz, D. P., and S. E. Shultz. A History of Modern Psychology. 7th ed. Fort
Worth, Tex.: Harcourt College, 1999. A clear, well-organized history of
modern psychology, placing schools of thought within their social con-
texts.
Watson, R. I., and R. B. Evans. The Great Psychologists: A History of Psychological
Thought. 5th ed. New York: HarperCollins, 1991. Psychologists and
schools of psychology from ancient Greek times to the present. Chapters
19 and 20 specifically focus on structuralism and functionalism.
Jay W. Jackson
See also: Behaviorism; Madness: Historical Concepts; Psychoanalytic Psy-

chology; Psychology: Definition.
850
Substance Use Disorders
Type of psychology: Biological bases of behavior; motivation;
psychopathology; stress
Fields of study: Biological treatments; coping; critical issues in stress;
motivation theory; nervous system; stress and illness; substance abuse
Substance use disorders include the formal medical diagnoses of substance abuse and
substance dependence for many types of drugs of abuse, including alcohol and pre-
scription drugs. These disorders are characterized by recurrent problems in everyday
life or physical or emotional distress and impairment that are caused or exacerbated by
the use of the substances of abuse.
Key concepts
• hallucinogens
• inhalants
• opioids
• psychological dependence
• sedatives/hypnotics
• self-medication
• stimulants
• tolerance
• withdrawal
Substance use is studied in psychology from personality, social, and biological

perspectives. Social and personality studies of individuals with substance use
disorders have produced a variety of theories. These theories have focused on
issues such as difficulties people might have with tolerating stress, being un-
able to delay gratification, developing social skills, being socially isolated or
marginalized, being attracted to taking risks, and having difficulties regulat-
ing one’s own behavior. Additionally, environmental issues, such as poverty
or high levels of stress, have been linked to substance use problems. Biological
theories of these disorders suggest that genetic and conditioned sensitivities
to substances of abuse and their effects may predispose individuals to acquire
these disorders. For instance, people who have increased needs to seek re-
lief from pain or have an increased need to seek pleasure or euphoria might
be at greater risk for developing such problems. Pain is broadly defined as
any feeling of dysphoria. Because both pain and euphoria can be produced
by psychosomatic or somatopsychic events, these two biological categories
can subsume most of the stated nonbiological correlates of substance abuse.
There are several forms of substance use disorders including abuse and
dependence. These should be contrasted to normal experimentation, nor-
mal use without problems, and limited instances of misuse that are more ap-
propriately attributed to situational factors than an underlying psychiatric
disorder.
There are several types of substances of abuse, and some of these are not
851
Psychology Basics
typically viewed as problematic. Major categories include alcohol; sedatives/

hypnotics; nicotine; marijuana; opioids, such as heroin; stimulants, includ-
ing amphetamines, cocaine, crack, and caffeine; inhalants, such as glue,
paint, nitrous oxide (laughing gas), and shoe polish; hallucinogens, includ-
ing phencyclidine (PCP or “angel dust”), LSD (“acid”), MDMA (an amphet-
amine-like drug with hallucinogenic effects, also known as X or ecstasy); an-
abolic steroids; and even some types of prescription drugs, such as Valium.
When diagnoses are given for substance use disorders, diagnoses should
be given in terms of a specific type of substance. A diagnosis of “substance
abuse” would be too general because it does not specify the substance caus-
ing the problem. Having problems with one substance does not automati-
cally mean that a person has problems with all substances. Thus, any diagno-
sis for a substance use disorder should be substance-specific; examples
might include alcohol abuse, inhalant abuse, marijuana dependence, mari-
juana abuse, cocaine dependence, or stimulant abuse.
For the substance abuse category, the key features of the disorder are pat-
terns of repeated problems in individual functioning in terms of roles at
work, school, or home; legal status; use of the substance in hazardous situa-
tions, or the consequences of the use on interpersonal relationships. For the
substance dependence category, the key features of the disorder are pat-
terns of repeated problems in several areas that are distinct from those con-
sidered for abuse. Diagnosis of dependence relies on factors such as toler-
ance, withdrawal, new or worsened physical or emotional problems directly
resulting from the use of the substance, loss of control over the use of the
substance, unsuccessful efforts to cut down or quit coupled with intense de-
sire to quit, excessive periods of time spent obtaining, using, or recovering
from using the substance, and the displacement of social or occupational ac-
tivities in order to use the substance.
Pain and Euphoria

The experience of pain or the seeking of euphoria as causes of substance
use disorders can be measured physically or can be perceived by the individ-
ual without obvious physical indicators. The relative importance of pain and
euphoria in determining the development and maintenance of substance
use disorders requires consideration of the contributions of at least five po-
tential sources of behavioral and physical status: genetic predisposition,
dysregulation during development, dysregulation from trauma at any time
during the life span, the environment, and learning. Any of these can result
in or interact to produce the pain or feelings of euphoria that can lead to
substance use disorders.
The key commonality in pain-induced substance use disorders is that the
organism experiences pain that it does not tolerate. Genetic predisposers of
pain include inherited diseases and conditions that interfere with normal
pain tolerance. Developmental dysregulations include physical and behav-
ioral arrests and related differences from developmental norms. Trauma
852
from physical injury or from environmental conditions can also result in the
experience of pain, as can the learning of a pain-producing response.
Several theories of pain-induced substance use disorders can be summa-
rized as self-medication theories. In essence, these state that individuals mis-
use substances in order to correct an underlying disorder that presumably
produces some form of physical or emotional distress or discomfort. Self-
medication theories are useful because they take into account the homeo-
static (tendency toward balance) nature of the organism and because they
include the potential for significant individual differences in problems with
pain.
Relief from pain by itself does not account entirely for drug use that goes
beyond improvement in health or reachievement of normal status and cer-
tainly cannot account entirely for drug use that becomes physically self-
destructive. Thus, the use of substances to achieve positive effects such as eu-
phoria or pleasure are also important to consider as causes of these disor-
ders. Associative conditioning and operant conditioning effects play an im-
portant role as well. This type of substance misuse can be distinguished from
the relief caused by substance use to decrease pain because the substance
use does not stop when such relief is achieved but continues until the person
experiences the pleasurable effects.
Euphoria-inducing substance use, or pleasure seeking, is characteristic of
virtually all species tested. Some theorists have proposed that pleasure seek-
ing is an innate drive not easily kept in check even by socially acceptable sub-
stitutes. Other theorists believe that these types of substance use disorders
related to the positively reinforcing aspects of the substances may have de-
veloped as a function of biological causes such as evolutionary pressure and
selection. For example, organisms that could eat rotten, fermented fruit
(composed partly of alcohol) may have survived to reproduce when others
did not; people who could tolerate or preferred drinking alcohol instead
of contaminated water reproduced when those who drank contaminated
water did not live to do so.
Substance Use Disorder Research

Laboratory studies of the biological bases of substance abuse and depen-
dence involve clinical (human) and preclinical (animal) approaches. Such
research has demonstrated that there are areas of the brain that can provide
powerful feelings of euphoria when stimulated, indicating that the brain is
primed for the experience of pleasure. Direct electrical stimulation of some
areas of the brain, including an area first referred to as the medial forebrain
bundle, produced such strong addictive behaviors in animals that they ig-
nored many basic drives including those for food, water, mating, and care of
offspring.
Later research showed that the brain also contains highly addictive anal-
gesic and euphoriant chemicals that exist as a normal part of the neural mi-
lieu. Thus, the brain is also predisposed to aid in providing relief from pain
853
DSM-IV-TR Criteria for Dependence and Abuse
Substance Dependence
Maladaptive pattern of substance use, leading to clinically significant im-
pairment or distress
Manifested by three or more of the following, occurring at any time in the
same twelve-month period
Tolerance, as defined by either:
• need for markedly increased amounts of substance to achieve intoxica-
tion or desired effect
• markedly diminished effect with continued use of same amount of sub-
stance
Withdrawal, as manifested by either:
• characteristic withdrawal syndrome for substance
• same (or closely related) substance taken to relieve or avoid withdrawal
symptoms
Substance often taken in larger amounts or over longer period than in-
tended
Persistent desire or unsuccessful efforts to cut down or control substance
use
Great deal of time spent in activities necessary to obtain substance, use sub-
stance, or recover from its effects
Important social, occupational, or recreational activities given up or re-
duced because of substance use
Substance use continues despite knowledge of persistent or recurrent phys-
ical or psychological problem likely to have been caused or exacerbated by
substance
Specify if with Physiological Dependence (evidence of tolerance or with-
drawal) or Without Physiological Dependence (no evidence of tolerance or
withdrawal)
Course specifiers: Early Full Remission; Early Partial Remission; Sustained
Full Remission; Sustained Partial Remission; on Agonist Therapy; in a Con-
trolled Environment
Substance Abuse
Maladaptive pattern of substance use leading to clinically significant im-
pairment or distress
Manifested by one or more of the following, occurring within a twelve-
month period:
• recurrent substance use resulting in failure to fulfill major role obliga-
tions at work, school, or home
• recurrent substance use in situations in which it is physically hazardous
• recurrent substance-related legal problems
• continued substance use despite having persistent or recurrent social or
interpersonal problems caused or exacerbated by the effects of the sub-
stance (such as arguments with spouse about consequences of intoxica-
tion, physical fights)
Criteria for Substance Dependence not met for this class of substance
854
and has coupled such relief in some cases with feelings of euphoria. It is not
surprising, therefore, that substance abuse, dependence, and other behaviors
with addictive characteristics can develop so readily in so many organisms.
The effects of typical representatives of the major categories of abused
substances can be predicted. Alcohol can disrupt several behavioral func-
tions. It can slow reaction time, movement, and thought processes and can
interfere with needed rapid eye movement (REM) sleep. It can also produce
unpredictable emotionality, including violence. Those who abuse alcohol
may go on to develop the symptoms of physiological dependence (a condi-
tion where tolerance or withdrawal are present) and may develop the full di-
agnosis of alcohol dependence, and it is important to note that the symp-
toms of alcohol withdrawal can be life-threatening. Heroin, an opioid, has
analgesic (pain-killing) and euphoriant effects. It is also highly addictive,
but withdrawal seldom results in death. Marijuana, sometimes classified as a
sedative, sometimes as a hallucinogen, has many of the same behavioral ef-
fects as alcohol.
Stimulants vary widely in their behavioral effects. Common to all is some
form of physiological and behavioral stimulation. Some, such as cocaine and
the amphetamines (including crystal methamphetamine), are extremely ad-
dictive and seriously life-threatening and can produce violence. Others, such
as caffeine, are relatively mild in their euphoriant effects. Withdrawal from
stimulants, especially the powerful forms, can result in profound depression.
Hallucinogens are a diverse group of substances that can produce visual,
auditory, tactile, olfactory, or gustatory hallucinations, but most do so in
only a small percentage of the population. Some, such as PCP, can produce
violent behavior, while others, such as lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD), are
not known for producing negative emotional outbursts. Inhalants usually
produce feelings of euphoria; they are most often used by individuals in
their adolescent years who cannot afford to buy other types of drugs such as
marijuana, as well as by adult individuals who have easy access to these sub-
stances in their work environments or social circles.
Brain Chemistry
Some of the pharmacological effects of very different drugs are quite simi-
lar. Marijuana and alcohol affect at least three of the same brain biochemi-
cal systems. Alcohol can become a form of opiate in the brain following
some specific chemical transformations. These similarities raise an old and
continuing question in the substance use field: Is there a fundamental ad-
dictive mechanism common to everyone that differs only in the level and na-
ture of expression? Older theories of drug-abuse behavior approached this
question by postulating the “addictive personality,” a type of person who
would become indiscriminately addicted as a result of his or her personal
and social history. With advances in neuroscience have come theories con-
cerning the possibility of an “addictive brain,” which refers to a neurological
status that requires continued adjustment provided by drugs.
855
Psychology Basics
An example of the workings of the addictive brain might be a low-opiate

brain that does not produce normal levels of analgesia or normal levels of
organismic and behavioral euphoria (joy). The chemical adjustment sought
by the brain might be satisfied by use or abuse of any drug that results in stim-
ulation of the opiate function of the brain. As discussed above, several seem-
ingly unrelated drugs can produce a similar chemical effect. Thus, the choice
of a particular substance might depend both on brain status and on per-
sonal or social experience with the effects and availability of the drug used.
The example of the opiate-seeking brain raises at least two possibilities
for prevention and treatment, both of which have been discussed in sub-
stance-use literature: reregulation of the brain and substitution. So far, so-
cially acceptable substitutes or substitute addictions offer some promise, but
reregulation of the dysregulated brain is still primarily a hope of the future.
An example of a socially acceptable substitute might be opiate production
by excessive running, an activity that can produce some increase in opiate
function. The success of such a substitution procedure, however, depends
upon many variables that may be quite difficult to predict or control. The
substitution might not produce the required amount of reregulation, the
adjustment might not be permanent, and tolerance to the adjustment
might develop. There are a host of other possible problems.
Future Possibilities
Use of psychoactive substances dates from the earliest recorded history and
likely predates it. Historical records indicate that many substances with the
potential for abuse were used in medicinal and ceremonial or religious con-
texts, as tokens in barter, for their euphoriant properties during recreation,
as indicators of guilt or innocence, as penalties, and in other practices.
Substance use disorders are widespread in virtually all countries and cul-
tures and can be extremely costly, both personally and socially. There is no
doubt that most societies would like to eliminate substance use disorders, as
many efforts are under way to prevent and treat their occurrence. It is obvi-
ous that economic as well as social factors contribute both to substance use
disorders and to the laws regulating substance use, and possibly create some
roadblocks in eliminating abuse and dependence.
In psychology, the systemic and popular study of substance use became
most extensive as the field of pharmacology blossomed and access to sub-
stances of abuse increased. The creation of the National Institute of Alcohol
Abuse and Alcoholism and the National Institute on Drug Abuse helped to
fuel research in this area in the 1970’s and later. During the 1980’s and 1990’s,
there was an increase in exploration of the biological mechanisms underly-
ing substance use disorders and the possibility that pharmacological interven-
tions might be useful to prevent and treat substance use disorders. The 1990’s
also brought an increase in awareness among the research and clinical com-
munities that attention to specific demographic characteristics, such as age,
gender, and ethnicity, was also important for understanding the etiology, pre-
856
vention, and treatment of substance use disorders. As research progresses,

these factors and the impact of the environment on behavior are increas-
ingly the focus of study, and attention to the diagnosis of abuse is increasing.
Future research on substance use disorders is likely to focus on biological
determinants of the problem for the purposes of prevention and treatment,
environmental circumstances related to problem development, the interac-
tion of culture and gender as they relate to substance use disorders and
treatments, and how other mental illnesses can compound problems re-
lated to substance use. Many people erroneously consider biological expla-
nations of problematic behaviors to be an excuse for such behaviors. In fact,
discoveries regarding the neural contributions to such behaviors are the ba-
sis on which rational therapies for such behaviors can be developed. Recog-
nizing that a disorder has a basis in the brain can enable therapists to ad-
dress the disorder with a better armamentarium of useful therapeutic tools.
In this way, simple management of such disorders can be replaced by real so-
lutions to the problems created by substance abuse.

Gitlow, Stuart. Substance Use Disorders: A Practical Guide. Philadelphia: Lip-
pincott Williams & Wilkins, 2001. Provides basic explanations for different
diagnoses of substance use disorders and explains other diagnostic terms.
Hardman, Joel G., and Lee E. Limbard, eds. Goodman and Gilman’s The Phar-
macological Basis of Therapeutics. 10th ed. New York: Macmillan, 2001. A
standard reference for students interested in an overview of the pharma-
cological aspects of selected addictive drugs. Of greater interest to those
interested in pursuing the study of substance abuse from a neurological
and physiological perspective.
Inaba, Daryl. Uppers, Downers, All Arounders: Physical and Mental Effects of Psy-
choactive Drugs. 4th ed. Ashland, Oreg.: CNS Productions, 2000. An easy-to-
read, practical book on what substance use disorders look like to the ev-
eryday person, as well as a description of related problems and concerns.
Julien, Robert M. A Primer of Drug Action. Rev. ed. New York: W. H. Freeman,
2001. An introductory treatment of types and actions of many abused and
therapeutic substances. A useful, quick reference guide for psychoactive
effects of drugs used in traditional pharmacological therapy for disorders
and abused substances. Contains good reference lists and appendices
that explain some of the anatomy and chemistry required to understand
biological mechanisms of substance abuse.
Weil, Andrew, and Winifred Rosen. From Chocolate to Morphine: Everything You
Need to Know About Mind-Altering Drugs. Rev. and updated ed. Boston:
Houghton Mifflin, 1998. This classic text discusses mind-altering sub-
stances, from foods that alter moods to illicit drugs of abuse.
Rebecca M. Chesire; updated by Nancy A. Piotrowski
See also: Motivation.

857
Suicide
Suicide is the intentional ending of one’s own life; roughly 12 per 100,000 Americans
commit suicide annually. Suicide rates are higher for males than females and increase
with age; risk also increases with clinical depression, so suicide may be considered
among the most severe consequences of any psychological disorder.
Key concepts
• altruistic suicide
• anomie
• egoistic suicide
• epidemiological research
• psychological autopsy
• suicidal gesture
Suicide is the intentional taking of one’s own life. Psychologists have de-
voted much effort to its study, attempting to identify those at greatest risk for
suicide and to intervene effectively to prevent suicide.
Sociologist Émile Durkheim introduced what has become a well-known
classification of suicide types. Altruistic suicides, according to Durkheim,
are those that occur in response to societal demands (for example, the sol-
dier who sacrifices himself to save his comrades). Egoistic suicides occur
when the individual is isolated from society and so does not experience suffi-
cient societal demands to live. The third type is the anomic suicide. Anomie
is a sense of disorientation or alienation which occurs following a major
change in one’s societal relationships (such as the loss of a job or the death
of a close friend); the anomic suicide occurs following such sudden and dra-
matic changes.
Research supports Durkheim’s ideas that suicide is associated with social
isolation and recent loss. Many other variables, both demographic and psy-
chological, have also been found to be related to suicide. Numerous studies
have shown that the following demographic variables are related to suicide:
sex, age, marital status, employment status, urban versus rural dwelling, and
race. Paradoxically, more females than males attempt suicide, but more
males than females commit suicide. The ratio in both cases is about three to
one. The difference between the sex ratios for attempted and completed
suicide is generally explained by the fact that males tend to employ more le-
thal and less reversible methods than do females (firearms and hanging, for
example, are more lethal and less reversible than ingestion of drugs).
Age is also related to suicide. In general, risk for suicide increases with in-
creasing age; however, even though suicide risk is higher in older people,
much attention has been devoted to suicide among children and adoles-
858
Suicide
cents. This attention is attributable to two factors. First, since 1960 there has
been an increase in the suicide rate among people under twenty-five years of
age. Second, suicide has become one of the leading causes of death among
people under twenty-one, whereas suicide is surpassed by many illnesses as a
cause of death among older adults. Other demographic variables are re-
lated to suicide. Suicide risk is higher for divorced than married people.
The unemployed have a higher suicide rate than those who are employed.
Urban dwellers have a higher suicide rate than rural dwellers. Caucasians
have a higher suicide rate than African Americans.
In addition to these demographic variables, several psychological or be-
havioral variables are related to suicide. Perhaps the single best predictor of
suicide is threatening to commit suicide. Most suicide victims have made
some type of suicide threat (although, in some cases, the threat may be
veiled or indirect, such as putting one’s affairs in order or giving away one’s
belongings). For this reason, psychologists consider seriously any threat of
suicide. A related index of suicide risk is the detailedness or clarity of the
threat. Individuals who describe a suicide method in detail are at greater
risk than those who express an intent to die but who describe the act only
vaguely. Similarly, the lethality and availability of the proposed method pro-
vide additional measures of risk. Suicide risk is higher if the individual pro-
poses using a more lethal method and if the individual has access to the
proposed method.
Another useful indicator of suicide risk is previous suicide attempts. Peo-
ple who have made prior attempts are at higher risk for suicide than people
who have not. The lethality of the method used in the prior attempt is a re-
lated indicator. An individual who survives a more lethal method (a gunshot
to the head) is considered at higher risk than one who survives a less lethal
attempt (swallowing a bottle of aspirin).
Suicide risk is associated with particular behavioral or psychological vari-
ables: depression, isolation, stress, pain or illness, recent loss, and drug or
alcohol abuse. These factors may help explain why certain of the demo-
graphic variables are related to suicide. For example, people who are unem-
ployed may experience higher levels of stress, depression, and isolation than
people who are employed. Similarly, divorced people may experience more
stress and isolation than married people. The elderly may experience more
isolation, depression, and pain or illness than younger people.
Although the demographic and psychological variables summarized above
have been found to be related to suicide, the prediction of suicide remains ex-
tremely difficult. Suicide is a statistically rare event; according to basic laws of
probability, it is very difficult to predict such rare occurrences. What hap-
pens in actual attempts to predict suicide is that, in order to identify the
“true positives” (individuals who actually attempt suicide), one must accept
a very large number of “false positives” (individuals who are labeled suicidal
but who, in fact, will not attempt suicide).
859
Psychology Basics
Research and Prevention

Several methods have been used to study the psychology of suicide. Epide-
miological research determines the distribution of demographic character-
istics among suicide victims. Another method is to study survivors of suicide
attempts. This enables psychologists to examine intensively their psycholog-
ical characteristics. A third method is to analyze suicide notes, which may
explain the individual’s reasons for suicide. A final method is the psycholog-
ical autopsy. This involves interviewing the victim’s friends and family mem-
bers and examining the victim’s personal materials (such as diaries and let-
ters) in an attempt to identify the psychological cause of the suicide.
Although all these approaches have been widely used, each has its limita-
tions. The epidemiological method focuses on demographic characteristics
and so may overlook psychological influences. Studying survivors of suicide
attempts has limitations because survivors and victims of suicide attempts may
differ significantly. For example, some suicide attempts are regarded as sui-
cidal gestures, or “cries for help,” the intent of which is not to die but rather
to call attention to oneself to gain sympathy or assistance. Thus, what is
learned from survivors may not generalize to successful suicide victims. The
study of suicide notes is limited by the fact that most suicide victims do not
leave notes. For example, in a study of all suicides in Los Angeles County in a
single year, psychologists Edwin Shneidman and Norman Farberow found
that only 35 percent of the males and 39 percent of the females left notes.
Finally, the psychological autopsy is limited in that the victim’s records and
acquaintances may not shed light on the victim’s thought processes.
In 1988, Harry Hoberman and Barry Garfinkel conducted an epidemio-
logical study to identify variables related to suicide in children and adoles-
cents. They examined death records in two counties in Minnesota over an
eleven-year period for individuals who died at age nineteen or younger.
Hoberman and Garfinkel examined in detail the death records of 225 sui-
cide victims. They noted that 15 percent of their sample had not been iden-
tified as suicides by the medical examiner but had instead been listed as ac-
cident victims or as having died of undetermined causes. This finding
suggests that official estimates of suicide deaths in the United States are ac-
tually low.
Consistent with other studies, Hoberman and Garfinkel found that sui-
cide was related to both age and sex. Males accounted for 80 percent of the
suicides, females for only 20 percent. Adolescents aged fifteen to nineteen
years composed 91 percent of the sample, with children aged fourteen and
under 9 percent. In addition, Hoberman and Garfinkel found that a full 50
percent of the sample showed evidence of one or more psychiatric disor-
ders. Most common were depression and alcohol or drug abuse. Finally,
Hoberman and Garfinkel found that a substantial number of the suicide vic-
tims had been described as “loners,” “lonely,” or “withdrawn.” Thus, several
of the indicators of suicide in adults also are related to suicide in children
and adolescents.
860
Suicide
Assessing Risk
Psychiatrist Aaron T. Beck and his colleagues developed the Hopelessness
Scale in 1974 to assess an individual’s negative thoughts of self and future. In
many theories of suicide, an individual’s sense of hopelessness is related to
risk for suicide. Beck and others have demonstrated that hopelessness in de-
pressed patients is a useful indicator of suicide risk. For example, in 1985,
Beck and his colleagues reported a study of 207 patients who were hospital-
ized because of suicidal thinking. Over the next five to ten years, fourteen
patients committed suicide. Only one demographic variable, race, differed
between the suicide and nonsuicide groups: Caucasian patients had a
higher rate of suicide (10.1 percent) than African American patients (1.3
percent). Of the psychological variables assessed, only the Hopelessness
Scale and a measure of pessimism differed between suicide victims and
other patients. Patients who committed suicide were higher in both hope-
lessness and pessimism than other patients. Beck and his colleagues deter-
mined the Hopelessness Scale score which best discriminated suicides from
nonsuicides. Other mental health professionals can now use this criterion to
identify those clinically depressed patients who are at greatest risk for sui-
cide.
Several approaches have been developed in efforts to prevent suicide.
Shneidman and Farberow developed what may be the most well-known sui-
cide-prevention program, the Los Angeles Suicide Prevention Center. This
program, begun in 1958, helped popularize telephone suicide hotlines.
Staff members are trained to interact with individuals who are experiencing
extreme distress. When an individual calls the center, staff members imme-
diately begin to assess the caller’s risk for suicide, considering the caller’s de-
mographics, stress, lifestyle, and suicidal intent. Staff members attempt to
calm the caller, so as to prevent an immediate suicide, and to put the person
into contact with local mental health agencies so that the individual can re-
ceive more extensive follow-up care.
Psychologists William Fremouw, Maria de Perczel, and Thomas Ellis pub-
lished a useful guide for those who work with suicidal clients. Among their
suggestions are to talk openly and matter-of-factly about suicide, to avoid dis-
missing the client’s feelings or motives in a judgmental or pejorative way,
and to adopt a problem-solving approach to dealing with the client’s situa-
tion.
Suicide-prevention programs are difficult to evaluate. Callers may not
identify themselves, so it is difficult to determine whether they later commit
suicide. Still, such programs are generally thought to be useful, and suicide-
prevention programs similar to that of Shneidman and Farberow have been
developed in many communities.
Social and Cultural Contexts

Suicide is one of the most extreme and drastic behaviors faced by psycholo-
gists. Because of its severity, psychologists have devoted considerable effort
861
Psychology Basics
to identifying individuals at risk for suicide and to developing programs that

are effective in preventing suicide.
Psychological studies have shown that many popular beliefs about suicide
are incorrect. For example, many people erroneously believe that people
who threaten suicide never attempt suicide, that all suicide victims truly wish
to die, that only the mentally ill commit suicide, that suicide runs in families,
and that there are no treatments that can help someone who is suicidal. Be-
cause of these and other myths about suicide, it is especially important that
psychological studies of suicide continue and that the results of this study be
disseminated to the public.
Suicide risk increases in clinically depressed individuals. In depressed pa-
tients, suicide risk has been found to be associated with hopelessness: As
one’s sense of hopelessness increases, one’s risk for suicide increases. Since
the 1970’s, Beck’s Hopelessness Scale has been used in efforts to predict risk
for suicide among depressed patients. Although the suicide rate has been
relatively stable in the United States since the early twentieth century, the
suicide rate of young people has increased since the 1960’s.
For this reason, depression and suicide among children and adolescents
have become major concerns of psychologists. Whereas childhood depres-
sion received relatively little attention from psychologists before the 1970’s,
psychologists have devoted considerable attention to this condition since
then. Much of this attention has concerned whether biological, cognitive,
and behavioral theories of the causes of depression and approaches to the
treatment of depression, which were originally developed and applied to de-
pressed adults, may generalize to children. In the 1980’s, psychologists de-
veloped several innovative programs that attempt to identify youths who are
depressed and experiencing hopelessness, and so may be at risk for suicide;
evaluations and refinements of these programs will continue.

Durkheim, Émile. Suicide. Reprint. Glencoe, Ill.: Free Press, 1951. In this
work, originally published in 1897, Durkheim introduced his classifica-
tion system of suicide types—altruistic, egoistic, and anomic suicides—
and examined the relationship of suicide to isolation and recent loss.
Fremouw, William J., Maria de Perczel, and Thomas E. Ellis. Suicide Risk: As-
sessment and Response Guidelines. New York: Pergamon, 1990. This book
presents useful guidelines, based on both research and clinical practice,
for working with suicidal individuals.
Hawton, Keith. Suicide and Attempted Suicide Among Children and Adolescents.
Beverly Hills, Calif.: Sage Publications, 1986. This work overviews re-
search results concerning the causes of youth suicide and treatment pro-
grams for suicidal youngsters.
Holinger, Paul C., and J. Sandlow. “Suicide.” In Violent Deaths in the United
States, edited by Paul C. Holinger. New York: Guilford Press, 1987. This
chapter presents epidemiological information on suicide in the United
862
Suicide
States, from 1900 to 1980. It also addresses demographic variables and

their relationship to suicide.
Lann, Irma S., Eve K. Moscicki, and Ronald Maris, eds. Strategies for Studying
Suicide and Suicidal Behavior. New York: Guilford Press, 1989. This book
examines the various research methods used to study suicide. Considers
the relative strengths and weaknesses and offers examples of each method.
Lester, David, ed. Current Concepts of Suicide. Philadelphia: Charles Press,
1990. A useful overview of research results on the possible causes of sui-
cide and on programs designed both to prevent suicide and to treat sui-
cidal patients.
Peck, Michael L., Norman L. Farberow, and Robert E. Litman, eds. Youth
Suicide. New York: Springer, 1985. A useful overview of the psychological
influences on youth suicide and on the treatment and prevention pro-
grams that have been used with suicidal youths.
Shneidman, Edwin S., Norman L. Farberow, and Robert E. Litman. The Psy-
chology of Suicide. New York: Science House, 1970. This is a collection of ar-
ticles, some of which are now regarded as classics in the study of suicide.
Stengel, Erwin. Suicide and Attempted Suicide. Rev. ed. Harmondsworth, En-
gland: Penguin Books, 1973. This classic work summarizes the demo-
graphic and psychological variables that were known at the time to be as-
sociated with suicide.
Michael Wierzbicki
See also: Bipolar Disorder; Clinical Depression; Depression; Drug Ther-

apies.
863
Support Groups
Type of psychology: Cognition; emotion; language; learning; memory;
motivation; personality; psychological methodologies; psychopathology;
psychotherapy; social psychology; stress
Fields of study: All
The history of support groups in modern times begins with the formation of the Oxford
Group in 1908 and the subsequent development of Alcoholics Anonymous. For the
participants, support groups reduce feelings of isolation, offer information, instill
hope, provide feedback and social support, and teach new social skills. At the opening
of the twenty-first century, support groups exist for persons suffering from all kinds of
medical and psychological conditions to support for victims of violent crime.
Key concepts
• cohesion
• exchange theory
• group dynamics
• networks
• norms
• roles
• social facilitation
• social inhibition
• social learning
• sociobiology
Humans are social animals—they live in groups. These networks among

people are powerful in shaping behavior, feelings, and judgments. Groups
can lead to destructive behavior such as mob violence and aggression, but
they can also encourage loyalty, nurturing of others, and achievement, as
found in cancer-support groups. Scientific investigation of how groups af-
fect human behavior began as early as 1898, but the main body of research
on group functioning began only in the 1940’s and 1950’s. The study of
groups is still a major topic of scientific enquiry.
D. R. Forsyth defined a group as “two or more individuals who influence
each other through social interaction.” A group may be permanent or tempo-
rary, formal or informal, structured or unstructured. Those groups known as
support groups may share any of these characteristics.
Why do human beings seek out groups? Social learning theorists believe
that humans learn to depend on other people because most are raised
within families, where they learn to look to other people for support, valida-
tion, amusement, and advice. Exchange theorists, on the other hand, rea-
son that groups provide both rewards (such as love and approval) and costs
(such as time and effort). Membership in a group will “profit” the individual
if the rewards are greater than the costs. Yet another set of theorists, the
sociobiologists, argue that humans form groups because this has a survival
864
Support Groups
benefit for the species. They hypothesize a genetic predisposition toward af-
filiation with others. It is within groups that the fittest have the greatest
chance of survival.
Whatever the reason for forming groups, all groups have important char-
acteristics that must be addressed in seeking to understand why support
groups work. First of all, group size is important. Larger groups allow more
anonymity, while smaller groups facilitate communication, for example.
Group structure includes such elements as status differences, norms of con-
duct, leaders and followers, and subgroups. Individuals in groups develop
social roles—those expected behaviors associated with the individual’s posi-
tion within the group. Roles are powerful in influencing behavior and can
cause individuals to act contrary even to their private feelings or their own
interests. These roles carry varying degrees of status within the group—who
is influential and respected and who is less so. Groups may have subgroups,
based on age, residence, roles, interests, or other factors. These subgroups
may contribute to the success of the whole or may become cliquish and un-
dermine the main group’s effectiveness.
Groups also have varying degrees of cohesion. Cohesion reflects the
strength of attachments within the group. Sometimes cohesion is a factor of
how well group members like one another, sometimes a factor of the need to
achieve an important goal, and sometimes a factor of the rewards that group
membership confers. All groups have communication networks, or patterns
of openness and restrictions on communication among members.
Group norms are those attitudes and behaviors that are expected of
members. These norms are needed for the group’s success because they
make life more predictable and efficient for the members. Leadership may
be formal or informal, may be task oriented or people oriented, and may
change over time. Finally, all groups go through fairly predictable stages as
they form, do their work, and conclude. The comprehensive term for the
way a group functions is “group dynamics.”
How Groups Influence Individuals

Researchers have found that for all animals, including human beings, the
mere presence of other members of the same species may enhance perfor-
mance on individual tasks. This phenomenon is known as social facilitation.
With more complex tasks, however, the presence of others may decrease
performance. This is known as social inhibition or impairment. It is not
clear whether this occurs because the presence of others arouses the individ-
ual, leads individuals to expect rewards or punishments based on past expe-
rience, makes people self-conscious, creates challenges to self-image, or af-
fects the individual’s ability to process information. Most theorists agree that
the nature of the task is important in the success of a group. For example,
the group is more likely to succeed if the individual members’ welfare is
closely tied to the task of the group.
Groups provide modeling of behavior deemed appropriate in a given sit-
865
Psychology Basics
uation. The more similar the individuals doing the modeling are to the indi-
vidual who wants to learn a behavior, the more powerful the models are.
Groups reward members for behavior that conforms to group norms or
standards and punish behaviors that do not conform. Groups provide a
means of social comparison—how one’s own behavior compares to others’
in a similar situation. Groups are valuable sources of support during times of
stress. Some specific factors that enhance the ability of groups to help indi-
viduals reduce stress are attachment, guidance, tangible assistance, and
embeddedness. Attachment has to do with caring and attention among
group members. Guidance may be provision of information, or it may be ad-
vice and feedback provided by the group to its members. Tangible assistance
may take the form of money or of other kinds of service. Embeddedness re-
fers to the sense the individual has of belonging to the group. Some re-
searchers have shown that a strong support system actually increases the
body’s immune functioning.
Alcoholics Anonymous
The best-known support group is Alcoholics Anonymous (AA), formed in
Akron, Ohio, in the late 1930’s. AA groups now number in the tens of thou-
sands and are found across the globe. AA is an outgrowth of the Oxford
Group, a Christian student and athlete group formed at Oxford University
in England in 1908. The Oxford Group’s ideals of self-examination, ac-
knowledgment of character defects, restitution for harm done, and working
with others directly influenced the steps to recovery practiced by members
of AA and other so-called twelve-step groups, including Al-Anon, Narcotics
Anonymous, Smokers Anonymous, and many others.
For addicts, support groups are important for a number of reasons. They
provide peer support for the effort to become “clean and sober.” They pro-
vide peer pressure against relapsing into substance use. They assure addicts
that they are not alone—that others have suffered the destruction brought
about by drinking or taking drugs. Addicts in twelve-step groups learn to in-
teract with others on an emotional level. Importantly, members of AA and
other support groups for addicts are able to confront the individual’s
maladaptive behaviors and provide models for more functional behavior.
The norm for AA is sobriety, and sobriety is reinforced by clear directions on
how to live as a sober person. Another important aspect of AA is the hope
that it is able to inspire in persons who, while using, saw no hope for the fu-
ture. This hope comes not only from seeing individuals who have success-
fully learned to live as sober persons but also from the group’s emphasis on
dependence on a higher power and the importance of one’s spiritual life.
Other Support Groups

Not all support groups are for addicts. Support groups exist for adoptive
parents, people who were adopted when they were children, people with ac-
quired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS), caregivers for patients with
866
Support Groups
Alzheimer’s disease, and that is just the beginning. Why are these groups so
popular? Some writers believe that Americans have turned away from the
“rugged individualism” that has characterized the national psyche in the
past and are searching for meaning in groups to replace the extended fami-
lies found in other societies. However, this does not explain why support
groups are also popular in other parts of the world. The answer probably lies
in the characteristics of groups.
Support groups are generally composed of small numbers of people who
are facing similar challenges in their lives. They meet, with or without a
trained facilitator, to explore their reactions, problems, solutions, feelings,
frustrations, successes, and needs in relation to those challenges. They build
bonds of trust. Members show compassion to one another. Groups may pro-
vide material support or simply assure the individual member he or she is
not alone. They help minimize stress and maximize coping. They model
strategies for dealing with the given challenge. They provide information.
They nurture their members. They encourage application of new learning.
Through this sharing, each member grows, and through individual growth,
the group matures.
Support groups have traditionally met in person, but the World Wide
Web has now enabled many groups to meet online. These meetings may
take the form of synchronous or asynchronous chat groups, bulletin boards,
listservs, Web sites with multiple links to information sources, referrals, and
collaboration with professionals. These groups, while not well studied, seem
to serve the same purposes as in-person groups. In addition, they may pro-
vide an advantage: The anonymity of the Web makes it possible to observe
and to learn from observing without actually participating until one is com-
fortable doing so.
Support groups may not be sufficient in and of themselves to solve indi-
vidual problems. They are probably most effective as a part of an integrated
plan for addressing the challenge in the individual’s life that involves other
resources as appropriate. For example, the caregiver of a person with Alzhei-
mer’s disease may also need social services support, adult day care or respite
care facilities, medical assistance for control of problem behaviors, and
home health services to deal successfully with the day-to-day challenges of
dealing with the patient. The support group can facilitate access to these
other resources in addition to serving as an important stress reducer and
support system for the caregiver.

Carlson, Hannah. The Courage to Lead: Start Your Own Support Group: Mental
Illnesses and Addictions. Madison, Conn.: Bick, 2001. A complete how-to
manual for creating small groups for persons striving against addiction or
to overcome mental illnesses.
Ferguson, Tom. Health Online: How to Find Health Information, Support Groups,
and Self-Help Communities in Cyberspace. Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley,
867
Psychology Basics
1996. A comprehensive guide to information on diseases and illnesses.

Explains how to locate online medical journals and interpret articles.
Covers commercial online services, Internet bulletin boards, and Na-
tional Institutes of Health databases.
Kauth, Bill. A Circle of Men: The Original Manual for Men’s Support Groups. New
York: St. Martin’s Press, 1992. Covers finding the right members, running
meetings, training in listening, creating rituals, and dealing with prob-
lems within the group.
Kelly, Pat. Living with Breast Cancer: A Guide for Facilitating Self-Help Groups.
Lewiston, N.Y.: B. C. Decker, 2000. A guide to starting and running a
member-managed self-help group. Provides a good list of resources.
Klein, Linda L. The Support Group Sourcebook: What They Are, How You Can Find
One, and How They Can Help You. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 2000. A
comprehensive guide to how groups work and develop and how they as-
sist people. Good advice on how to start or find a group.
O’Rourke, Kathleen, and John C. Worzbyt. Support Groups for Children. Wash-
ington, D.C.: Accelerated Development, 1996. Helpful description of
how to find an appropriate support group for children.
Shaffer, Carolyn R., and Kristin Anundsen. Creating Community Anywhere:
Finding Support and Connection in a Fragmented World. New York: Penguin
Putnam, 1993. Focuses on how to find or create intentional communities.
Wuthnow, Robert. Sharing the Journey: Support Groups and America’s New Quest
for Community. New York: Free Press, 1994. Examines the shift from ex-
tended family through the isolation of the nuclear family and the present
movement toward intentional communities.
See also: Domestic Violence; Groups; Substance Use Disorders.
868
Survey Research
Questionnaires and Interviews
Fields of study: Descriptive methodologies; experimental
methodologies; methodological issues
Psychologists use survey research techniques, including questionnaires and inter-

views, to evaluate attitudes about social or personal issues and to find out about peo-
ple’s behaviors directly from those people. Questionnaires are self-administered and in
written form. In interviews, the psychologist asks questions of the respondent. There
are strengths and limitations of both of these data collection methods.
Key concepts
• attitudes
• demographics
• interview
• population
• questionnaire
• respondent
• sample
Survey research is common in both science and daily life. Almost everyone
in today’s society has been exposed to survey research in one form or an-
other. Researchers ask questions about the political candidate one favors,
the television programs one watches, the soft drink one prefers, whether
there should be a waiting period prior to purchasing a handgun, and so on.
There are many ways to obtain data about the social world; among them
are observation, field studies, and experimentation. Two key methods for
obtaining data—questionnaires and interviews—are survey research meth-
ods. Most of the social research conducted or published involves these two
data collection methods.
In general, when using survey methods, the researcher gets information
directly from each person (or respondent) by using self-report measure-
ment techniques to ask people about their current attitudes, behaviors, and
demographics (statistical features of populations, such as age, income, race,
and marital status), in addition to past experiences and future goals. In
questionnaires, the questions are in written format, and the research sub-
jects check boxes and type in (or write down) their answers. In interviews,
there is one-to-one verbal communication, either face-to-face or by means of
a telephone, between the interviewer and respondent. Both techniques are
flexible and adaptable to the group of people being studied and the particu-
lar situation. Both can range from being highly structured to highly unstruc-
tured.
869
Psychology Basics
Strengths and Limitations

Questionnaires can be completed in groups or self-administered on an indi-
vidual basis. They can also be mailed to people. They are generally less ex-
pensive than conducting interviews. Questionnaires also allow greater ano-
nymity of the respondents. One drawback is that a questionnaire’s design
cannot guarantee that the subjects understand exactly what the questions
are asking. Also, there may be a problem of motivation with responding to
questionnaires, because people may get bored or find it tedious to type in
the forms on their own. The survey researcher must therefore make sure
that the questionnaire is not excessively long or complex.
In contrast, with an interview there is a better chance that the interviewer
and subject will have good communication and that all questions will be un-
derstood. Telephone interviews are less expensive than face-to-face in-
terviews; still, questionnaires tend to be less costly. In an interview, the re-
spondent is presented with questions orally, whereas in the questionnaire,
regardless of type or form, the respondent is presented with a written ques-
tion. Each data collection device has pros and cons. The decision to use
questionnaires versus interviews depends on the purpose of the study, the
type of information needed, the size of the sample (the number of people
who participate in a study and are part of a population), the resources for
conducting the study, and the variable(s) to be measured. Overall, the inter-
view is probably the more flexible device of the two.
Designing Bias-Free Questions

When creating a questionnaire, the researcher must give special thought
to writing the specific questions. Researchers must avoid questions that
would lead people to answer in a biased way or ones that might be easily mis-
interpreted. For example, the questions “Do you favor eliminating the
wasteful excesses in the federal budget?” and “Do you favor reducing the
federal budget?” might well yield different answers from the same respon-
dent.
Questions are either closed-ended or open-ended, depending on the re-
searcher’s choice. In a closed-ended question, a limited number of fixed re-
sponse choices are provided to subjects. With open-ended questions, sub-
jects are able to respond in any way they like. Thus, a researcher could ask,
“Where would you like a swimming pool to be built in this town?” as opposed
to “Which of the following locations is your top choice for a swimming pool
to be built in this town?” The first question allows the respondent to provide
any answer; the second provides a fixed number of answers from which the
person must choose. Use of closed-ended questions is a more structured ap-
proach, allowing greater ease of analysis because the response choices are
the same for everyone. Open-ended questions require more time to analyze
and are therefore more costly. Open-ended questions, however, can provide
valuable insights into what the subjects are actually thinking.
870
Survey Research: Questionnaires and Interviews
Clinical Interview
A specialized type of interview is the clinical, or therapeutic, interview. The
specific goal of a particular clinical interview depends on the needs and the
condition of the individual being interviewed. There is a distinction be-
tween a therapeutic interview, which attempts both to obtain information
and to remedy the client’s problem, and a research interview, which at-
tempts solely to obtain information about people at large. Because the clini-
cal interview is a fairly unstructured search for relevant information, it is
important to be aware of the factors that might affect its accuracy and com-
prehensiveness. Research on hypothesis confirmation bias suggests that it is
difficult to search for unbiased and comprehensive information in an un-
structured setting such as the clinical interview. In the context of the clinical
interview, clinicians are likely to conduct unintentionally biased searches
for information that confirms their early impressions of each client. Re-
search on self-fulfilling prophecies suggests a second factor that may limit
the applicability of interviews in general: The interviewer’s expectations
may affect the behavior of the person being interviewed, and respondents
may change their behavior to match the interviewer’s expectations.
Role of Scientific Method

Knowing what to believe about research is often related to understanding
the scientific method. The two basic approaches to using the scientific
method, the descriptive and the experimental research approaches, differ
because they seek to attain different types of knowledge. Descriptive re-
search tries to describe particular situations; experimental research tries to
determine cause-and-effect relationships. Independent variables are not
manipulated in descriptive research. For that reason, it is not possible to de-
cide whether one thing causes another. Instead, survey research uses cor-
relational techniques, which allow the determination of whether behaviors
or attitudes are related to one another and whether they predict one an-
other. For example, how liberal a person’s political views are might be re-
lated to that person’s attitudes about sexuality. Such a relationship could be
determined using descriptive research.
Survey research, as a widely used descriptive technique, is defined as a
method of collecting standardized information by interviewing a represen-
tative sample of some population. All research involves sampling of subjects.
That is, subjects must be found to participate in the research whether that
research is a survey or an experiment. Sampling is particularly important
when conducting survey research, because the goal is to describe what a
whole population is like based on the data from a relatively small sample of
that population.
Kinsey Group Research

One famous survey study in the mid-1930’s was conducted by Alfred Kinsey
and his colleagues. Kinsey studied sexual behavior. Until that time, most of
871
Psychology Basics
Alfred Kinsey.
what was known about sexual behavior was based on what biologists knew
about animal sex, what anthropologists knew about sex among indigenous
peoples in non-Western, nonindustrialized societies, or what Freud learned
about sexuality from his emotionally disturbed patients. Kinsey and his col-
leagues were the first psychological researchers to interview volunteers from
mainstream American society about their sexual behaviors. The research
was hindered by political investigations and threats of legal action. In spite
of the harassment encountered by the scientists on the project, the Kinsey
group published Sexual Behavior in the Human Male in 1948 and Sexual Behav-
ior in the Human Female in 1953.
The findings of the Kinsey group benefited the public immensely. As a re-
sult, it is now known that the majority of people (both men and women) in-
terviewed by the Kinsey group masturbated at various times, but that more
men than women said they masturbated. Data collected by the Kinsey group
on oral-genital sexual practices have allowed later researchers to discover
that, since the 1930’s, attitudes toward oral-genital sex have become more
positive. Kinsey’s research also shocked the United States with the discovery
that the majority of brides at that time were not virgins.
When scientific sampling techniques are used, the survey results can be
interpreted as an accurate representation of the entire population. Al-
872
though Kinsey and his associates helped to pave the way for future research-
ers to investigate sexual behaviors and attitudes, there were some problems
with the research because of its lack of generalizability. The Kinsey group’s
research is still the largest study of sexual behavior ever completed. They in-
terviewed more than ten thousand people; however, they did not attempt to
select a random or representative sample of the population of the United
States, which meant that the responses of middle-class, well-educated Cauca-
sians were overrepresented. There is also a problem with the accuracy of the
respondents’ information, because of memory errors, exaggerations, or
embarrassment about telling an interviewer personal, sensitive informa-
tion. Despite these limitations, the interviewing conducted by Kinsey and as-
sociates made great strides for the study of sexuality and great strides for psy-
chology in general.
Importance of Sampling Procedures

When research is intended to reveal very precisely what a population is like,
careful sampling procedures must be used. This requires defining the popu-
lation and sampling people from the population in a random fashion so that
no biases will be introduced. In order to learn what elderly people think
about the medical services available to them, for example, a careful sample
of the elderly population is needed. Obtaining the sample only from retire-
ment communities in Arizona would bias the results because these individu-
als are not representative of all elderly people in the population.
Thus, when evaluating survey data, a researcher must examine how the
responses were obtained and what population was investigated. Major poll-
ing organizations such as the Gallup organization typically are careful to ob-
tain representative samples of people in the United States. Gallup polls are
frequently conducted to survey the voting public’s opinions about the popu-
larity of a presidential candidate or a given policy. Many other surveys, how-
ever, such as surveys that are published in popular magazines, have limited
generalizability because the results are based on people who read the partic-
ular magazine and are sufficiently motivated to complete and mail in the
questionnaire. When Redbook, for example, asks readers to write in to say
whether they have ever had an affair, the results may be interesting but
would not give a very accurate estimate of the true extent of extramarital
sexual activity in the United States. An example of an inaccurate sampling
technique was a survey by Literary Digest (a now defunct magazine) sampling
almost ten million people in 1936. The results showed that American presi-
dential candidate Alfred Landon would beat Franklin D. Roosevelt by a
landslide in that year’s election. Although it was large, the sample was com-
pletely inaccurate.
Early Survey Methods

One of the earliest ways of obtaining psychological information using de-
scriptive techniques was through clinical interviewing. The early interviews
873
Psychology Basics
conducted by Sigmund Freud in the late 1800’s were based on question-and-

answer medical formats, which is not surprising, considering that Freud was
originally a physician. Later, Freud relied on the less structured free-associa-
tion technique. In 1902, Adolf Meyer developed a technique to assess a cli-
ent’s mental functioning, memory, attention, speech, and judgment. Inde-
pendent of the style used, all the early clinical interviews sought to get a
psychological portrait of the person, determine the source of the problem,
make a diagnosis, and formulate a treatment. More detailed studies of inter-
views were conducted in the 1940’s and 1950’s to compare and contrast in-
terviewing styles and determine how much structure was necessary. During
the 1960’s, much research came about as a result of ideas held by Carl Rog-
ers, who emphasized the interpersonal elements he thought were necessary
for the ideal therapeutic relationship; among them are warmth, positive re-
gard, and genuineness on the part of the interviewer.
In the 1800’s and early 1900’s, interviews were used mainly by psycholo-
gists who were therapists helping people with problems such as fear, depres-
sion, and hysteria. During that same period, experimental psychologists had
not yet begun to use survey research methods. Instead, they used introspec-
tion to investigate their own thought processes. For example, experimental
psychologist Hermann Ebbinghaus gave himself lists of pronounceable
nonsense syllables to remember; he then tested his own memory and at-
tempted to improve it methodically. Many experimental psychologists dur-
ing this period relied upon the use of animals such as dogs and laboratory
rats to conduct behavioral research.
Evolution of Questionnaires
As mentioned above, one of the first attempts by experimental psychologists
to study attitudes and behaviors by means of the interview was that of the
Kinsey group in the 1930’s. At about that same time, Louis Thurstone, an ex-
perimental social psychologist, formalized and popularized the first ques-
tionnaire methodology for attitude measurement. Thurstone devised a set
of questionnaires, or scales, that have been widely used for decades. He is
considered by many to be the father of attitude scaling. Soon thereafter,
Rensis Likert made breakthroughs in questionnaire usage with the develop-
ment of what are known as Likert scales. A Likert scale provides a series of
statements to which subjects can indicate degrees of agreement or disagree-
ment. Using the Likert technique, the respondent answers by selecting from
predetermined categories ranging from “strongly agree” to “strongly dis-
agree.” It is fairly standard to use five categories (strongly agree, agree,
uncertain, disagree, strongly disagree), but more categories can be used if
necessary. An example of a question using this technique might be, “Intelli-
gence test scores of marijuana users are higher on the average than scores of
nonusers.” The respondent then picks one of the five categories mentioned
above in response. Likert scales have been widely used and have resulted in a
vast amount of information about human attitudes and behaviors.
874

Bordens, Kenneth S., and Bruce B. Abbott. Research Design and Methods: A
Process Approach. 5th ed. Mountain View, Calif.: Mayfield, 2001. Places the
techniques of using surveys, interviews, and questionnaires for collecting
data in the context of conducting research as a process from start to fin-
ish. A well-received textbook in psychology.
Converse, Jean M., and Stanley Presser. Survey Questions: Handcrafting the
Standardized Questionnaire. Beverly Hills, Calif.: Sage Publications, 1986.
Provides explicit, practical details for consideration when designing a
questionnaire. Stresses the art of questionnaire creation.
Cozby, Paul C. Methods in Behavioral Research. 7th ed. Mountain View, Calif.:
Mayfield, 2000. Examines the importance of survey research in the con-
text of conducting experiments and doing research in psychology in
general. Allows the reader to understand the research process from a
broader perspective.
Judd, Charles M., Louise H. Kidder, and Eliot R. Smith. Research Methods in
Social Relations. 6th ed. Pacific Grove, Calif.: International Thomson,
1991. A popular book whose writing style is exceptionally clear. Offers
thorough information that introduces the reader to the process of doing
research in psychology, including how to get an idea for a research topic,
how to collect the information, how to be ethical with subjects, and how
to report the results. Detailed information is provided on questionnaires
and interviews.
Stewart, Charles J., and William B. Cash, Jr. Interviewing Principles and Prac-
tices. 9th ed. Boston: McGraw-Hill College, 2000. A hands-on introduc-
tion to interviewing which provides practical suggestions and tips along
with background information.
Deborah R. McDonald
See also: Case-Study Methodologies.
875
Thirst
Fields of study: Endocrine system; motivation theory; physical motives
Thirst, along with hunger, is one of the basic biological drives. It motivates humans to
drink, which is necessary for their survival.
Key concepts
• antidiuretic hormone (ADH)
• cellular dehydration thirst
• drive
• hypothalamus
• hypovolemic thirst
• motivation
The range of human motivation is quite broad in controlling behaviors. Mo-

tivation can be defined as a condition that energizes and directs behavior in
a particular manner. Different aspects of motivation can be attributed to in-
stinctive behavior patterns, the need to reduce drives, or learned experi-
ences.
Thirst is one of many biologically based motivational factors; among
other such factors are those that involve food, air, sleep, temperature regula-
tion, and pain avoidance. Biologically based motivational factors help hu-
mans and other organisms to maintain a balanced internal environment.
This is the process of homeostasis. Deviations from the norm, such as hun-
ger, excessive water loss, and pain, will cause an organism to seek out what-
ever is lacking.
Biologically based motivational factors, such as thirst, have been ex-
plained by the drive-reduction hypothesis proposed by Clark Hull in 1943.
The lack of some factor, such as water or food, causes the body to feel un-
pleasant. This motivates one to reduce this feeling of unpleasantness, thus
reducing the drive. Thirst is considered what is called a primary drive. Pri-
mary drives, which are related to biologically based needs such as hunger,
thirst, and sleepiness, energize and motivate one to fulfill these biological
needs, thus helping the body to maintain homeostasis. Secondary drives ful-
fill no biological need.
One may wonder what it is that makes one thirsty and how one knows
when one has had enough to drink. Seventy-five percent of a human’s
weight is water. The maintenance of water balance is an ongoing process. In
an average day, a person will lose approximately 2.5 liters of water; 60 per-
cent of the water loss occurs through urination, 20 percent is lost through
perspiration, and the remainder is lost through defecation and exhalation
from the lungs. These 2.5 liters of water must be replaced.
What is the stimulus that motivates one to drink when one is thirsty? The
simplest hypothesis, which was proposed by Walter Cannon in 1934, is the
876
Thirst
dry mouth hypothesis. According to Cannon, it is a dry mouth that causes

one to drink, not the need for water. This hypothesis has not held up under
scrutiny. Research has shown that neither the removal of the salivary glands
nor the presence of excess salivation in dogs disrupts the animals’ regula-
tion of water intake. Studies have indicated that the amount of water con-
sumed is somehow measured and related to the organism’s water deficit.
This occurs even before the water has been replaced in the person’s tissues
and cells. Thus, dry mouth is a symptom of the need for water.
Water Regulation Process

When a human being’s water intake is lower than its level of water loss, two
bodily processes are set in motion. First, the person becomes thirsty and
drinks water (provided it is available). Second, the kidneys start to retain
water by reabsorbing it and concentrating the urine. Thus, the kidneys can
conserve the water that is already in the body. These processes are set in mo-
tion by the central nervous system (CNS).
The CNS responds to two primary internal bodily mechanisms. One is
cellular dehydration thirst, and the other is hypovolemic thirst (a change in
the volume of water in the body). In order to understand these mechanisms,
one must realize that the body contains two main supplies of water. One sup-
ply, the intracellular fluid, is in the cells; the other supply consists of the
extracellular fluid surrounding the cells and tissues and the fluid in the cir-
culatory system. Water moves between these two areas by means of a process
called osmosis, which causes it to move from an area of higher concentra-
tion to an area of lower concentration.
A person who is deprived of water will experience cellular dehydration
thirst as a result of water loss caused by perspiration and excretion through
the urine. This increases the salt concentration in the extracellular fluid,
thereby lowering the water concentration. Thus, the cells lose their water to
the surrounding extracellular fluid. The increasing salt concentration trig-
gers specialized osmoreceptors located in the hypothalamic region of the
brain. Two events occur: First, drinking is stimulated; second, antidiuretic
hormone (ADH) is secreted from the pituitary gland in the brain. The ADH
helps to promote the reabsorption of water into the kidneys.
The second kind of thirst, hypovolemic thirst, occurs when there is a de-
crease in the volume of the extracellular fluid as a result of bleeding, diar-
rhea, or vomiting. This produces a decrease in the salt concentration of the
extracellular fluid, which lowers the blood pressure, which in turn stimu-
lates the kidney cells to release a chemical. Eventually, the thirst receptors in
the hypothalamus are stimulated; these cause the organism to consume
water. In addition, ADH is secreted in this process, which promotes the con-
servation of water.
The regulation of water intake in humans is thus related to a number of
factors and is quite complex. Though cellular dehydration thirst and hypo-
volemic thirst play a role, it appears that in humans, peripheral factors such
877
Psychology Basics
as dry mouth play an even larger role. Humans can drink rapidly, replacing
a twenty-four-hour water deficit in two to three minutes. This occurs even be-
fore the cellular fluid has replaced the water, which takes approximately
eight to twelve minutes.
Motivational Factor
Thirst is a strong motivational factor. The importance of replacing lost water
is underscored by the fact that a person can survive for a month without
food but for only several days without water. It appears that both thirst pro-
cesses help to promote drinking. Researchers have estimated that 64 to 85
percent of the drinking following water loss is caused by cellular dehydra-
tion thirst. Hypovolemic thirst accounts for 5 to 27 percent of the drinking,
and the remainder is caused by peripheral factors.
The two types of thirst are independent of each other. The receptors for
both thirsts are located in the hypothalamic region of the brain, but they are
at different locations. Research has shown that lesions in one region will
have no effect on thirst regulation in the other region.
Although the motivation to drink in humans is under conscious control
by peripheral factors, unconscious control does exert a large influence. A
study of cellular dehydration thirst using goats showed that the injection of a
saline solution that has a salt concentration of more than 0.9 percent salt
(body fluids have a salt concentration of 0.9 percent salt) into the area in
which the osmoreceptors are located will produce a drinking response
within sixty seconds. Similar results have been found regarding hypovo-
lemic thirst; injecting angiotensin II (a converted protein found in the
blood) into the hypothalamus causes a drinking response. This occurs even
in animals that are fully hydrated. These animals will consume in direct pro-
portion to the amount of angiotensin II injected into the hypothalamus.
Diet can have a profound effect on water balance in humans. Eating salty
foods will produce cellular dehydration thirst despite adequate fluid levels,
because water will flow out of the cells into the extracellular fluid. In con-
trast, salt-free diets will produce hypovolemic thirst by causing water to flow
into the cells. Other factors also cause thirst. As stated previously, diarrhea,
vomiting, and blood loss will cause hypovolemic thirst as a result of the loss
of extracellular fluid. Therefore, significant blood loss will cause a person to
become thirsty.
Impact of Diseases
Diseases can also have an impact on thirst. An interesting example of such a
disease is diabetes. Diabetes is a condition in which the body cannot process
blood glucose (a type of sugar) properly. Improper diet or medication can
cause diabetic ketoacidosis, which causes the levels of glucose and ketone
bodies (derivatives from fat) in the blood to rise. This creates a major shift in
the water balance of the body. Water leaves the cells and enters the blood sys-
tem, causing the volume of blood to increase. This extra fluid (along with
878
Thirst
potassium and sodium) is excreted from the body in the urine, which causes
the body to suffer dehydration and triggers a tremendous thirst. Because
fluid is lost from both cells and extracellular fluid, this causes both types of
thirst. Excessive thirst is still a symptom of diabetes, but it has become rare as
a result of education and improved treatment.
Impact of Exercise
Thirst motivation also operates during exercise. In short-term exercise,
thirst motivation does not come into play because the body usually main-
tains its temperature. During long-term exercise, however, water intake at
intervals facilitates athletic performance by helping to maintain body tem-
perature. The motivation to drink occurs as a result of sweating, which
causes the salt concentration in the body to rise during exercise, thereby
causing cellular dehydration thirst. Interestingly, voluntary thirst and pe-
ripheral factors do not motivate one to take in water during prolonged exer-
cise in the heat until it is too late. Thus, coaches should insist that athletes
drink water as they perform.

Carlson, Neil. Foundations of Physiological Psychology. 5th ed. Boston: Allyn &
Bacon, 2002. An introductory college textbook. Thirst is covered in the
chapter on ingestive behavior.
Levinthal, Charles F. “Chemical Senses and the Mechanisms for Eating and
Drinking.” In Introduction to Physiological Psychology. 3d ed. Englewood
Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1990. A very good chapter on the thirst drive. It
is quite detailed, but the clarity of the writing makes it easy to read.
Mader, Sylvia S. Biology. 8th ed. Boston: McGraw-Hill, 2004. An easy-to-read in-
troductory textbook on biology that provides a good background on hor-
mones, water regulation, and kidney function, with many fine diagrams
and figures. A good basis for understanding physiological psychology.
Lonnie J. Guralnick
See also: Drives; Endocrine System; Hormones and Behavior; Hunger.
879
Thought
Study and Measurement
Although the study of thought did not originate in psychology, cognitive psychology is
primarily dedicated to the study and measurement of thought processes.
Key concepts
• Ebbinghaus forgetting curve
• higher mental functions
• information processing model
• parallel processing
• percent savings
• personal equation
• serial processing
• subtraction technique
Cognitive psychologists study many processes basic to human nature and ev-
eryday life. Mental processes are central to who people are, what they do,
and how they survive. In cognitive psychology, the study of thought necessi-
tates its measurement. For example, much effort has been put forth in cog-
nitive psychology to study how people understand and process information
in their environment. One popular approach is to use the idea of a human
information-processing system, analogous to a computer. Computers are in-
formation-processing devices that use very specific instructions to achieve
tasks. A computer receives input, performs certain internal operations on the
data (including memory operations), and outputs certain results. Cognitive
psychologists often use the information-processing metaphor in describing
human operations. People must “input” information from the environ-
ment; this process includes sensory and perceptual systems, the recognition
of certain common patterns of information, and attention processes.
Once this information has entered the “system,” a vast number of opera-
tions can be performed. Much of the work by cognitive psychologists has
centered on the storage of information during this process—that is, on
memory. While memory processes have been of interest since ancient times,
it was not until the 1880’s that scientists, notably Hermann Ebbinghaus, first
systematically and scientifically studied memory. Scientists studying mem-
ory today talk about concepts such as short-term and long-term memory as
well as about the distinction between episodic and semantic memory sys-
tems. The function of memory is essential to human thought and ultimately
to the measurement of thought.
In terms of measuring what happens to incoming information, more
than memory storage occurs; people manipulate these data. They make de-
880
Thought: Study and Measurement
cisions based on the information available, and they have capabilities (often
referred to as higher mental processes) that in many ways differentiate hu-
mans from other animals. Some of the functions commonly studied and
measured include reasoning, problem solving, logic, decision making, and
language development and use. The information-processing analogy is
completed with the “output” of information. When a person is asked a ques-
tion, the response is the output; it is based on the information stored in
memory, whether those items be personal experiences, knowledge gained
from books, or awareness of social customs. People do these things so effort-
lessly, day in and day out, that it is difficult to stop, appreciate, and compre-
hend how thoughts work. Psychologists have pondered these questions for
many years and are only beginning to discover the answers.
Measuring Thoughts
Some of the earliest systematic studies of thought and the accompanying de-
sire to measure it came from astronomy, not psychology or philosophy.
From this beginning, Dutch physiologist Frans C. Donders set out specifi-
cally to measure a sequence of mental process—thought—in the middle of
the nineteenth century. His technique was simple yet elegant in its ability to
measure how much time mental processes consume; the procedure devel-
oped by Donders is typically referred to as the subtraction technique.
The subtraction technique begins with the timing and measurement of a
very basic task. For example, a person might be asked to press a button after
hearing a tone. Donders realized that it was fairly easy to time accurately how
long subjects took to perform this task. He believed that two cognitive
(thought) processes would be operating: perception of the tone and the
motor response of pressing the button. Once the time of this simple task was
known, Donders would make the task more difficult. If a discrimination task
were added, he believed, the time taken to complete the task would increase
compared to the basic perception-motor response sequence. In this discrim-
ination task, for example, Donders might tell a person to press the button
only after hearing a high-pitched sound. That person is now faced with an
added demand—to make a decision about pitch. Donders believed that
with this discrimination stage, the processing of the information would re-
quire more mental effort and more time; he was right. More important,
Donders could now measure the amount of extra thought required for the
decision by subtracting the simple-task time from the discrimination-task
time. In a general sense, Donders had a method for measuring thought.
Donders also had the ability to measure and manipulate specific compo-
nents of the thought process. He even added another component to the se-
quence of tasks, what he called choice time. For example, the task could be
changed so that for a high tone the subject should press the right button
and for a low tone press the left button. By subtracting the discrimination
time from this new choice time, he could estimate how long the added
choice contributed to the overall thought process. By means of these inge-
881
Psychology Basics
nious methods, Donders inspired generations of cognitive psychologists to

study thought in terms of the time it takes to think.
Ebbinghaus on Learning and Forgetting

The first recognized work done in psychology on the measurement of
thought processes was Hermann Ebbinghaus’s work on memory capacity
and forgetting. Working independently in the 1880’s in Germany, Ebbing-
haus set out to study memory processes, particularly the nature of forget-
ting. Being the first psychologist to study the issue, he had no precedent, so
Ebbinghaus invented his own procedures for measuring memory. To his
credit, those procedures were so good that they are still commonly used. Be-
fore describing his measurement of memory, Ebbinghaus made two impor-
tant decisions about methods for studying memory. First, he studied only
one person’s memory—his own. He believed he would have better control
over situational and contextual variables that way.
Second, Ebbinghaus decided that he could not use everyday words in his
memory studies, because they might have associations that would make
them easier to study. For example, if one were memorizing a poem, the story
and the writing style might help memory, and Ebbinghaus was interested in
a pure measure of memory and forgetting. To achieve this, Ebbinghaus pio-
neered the use of nonsense syllables. He used three-letter combinations of
consonant-vowel-consonant so that the items were pronounceable but mean-
ingless. Nonsense syllables such as “geb,” “fak,” “jit,” “zab,” and “buh” were
used.
Ebbinghaus used a vigorous schedule of testing and presented himself
with many lists of nonsense syllables to be remembered at a later time. In
fact, he spent five years memorizing various lists until he published his semi-
nal work on the topic, Über das Gedächtnis (1885; Memory: A Contribution to Ex-
perimental Psychology, 1913). He systematically measured memory by memo-
rizing a list, letting some time pass, and testing himself on the list. He devised
a numerical measurement for memory called percent savings. Percent sav-
ings was a measure of the degree of forgetting that occurred over time. For ex-
ample, it might take him ten minutes to memorize a list perfectly. He would
let forty-eight hours pass, then tell himself to recall the list. Forgetting occurs
during that time, and only some items would be remembered. Ebbinghaus
would then look at the original list and rememorize it until he knew it per-
fectly; this might take seven minutes or so. He always spent less time rememo-
rizing the list. Said another way, there was some savings from the earlier expe-
rience forty-eight hours before. This percent savings was his measure of mem-
ory. The higher the percentage of savings, the more items remembered (or
the less forgotten), and Ebbinghaus could remember the list in less time.
Ebbinghaus then varied the time between original list learning and later
list recall. He found that percent savings drops over time; that is, the longer
one waits to remember something, the less one saves from the prior experi-
ence, so the more time he had to spend rememorizing the list. Ebbinghaus
882
found fairly good percent savings two or nine hours later, but percent sav-
ings dropped dramatically after two or three days. Plotted on a graph, this
relationship looks like a downward sloping curve, and it is called the Eb-
binghaus forgetting curve. Simply stated, it means that as time passes, mem-
ories become poorer. Although this effect is not surprising today, Ebbing-
haus was the first (in 1885) to demonstrate this phenomenon empirically.
Sternberg on Speed
Another example of the work in the area of cognitive psychology comes
from the studies of Saul Sternberg in the 1960’s at Bell Laboratories. Stern-
berg examined how additional information in memory influences the speed
of mental operations in retrieving information stored in memory. Stern-
berg’s task was fairly simple. He presented his subjects with a list of numbers;
the list might range from one to six numbers. After the subjects saw this ini-
tial list, a single number (called a probe) was presented. People were asked
to identify whether the probe number was on the initial list of numbers. The
list might be 2, 3, 9, and 5, for example, and the probe might be 3.
Sternberg’s primary interest was in studying how the length of the initial
list affected the time it took to make the required yes-or-no decision. Two
possibilities typically emerge when people consider this problem. The con-
cept called serial processing holds that the comparison of the probe to each
number in the initial list takes time, so that the more items in the initial list,
the longer the memory search takes. An alternative idea, parallel process-
ing, suggests that people instantaneously scan all the items in the memory
set, and the number of items in the initial list does not make a difference.
Another way of saying this is that all the items are scanned at once, in paral-
lel fashion. Sternberg found that people search their memories using the
technique of serial processing. In fact, he was able to calculate precisely the
amount of additional search time needed for each added item in the mem-
ory set—38 milliseconds (a millisecond is a thousandth of a second). Al-
though the search may seem fast, even instantaneous, the more there is to
think about, the more time it takes to think.
The study of thought, and particularly its measurement, is a relatively recent
development. For centuries, the thinking processes of humans were be-
lieved to be somewhat mystical and certainly not available for scientific in-
quiry. Most philosophers were concerned more with the mind and its rela-
tionship to the body or the world than with how people think. The study of
thought, although it was generally considered by the ancient Greek philoso-
phers, did not merit serious attention until the emergence of the “personal
equation” by astronomers and the realization that thought processes are in-
deed measurable and can be measured accurately and precisely.
The story of the first recorded measurements of thought begins with the
royal astronomer to England, Nevil Maskelyne, and his assistant, David
883
Psychology Basics
Kinnebrook, in 1794. Astronomers of the day were mostly concerned with

stellar transits (measuring the movement of stars across the sky). Using tele-
scopes and specialized techniques, the astronomer sought to measure the
time it took for a particular star to move across a portion of the telescopic
field. Using a complicated procedure that involved listening to a beating
clock and viewing the sky, astronomers could measure the transit time of a
star fairly accurately, to within one-tenth or two-tenths of a second. These
measurements were particularly important because the clocks of that period
were based on stellar transits.
Maskelyne and Kinnebrook often worked together in recording the
movement of the stars. While Kinnebrook had no problems during 1794, in
1795 Maskelyne began to notice that Kinnebrook’s times varied from his
own by as much as one-half of a second—considered a large and important
difference. By early 1796, the difference between the astronomers’ times
had grown to eight-tenths of a second. This was an intolerable amount of er-
ror to Maskelyne, and he fired his assistant Kinnebrook.
About twenty years later, a German astronomer named Friedrich Bessel
came across the records of these incidents and began to study the “error” in
the differing astronomers’ measurements. He believed that the different
measurements were attributable in part to differences between people and
that this difference was not necessarily an error. He found that even the
most famous and reliable astronomers of the day differed from one another
by more than two-tenths of a second.
This incident between Maskelyne and Kinnebrook, and its later study by
Bessel, led to some important conclusions. First, measurements in astron-
omy would have to consider the specific person making the measurement.
Astronomers even went to the lengths of developing what became known as
the personal equation. The personal equation was a verified, quantified ac-
count of how each astronomer’s thought processes worked when measuring
stellar transits. In essence, the personal equation was a measurement of the
thought process involved and a recognition of differences between people.
Second, if astronomers differ in their particular thought processes, then
many people differ in other types of thinking processes as well. Finally, and
perhaps most important in the long run, this incident laid the groundwork
for the idea that thought could be measured accurately and the information
could be put to good use. No longer was thinking a mystical or magical pro-
cess that was unacceptable for study by scientists.
It is from this historical context that the field of cognitive psychology has
emerged. Cognitive psychology is chiefly concerned with the thought pro-
cesses and, indeed, all the general mental processing of organisms (most of-
ten humans). The interests of a cognitive psychologist can be quite varied:
learning, memory, problem solving, reasoning, logic, decision making, lin-
guistics, cognitive development in children, and other topics. Each area of
specialization continues to measure and examine how people think, using
tasks and procedures as ingenious as those of Donders, Ebbinghaus, and
884
Sternberg. The study and measurement of thought (or, more generally, the
field of cognitive psychology) will continue to play an important and vital
role. Not many questions are more basic to the study of human behavior
than how people think, what processes are involved, and how researchers
can scientifically study and measure these processes.

Anderson, John R. Cognitive Psychology and Its Implications. 5th ed. New York:
Worth, 2000. This text is a long-standing leader in the field of cognitive
psychology. Provides a wonderful overview of the fundamental issues of
cognitive psychology, including attention and perception, basic princi-
ples of human memory, problem solving, the development of expertise,
reasoning, intelligence, and language structure and use.
Ashcraft, Mark H. Human Memory and Cognition. 2d ed. Upper Saddle River,
N.J.: Prentice Hall, 1994. A cognitive psychology textbook that heavily
emphasizes the human information-processing metaphor. Arranged dif-
ferently from Anderson’s text, it too provides good coverage of all the ba-
sic areas of cognitive psychology.
Boring, Edwin G. A History of Experimental Psychology. 2d ed. Englewood Cliffs,
N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1957. This text is the foremost authority on the devel-
opment and history of psychology in the first half of the twentieth century.
Contains detailed accounts of the work of early philosophers and astron-
omers who contributed to the study of thought and even contains an entire
chapter devoted to the personal equation. This can be a difficult text to
read, but it is the authoritative overview of the early history of psychology.
Goodwin, C. James. A History of Modern Psychology. New York: John Wiley &
Sons, 1998. A readable and understandable treatment of the history of
psychology from René Descartes in the Renaissance to the present.
Lachman, Roy, Janet L. Lachman, and Earl C. Butterfield. Cognitive Psychol-
ogy and Information Processing: An Introduction. Hillsdale, N.J.: Lawrence
Erlbaum, 1979. One of the earliest texts that adequately captures the
coming importance and influence of cognitive psychology. There are
outstanding chapters that trace the influences of other disciplines and
traditions on what is now known as cognitive psychology. Topic areas
within the field are discussed as well.
Mayer, Richard E. Thinking, Problem Solving, and Cognition. 2d ed. New York:
W. H. Freeman, 1992. A book primarily dedicated to the topic of problem
solving, which is unusual. The format is interesting and creative, covering
the historical perspective of problem solving, basic thinking tasks, infor-
mation-processing analysis, and implications and applications. The focus
on thought and its measurement is seen throughout, especially in sec-
tions discussing mental chronometry.
R. Eric Landrum
See also: Cognitive Psychology; Language; Learning; Logic and Reasoning.

885
Women’s Psychology
Carol Gilligan
Fields of study: Adolescence; classic analytic themes and issues; general
constructs and issues; social motives
Gilligan’s theories of girls’ and women’s moral voice and development led many re-
searchers to examine the ways boys and girls, men and women develop morality, and
has been instrumental in drawing attention to the importance of the study of the lives
of girls and women.
Key concepts
• ethic of care
• ethic of justice
• moral orientation
• relational self
• voice
Within the fields of the moral psychology and the psychology of women,
Carol Gilligan, a developmental psychologist, has raised a number of impor-
tant questions about moral psychology and has generated a great deal of
research on girls and their development. Her theory about the “different
voice” of girls and women, described in her 1982 book, In a Different
Voice: Psychological Theory and Women’s Development, has been used to explain
gender differences in such diverse fields as children’s play, the speech of
children, adult conversation, women in academia, leadership style, career
choice, war and peace studies, the professions of law, nursing, and teaching,
and theories about women’s epistemologies or ways of knowing.
Originally Gilligan’s work was conducted in the field of moral psychology.
She followed a tradition of social scientists and moral philosophers who as-
sociated moral development with cognitive development. Gilligan argued
that boys and men apply rational, abstract, or objective thought to moral
questions; as a result they are likely to appeal to the principle of justice when
describing their thinking about moral issues. In contrast, Gilligan asserted,
girls and women are more likely than boys and men to focus on the relation-
ships between people and the potential for human suffering and harm.
When this thinking is applied to moral issues, girls and women appeal to the
ethic of care. The ethic of care, she claims, reflects women’s “different
voice.”
In the preface written to the 1993 edition of her book, Gilligan describes
“voice” as the core of the self. She calls it “a powerful psychological instru-
ment and channel, connecting inner and outer worlds . . . a litmus test of re-
lationships and a measure of psychological health.” Gilligan and colleagues
in the Harvard Project on Women’s Psychology and the Development of
886
Women’s Psychology: Carol Gilligan
Girls designed an interview and qualitative scoring method to study moral

orientation and voice. They interviewed, held focus groups, and used sen-
tence completion measures to examine female adolescent and adult devel-
opment. They argued that girls “lose voice” in adolescence; they dissociate
from their real selves, a loss that puts them at risk for depression and anxiety.
Development of the Ethic of Care and Voice

Gilligan offers two explanations regarding how the ethic of care and women’s
different voice develop. The first draws from the psychoanalytic theory of
Nancy Chodorow. According to Chodorow, from infancy both boys and girls
develop a strong attachment to their mothers, which is the basis for their re-
lational selves. However, during the Oedipal period (about age five), boys
must separate from their mothers and must form an autonomous and sepa-
rate identity as a male. This leads them to repress their relational selves and
identify with their fathers. For girls, it is not necessary to detach themselves
psychologically from their mothers in order to develop a gender role iden-
tity as a female; their attachment to their mothers is not repressed, and girls
maintain a strong relational self.
Carol Gilligan. (Courtesy

of Carol Gilligan)
887
Psychology Basics
Gilligan claimed to find a developmental pattern in her study of women

facing a decision to have an abortion, described in her 1982 book. The first
level, called “orientation to individual survival,” focused on caring for one-
self. The second level, called “goodness as sacrifice” focused on care of self.
The third level, “the morality of nonviolence,” is a morality of care for both
self and others. Gilligan’s levels have not been validated in any subsequent
studies, raising questions about whether the ethic of care is a developmental
construct.
Socialization also affects women’s sense of self and is connected with the
development of voice. According to Gilligan, society reinforces the male/
female gender roles, rewarding boys and men for being autonomous, inde-
pendent, and rational, while their relational voices are silenced. In contrast,
girls’ independent autonomous voices are silenced during adolescence
when they experience a conflict. If they become “good women” by conform-
ing to societal stereotypes, they risk losing their authentic (independent)
self, or voice. However, if girls resist social pressures to conform to an ideal
of femininity, they risk damaging their connections to others. Most girls do
not resist and, as a consequence, learn to doubt their true selves.
Historical Context for Gilligan’s Theory

Gilligan’s theory of moral development was an attempt to correct psycho-
logical theories that overlooked the experiences of women or discredited
women’s moral psychology. For example, Sigmund Freud (1856-1939), the
“father” of psychoanalysis, had claimed that women and men differ in their
moral capacity because girls’ superegos are less developed than those of
boys. While Freud found women’s morality inferior to men’s, Gilligan
claimed that women’s moral thinking was different from men’s but of great,
if not greater, moral value.
Gilligan’s theory drew from the developmental work of Lawrence Kohl-
berg (1927-1987) but corrected what she claimed was a gender bias in
Kohlberg’s theory. Kohlberg’s theory of moral development was based on
six stages of moral thinking that develop universally in an invariant se-
quence as a result of maturation and experience. In 1969, Kohlberg pub-
lished results comparing men’s and women’s moral reasoning and reported
that women typically scored at stage three, “mutual interpersonal expecta-
tions, relationships, and conformity,” while men typically scored at stage
four, “social system and conscience maintenance.” Because developmental
theories such as Kohlberg’s assume higher stages to be superior, this was tan-
tamount to saying that the moral reasoning of women was less well devel-
oped than that of men. However, Kohlberg made no claim regarding gen-
der differences in moral reasoning. It is likely that in the 1960’s, when his
study was conducted, his sample of working men and their wives had very dif-
ferent life experiences and that these differences account for his findings.
Gilligan’s influential book In a Different Voice entered the field of the psy-
chology of women at an important time. In the 1960’s and 1970’s, research-
888
ers who were studying the psychology of women had argued that empirical
evidence shows that psychological differences between men and women are
small, and, if they exist at all, gender differences are due to socialization and
experience. If no relevant differences exist, there is no basis for assigning
men and women to different spheres; gender cannot be used to exclude
women from education, political life, or work.
Androgyny theorists in the 1960’s and 1970’s sought to discredit claims of
gender differences that denigrate women or bar them from educational or
career opportunities. They argued that with proper gender-role socializa-
tion, boys and girls, men and women would be equal in psychological attrib-
utes. However, by the late 1970’s, feminist psychologists began pointing out
that androgyny theory contained its own problems: The qualities of compet-
itiveness, aggression, independence, and autonomy, which characterized
the masculine norm, might not be the best ideal for either men or women.
Some feminist psychologists, such as Jean Baker Miller, sought a new norm
for human development, an ideal that celebrated the alternative, feminine
virtues of care, concern for others, and the ability to maintain strong rela-
tionships with others.
In this postandrogyny period, Gilligan’s theory was hailed as a corrective
to psychological studies based on male samples that posited masculinity as
normative. Gilligan called attention to the study of adolescent girls and
claimed to map a new psychological theory that begins with the experience
of girls and women and reveals women’s different voice.
Research on Moral Reasoning, Moral Orientation, and Voice

Research on moral psychology shows that children are concerned with
moral issues at a very early age. They care about “what’s fair,” and they are
disturbed when someone has been hurt, suggesting that both justice and
care orientations can be identified early in life. Research also shows that in
Western culture, girls and women are expected to be more concerned with
relationships and more in tune with their feelings than boys. However, a
great deal of research since the 1970’s has shown that girls and boys are not
as different in moral reasoning and voice as Gilligan claims.
Studies using the Kohlbergian Moral Judgment Interview (MJI) reveal
that males and females at the same age and educational levels are equally
able to resolve moral dilemmas by appealing to justice principles. Similar re-
sults have been obtained with the Defining Issues Test (DIT), the most fre-
quently used objective test of comprehension of and preference for moral
issues. Meta-analysis on DIT scores reveals that education is 250 times more
powerful than gender in predicting principled moral reasoning. Narrative
and longitudinal studies also have shown that women are as likely as men at
the same educational level to advance in the sequential order of develop-
ment predicted from Kohlberg’s theory. In sum, evidence does not support
the assertions that, compared with females, males are more principled in
their moral reasoning, more concerned with conflicts resulting from con-
889
Psychology Basics
flicting claims about rights, or more capable of using abstract principles of

justice in their moral reasoning. Evidence does not support the claim that
Kohlberg’s theory or measure of moral reasoning is biased against girls or
women.
Are women more caring or more relational than men? Are they more
likely to be silenced, silence themselves, or lose their voice than men? The
evidence to support or refute Gilligan’s assertion that the ethic of care char-
acterizes female morality or voice is inconclusive. In part, this is because
there are so many different ways that care and voice as psychological con-
structs are measured; it is difficult to compare across studies that operation-
alize the constructs differently. Different researchers view the ethic of care
as a moral theory, an interpersonal orientation, a perceptual focus, or an
epistemological theory. Voice is understood variously as a theory of self, a
moral perspective, or a defensive posture. Furthermore, most of Gilligan’s
qualitative studies of girls’ development only present girls’ voices, and gen-
der differences cannot be tested.
Research on the ethic of care suggests that the majority of people, both
males and females, can and do use both care and justice orientations. Some
studies, particularly those conducted using Gilligan’s qualitative interview,
report that females tend to focus on the care orientation and males on the
justice orientation, particularly in self-identified moral dilemmas. While
qualitative research is very important in developing theory and understand-
ing a construct, testing specific hypotheses (such as that there are gender
differences in voice) requires quantitative studies. Most such studies fail to
support Gilligan’s theory of gender differences in moral orientation.
Some researchers have found that whether someone uses an ethic of care
or an ethic of justice depends on the type of moral dilemma they discuss.
Lawrence J. Walker and his colleagues found that when participants talked
about their own moral dilemmas, females were more likely to identify inter-
personal dilemmas, whereas males were more likely to choose impersonal
dilemmas. If respondents focussed on people and their relationships (a
friend who betrays another friend), they were more likely to see that the
ethic of care had been violated. If respondents focussed on issues in which
the rights of others were violated or societal rules were transgressed (break-
ing a law), they were more likely to be concerned about justice. Interper-
sonal conflicts elicited a care orientation, while issues of conflicting rights
elicited a justice orientation for both men and women. However, when
asked to think about an issue differently, both boys and girls were able to
change and use either justice or care reasoning.
Gilligan’s studies of adolescent girls’ voices, using her methods of inter-
view, focus groups, and open-ended sentence completion measures, depict
a conflicted adolescence, loss of voice, and growing dissociation from what
girls know. While some girls resist, most strive to retain their relationships,
and thus seek to please others even if it means developing an inauthentic
self.
890
Research conducted by Susan Harter using more standardized measures

and large samples of both boys and girls indicates that adolescence is a chal-
lenging time for girls, and that they are concerned about their relationships.
Girls feel silenced by others and they silence themselves, but not more so
than adolescent boys. Harter’s studies of loss of voice indicate there are not
gender differences in voice, that girls do not have lower levels of voice than
boys, and voice does not decline with age.
Gender Difference Research

Given the empirical results that gender differences, when they exist, are
small and usually attributable to different socialization, why do such claims
persist? In part the answer lies in the methodology that is used in research
on gender. Gilligan and her colleagues’ work, particularly their research us-
ing qualitatively analyzed interviews, leads to the conclusion that there are
large differences in the ways boys and girls view moral issues, think, react
emotionally, and commit to relationships. However, studies that use stan-
dardized measures to compare men and women reveal more similarities
than differences. Either conclusion has important implications.
Rachel Hare-Mustin and Jeanne Marecek claim that as knowledge in the
social sciences is always incomplete, interpretation of events, including re-
search findings, is always subject to bias. They suggest two forms of bias influ-
ence beliefs about gender differences. Alpha bias is the tendency to empha-
size gender difference; beta bias is the tendency to emphasize similarity. In
beta bias, underemphasizing gender differences can lead to ignoring the
different resources men and women need. In contrast, alpha bias, overesti-
mating differences, can lead one to advocate different roles for men and
women. If women are more caring, ought they to be the caregivers? If men
are more justice oriented, ought they to be judges? If there is no difference
in moral orientation between boys and girls, ought all children to be taught
to use both principles? Ought care and justice to be expected from all
adults?
Gilligan’s Contribution
Gilligan raised important questions in the field of the psychology of morality
and in so doing drew attention to the ethic of care. While the gender differ-
ences that she originally asserted have not been found, her work draws on
the experience of girls and women in ways that value that experience. Her
insistence that studying the lives of girls is as important as studying the lives
of boys brought a good deal of research attention that can lead to new
knowledge and new ways to promote the well-being of all boys and girls, men
and women.

Brown, Lyn Mikel, and Carol Gilligan. Meeting at the Crossroads: Women’s Psy-
chology and Girls’ Development. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University
891
Psychology Basics
Press, 1992. This book describes interviews conducted at the Laurel

School, a private day school for girls. The authors describe the listener’s
guide, a method of listening to girls’ thoughts and feelings. The inter-
views demonstrate that relationships are central concerns for middle and
high school girls.
Chodorow, Nancy. The Reproduction of Mothering: Psychoanalysis and the So-
ciology of Gender. 2d ed. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999.
Chodorow draws on psychoanalytic theory to describe how women’s
mothering is reproduced across culture and across time. The book re-
quires a fairly good background in psychoanalytic theory.
Freud, Sigmund. “Some Psychical Consequences of the Anatomical Distinc-
tion Between the Sexes.” In The Standard Edition of the Complete Psycho-
logical Works of Sigmund Freud. Vol 19. Translated and edited by James
Strachey. London: The Hogarth Press, 1966-1973. Freud claimed that be-
cause of anatomical differences, girls do not have an Oedipal conflict as
emotionally strong as that of boys. As a consequence, boys develop a
stronger superego, the structure of the psyche responsible for morality.
Gilligan, Carol. In a Different Voice: Psychological Theory and Women’s Develop-
ment. Reprint. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1993. The
theory of ethic of care and girls’ and women’s different moral voice is de-
scribed. This often-cited book launched a great deal of discussion and
prompted many studies of adolescent girls. Gilligan describes her theory
of gender differences in moral orientation and of women’s voice as dif-
ferent from men’s voice.
Gilligan, Carol, Nona Lyons, and Trudy Hanmer, eds. Making Connections:
The Relational Worlds of Adolescent Girls at Emma Willard School. Cambridge,
Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1990. The voices of girls and their resis-
tance to imposed silencing of their voices are described through inter-
views conducted at the Emma Willard School, a private day and boarding
school for girls.
Gilligan, Carol, Annie G. Rogers, and Deborah L. Tolman. Women, Girls, and
Psychotherapy: Reframing Resistance. New York: Harrington Park Press,
1991. This collection of essays describes the social pressures that silence
girls’ voices and demonstrates girls’ resistance to being silenced.
Gilligan, Carol, Jamie Victoria Ward, and Jill McLean Taylor, with Betty Bar-
dige, eds. Mapping the Moral Domain: A Contribution of Women’s Thinking to
Psychological Theory and Education. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Graduate
School of Education, 1988. These essays describe research on gender and
morality and include a chapter on the origins of gender differences in
moral orientation. Many of the chapters were previously published as
journal articles or book chapters.
Hare-Mustin, Rachel, and Jeanne Marecek, eds. Making a Difference: Psychol-
ogy and the Construction of Gender. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press,
1990. The essays describe how gender differences are socially constructed
and includes Hare-Mustin and Marecek’s discussion of alpha and beta
892
bias, a distinction that is useful in interpreting findings of gender differ-

ences.
Harter, Susan. The Construction of the Self: A Developmental Perspective. New
York: Guilford Press, 1999. Harter describes her theory and measure-
ment of the self from a developmental perspective. This book includes an
important summary and discussion of her research on gender differ-
ences in voice.
Miller, Jean Baker. Toward a New Psychology of Women. 2d ed. Boston: Beacon
Press, 1986. Miller draws on her clinical experience with women to de-
scribe and value a relational self, as defined through connections and re-
lationships with others. This is an essential text for understanding rela-
tional theories about women’s psychology.
Walker, Lawrence J. “Sex Differences in the Development of Moral Rea-
soning: A Critical Review.” Child Development 55 (1984): 677-691. Walker’s
first meta-analysis revealed no gender differences in moral reasoning
among men and women. Subsequent studies conducted by Walker and
associates have confirmed his initial findings.
Mary Brabeck
See also: Moral Development; Women’s Psychology: Karen Horney; Women’s

Psychology: Sigmund Freud.
893
Karen Horney
Fields of study: Classic analytic themes and issues; personality theory
Horney’s theories emphasize the effects of cultural influences on women’s personality
development. Her theories modified classical psychoanalytic views and provided new
insights into women’s interpersonal relationships.
Key concepts
• biological influences
• classical psychoanalysis
• cultural influences
• instinct
• neo-Freudians
• sexual instinct
• unconscious
Karen Horney (1885-1952) considered people to be products of their envi-

ronment as well as of biology. She stressed the ways in which cultural influ-
ences affect women’s personality development. These cultural influences
include interpersonal relationships and society’s attitudes about women.
Cultural influences are overlooked by classical psychoanalysis—a system
of psychology based on Freudian doctrine and procedure that seeks the root
of human behavior in the unconscious, a region of the mind that is the seat
of repressed impulses and experiences of which the conscious mind is un-
aware. Unconscious motivation and conflict, particularly sexual conflict, ac-
cording to Horney, play an important role in women’s development. She
viewed women as living in a male-oriented world in which they are judged by
men according to male standards. Women have come to believe that these
male-based standards represent their true nature. As a result, according to
Horney, women live with the dilemma of having to choose between fulfilling
their ambitions and meeting their needs for love by adhering to the passive
role that society assigns to them. These circumstances contribute to depres-
sion and low self-esteem.
Horney described three basic patterns of behavior by which people relate
to others: moving toward (or self-effacing), moving away from (or distanc-
ing), and moving against (or expanding). The moving-toward behavior in-
volves dependency and taking care of others as well as self-effacement.
Women have been conditioned since birth to relate to others in this man-
ner, according to Horney.
Relationship to Freudian Theory

Horney’s theories were modifications of classical psychoanalytic beliefs. Her
theories are best understood when viewed in relation to the Freudian con-
894
Women’s Psychology: Karen Horney
cepts that were prevalent during her lifetime. According to Sigmund Freud,
who founded classical psychoanalysis during the late nineteenth century, bi-
ological influences determine human behavior. Of these biological factors,
sexual instincts are the strongest motivators of human behavior. Neurosis,
or mental disorder, was considered by Freud to be the result of unconscious
sexual conflicts which began in early childhood.
Horney was grounded in psychoanalytic thinking and agreed with many
of Freud’s concepts. She disagreed radically, however, with the heavy sexual
content of Freudian theory. A major point of departure was the Freudian
concept of penis envy. Freud essentially viewed all psychological problems in
women to be the result of the woman’s inherent wish to be a man. Freud
maintained that girls are not born with a natural sense of their femininity
and regard themselves as inferior, castrated boys. As a result of penis envy,
the female rebels against her biological inferiority. The consequences, ac-
cording to Freud, are resentment, devaluation of her “negative sexual en-
dowments,” envying the opposite sex, and a constant search for compensa-
tion.
Horney considered penis envy to be contrary to biological thinking. She
maintained that little girls are instinctively feminine and aware of their fe-
maleness in early childhood. Thus, girls are not programmed to feel infe-
rior. Women may envy men the power and freedom they have in their pri-
vate and professional lives, but women do not envy men’s genitals. The
behaviors which Freud associated with penis envy—including greed, envy,
and ambition—Horney attributed to the restrictions society places on fe-
males.
Horney also disagreed with the Freudian theory that viewed frigidity and
masochism as biologically determined aspects of woman’s nature. Frigidity,
or the inability of a woman to experience sexual desire, is neither a normal
condition for a woman nor an illness, according to Horney. She considered
frigidity to be a symptom of an underlying psychological disturbance, such
as chronic anxiety. Frequently, it is caused by tensions between marital part-
ners. Powerful forces in society restrict a woman in the free expression of
her sexuality. Custom and education promote female inhibitions. Men’s
tendency to view their wives as spiritual partners and to look for sexual ex-
citement with prostitutes or others whom they do not respect may also cause
frigidity in wives.
Masochistic tendencies, wherein a woman seeks and enjoys pain and
suffering, particularly in her sexual life, result from special social circum-
stances, Horney maintained. Freudian theory, holding that women are bio-
logically programmed for masochism, is associated with the Freudian con-
cept of the female as having been rendered less powerful than the male
through castration. Horney, on the other hand, believed that society en-
courages women to be masochistic. Women are stereotyped as weak and
emotional, as enjoying dependence, and these qualities are rewarded by
men. Masochistic tendencies, according to Horney, are a way of relating by
895
Psychology Basics
which a woman tries to obtain security and satisfaction through submission

and self-effacement.
Karen Horney’s theories stressed the positive aspects of femininity. As her
ideas developed, she became more influenced by social scientists of her
period. Her theories placed increasing emphasis on interpersonal and so-
cial attitudes in determining women’s feelings, relations, and roles. Her
ideas about the development of women’s sexuality were focused on adoles-
cent girls, rather than on young children, as in Freudian theory. According
to Horney, adolescents develop attitudes to cope with sexual conflict, and
these attitudes carry over into adulthood.
New Approach to Women and Relationships

Horney’s theories opened the door for new ways of understanding women’s
personalities and relationships. In a 1984 study of women’s reactions to sep-
aration and loss, psychotherapist Alexandra Symonds found Horney’s theo-
ries to be relevant to what she encountered in her woman patients. Writing
in the American Journal of Psychoanalysis, Symonds reported female reactions
to separation and loss to be a frequent motivation for women to enter ther-
apy. In contrast, she found that men come into therapy in these circum-
stances mainly because of pressure from a wife or girlfriend. According to
Symonds, women are more eager than men to create relationships, and
women express more feeling when the relationships end.
Symonds considered these behaviors from the viewpoint of the three ba-
sic patterns of behavior described by Horney: moving toward, moving away
from, and moving against. Symonds viewed the moving-toward, self-effacing
type of behavior as love oriented, or dependent; the moving-away-from, de-
tached type as freedom oriented; and the moving-against, expansive type
as power oriented. According to Symonds’s views, society assigns the love-
oriented, dependent pattern to women, while men are encouraged to
develop power- or freedom-oriented patterns. She described a frequent
combination in a couple to be a detached, expansive, power-oriented male
married to a dependent, self-effacing, love-oriented female. Relationships
often develop between the silent, withdrawn, noncommunicative male and
the loving, dependent woman who always wants to talk about feelings.
As people develop character patterns, such as love-oriented and depen-
dent, they suppress feelings that cause inner conflicts, such as aggressive-
ness, according to Symonds. By contrast, power-oriented people suppress
dependent feelings. People idealize their self-values and feel contempt for
what is suppressed; thus, the power-oriented person views dependency and
need as contemptible weaknesses. This contempt is conveyed to those who
are aware of their dependency needs. Women then add self-hate for need-
ing others to the anxiety they feel when a relationship ends.
Extremely dependent, self-effacing women often stay in poor and even
abusive relationships rather than separate, according to Symonds. They are
victims of a culture that considers a woman nothing unless attached to a
896
man. Symonds found these women to be coming from two different back-
grounds: either having been held close by mother or father during child-
hood and adolescence, thus having no opportunity for healthy growth; or
having separated prematurely from parents in childhood in an effort to be-
come self-sufficient at an early age, often having developed a facade of self-
sufficiency with deep, unresolved dependency needs.
Understanding Fear of Success

Horney’s theories predicted the anxiety women feel about their own ambi-
tion and the ways in which women sabotage their competence and success.
In the book Women in Therapy (1988), psychotherapist Harriet Goldhor
Lerner discusses female work inhibition in the light of Horney’s theories.
Lerner views work inhibition as an unconscious attempt to preserve har-
mony within a relationship as well as to allay fears of being unfeminine.
Women often fear success because they fear they will pay dearly for their ac-
complishments. Women frequently equate success, or the wish for it, with
the loss of femininity and attractiveness, loss of significant relationships, loss
of health, or even loss of life. Feelings of depression and anxiety are ways
women either apologize for their competence and success on the one hand
or ensure the lack of success on the other hand, according to Lerner. She
views self-sacrifice or self-sabotage to be other common ways women react to
their feelings of guilt and anxiety about becoming successful.
When faced with the choice (real or imagined) of sacrificing the self to
preserve a relationship or strengthening the self at the risk of threatening a
relationship, women often choose the former, according to Lerner. She ap-
plies Horney’s views to the situation of a thirty-year-old married woman who
entered therapy because of personal distress and marital tension over her
desire to enroll in graduate school and embark on a career. Lerner found
that multigenerational guilt on the part of the woman was involved, as well
as fears of destroying her marriage. The woman’s husband was opposed to
his wife’s enrolling in graduate school. In addition, the woman was the first
female in her family to aspire to graduate school. In the face of these circum-
stances, she put aside her ambitions in order to preserve harmony in her re-
lationships. The woman’s work inhibition involved profound anxiety and
guilt over striving for things previous generations of women in her family
could not have. Work inhibition also may result when a woman perceives her
strivings as “too masculine,” a perception Lerner sees as reinforced by soci-
ety. Being labeled “masculine” triggers deep guilt and anxiety in women.
Background and Accomplishments

Horney’s theories on female psychology developed from a series of papers
she wrote over a thirteen-year period in response to Freud’s views on female
sexuality. The last paper was published after Horney emigrated to the
United States from Germany at a highly productive point in her career.
One of the first women admitted to medical school in Berlin, she had
897
Psychology Basics
completed her psychiatric and psychoanalytic training there by 1913. By

that time, Freud had passed the peak of his greatest creative years. Horney
was thirty years younger than Freud and a product of the twentieth century.
Her views were more in tune with the relatively open structure of twentieth
century science than with the more closed science of Freud’s period.
Horney was influenced greatly by sociologists of her time. She and other
neo-Freudians, such as Harry Stack Sullivan, Alfred Adler, and Erich Fromm,
were the first psychoanalysts to emphasize cultural influences on personality
development.
Horney’s theories grew out of a need for a feminine psychology different
from male psychology. She believed that women were being analyzed and
treated according to a male-oriented psychology that considered women to
be biologically inferior to men. She did not find these male theories sup-
ported by what she observed in her female patients or in her own life experi-
ence.
Horney was the first woman doctor to challenge male theory and went on
to take a position in the foreground of the psychoanalytic movement. In so
doing, she became a role model for women in general and professional
women in particular. She was a controversial figure, and her career involved
many disputes with the established psychoanalytic world. She and her fol-
lowers eventually were ostracized by the establishment, and for a time her
name disappeared from the psychoanalytic literature. Her biographers at-
tribute this to a fear on the part of some Freudians of being contaminated by
association with her ideas.
Modern-Day Impact
A growing interest in her work occurred during the women’s movement in
the 1970’s. The women’s movement brought her name back into the litera-
ture as a pioneer in upgrading women’s status. Her name began appearing
more frequently in literature associated with women’s therapy. The series of
important books which she had written throughout her career remain pop-
ular and continue to be used as textbooks.
An independent thinker, Horney is considered an individual who was al-
ways ahead of her time. Her work anticipated a revival of interest in the nar-
cissistic personality. Her theories predicted popular trends in psychology, al-
though she often is not credited for her ideas. One of these trends is the
increasing emphasis on social and cultural factors as causes of emotional ill-
ness. Systems theory is another popular trend related to Horney’s concepts.
Systems theory, which includes a type of psychology called family therapy,
emphasizes the continuous interaction among cultural conditions, inter-
personal relations, and inner emotional experience.

Horney, Karen. Feminine Psychology. 1967. Reprint. New York: W. W. Norton,
1993. A collection of all of Horney’s writings on feminine psychology.
898
Gives a flavor of Horney’s personality and force as a psychoanalyst and ed-

ucator. Includes an informative introduction by Harold Kelman, one of
Horney’s colleagues. Available through college libraries.
Lerner, Harriet Goldhor. Women in Therapy. Reprint. New York: Harper-
Collins, 1989. Discusses women and their psychotherapists from a psy-
choanalytic perspective, with references to Horney’s theories. Illustrates
how Horney’s theories apply to many themes and issues in women’s psy-
chology.
Paris, Bernard. Karen Horney: A Psychoanalyst’s Search for Self-Understanding.
New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1996. A biography of Horney
that places her theories squarely within the context of her life history.
Written by the editor of the papers unpublished during Horney’s lifetime
(The Unknown Karen Horney, 2000).
Quinn, Susan. A Mind of Her Own: The Life of Karen Horney. Reading, Mass.:
Addison-Wesley, 1988. This biography is an excellent source of informa-
tion about Horney’s personal and professional life. Much of it is devoted
to her female psychology. Easy to read; contains photographs, biographi-
cal essays, extensive source notes, and a complete list of Horney’s work.
Rubins, Jack L. Karen Horney: Gentle Rebel of Psychoanalysis. New York: Dial
Press, 1978. The first biography of Karen Horney. Thorough and well doc-
umented; includes detailed discussions of Horney’s theories on women.
Lengthy but well organized. Can be read by the college or high school
student.
Symonds, Alexandra. “Separation and Loss: Significance for Women.” Amer-
ican Journal of Psychoanalysis 45, no. 1 (1985): 53-58. Discusses women’s
feelings about separation and loss. Important illustration of how Horney’s
theories help explain women’s role in interpersonal relationships. Avail-
able in college libraries.
Margaret M. Frailey
See also: Consciousness; Dreams; Instinct Theory; Psychoanalysis; Psycho-

analytic Psychology; Psychoanalytic Psychology and Personality: Sigmund
Freud; Social Psychological Models: Karen Horney; Women’s Psychology:
Carol Gilligan; Women’s Psychology: Sigmund Freud.
899
Sigmund Freud
Fields of study: Classic analytic themes and issues; personality theory
Freud, the first person to develop a comprehensive theory of personality, thought that
women undergo distinct experiences in the development of their personalities. He be-
lieved that traumatic events during the phallic stage (from approximately three to five
years of age) were likely to hinder normal female development, the results being a fail-
ure of same-sex identification and a diminished superego or moral capacity.
Key concepts
• free association
• id
• identification
• instincts
• Oedipus complex
• penis envy
• psychosexual stages of development
• superego
Two central concepts underlie Sigmund Freud’s theory of personality devel-

opment. The first is the notion of the unconscious; the second concept has
to do with the role of infantile sexuality. Freud believed that consciousness
could be viewed as a continuum of experience, with one pole being the fa-
miliar one of acute awareness of one’s thoughts, feelings, and behaviors and
the other pole being a state of profound unconsciousness in which one’s
feelings, thoughts, and wishes are completely beyond one’s awareness. Mid-
way between these poles is the preconscious, which Freud believed con-
tained material or mental life from both the conscious and the unconscious
and could, with effort, be made totally conscious. Freud believed that the
bulk of mental life is represented in the unconscious, with only a small por-
tion, “the tip of the iceberg,” being conscious awareness.
Operating from the depths of the unconscious, a structure of personality
known as the id operates to seek pleasure, to avoid pain at all costs, and to ac-
complish solely selfish aims. The id is the source of all psychic energy, in-
cluding both sexual and aggressive instincts.
Psychosexual Stages of Development Theory

Freud proposed that the sexual instincts are critical and that personality de-
velops over time as the individual responds to these instincts. He believed
that a number of component instincts arise from various regions of the
body. These instincts strive for satisfaction in what he calls organ pleasure.
Each of these organs is the focus of a phase or stage of development, the first
900
of which is the oral stage. The oral stage begins at birth and continues
through the first year, as the infant seeks pleasure through the mouth, and
the mouth becomes the source of all gratification. Milk from the mother’s
breast or a bottle is devoured, just as, later, any object that the child can
reach will be manipulated and explored orally. The child takes in physical
nourishment in the same way that he or she takes in, in a very rudimentary
way, the behaviors, values, and beliefs of others, beginning the basis for later
identification with others.
The second psychosexual stage of development is the anal stage, which
Freud believed revolved around the pleasure associated with elimination.
During the second year of life, the child begins taking control of urination
and defecation, trying to do so within parental and societal limits.
Freud believed that both boys and girls proceed through the oral stage in
essentially the same manner. For both, the mother is the primary love ob-
ject. Sometime after the third year, however, Freud believed that the sexes
diverge. In the third, or phallic, stage of development, both boys and girls
discover the pleasurable nature of the genitals. For boys, the stage is cen-
tered on the Oedipus complex, in which they develop strong sexual feelings
toward their mothers. These feelings are accompanied by others, such as an-
ger and jealousy, as fathers are perceived as competitors for mothers’ affec-
tion and attention. As sexual desires heighten, the boy begins to perceive
competition and hostility from the father. The sense of peril becomes lo-
cated in the physical source of the boy’s feelings for his mother, the penis,
and the result is a phenomenon that Freud called castration anxiety—the
fear that the father will retaliate. Over time, fear of castration motivates the
boy to give up the mother as a love object and turn toward the father in
same-sex identification. According to Freud, this strengthening identifica-
tion with the father is essential for the development of a solid superego,
which, in turn, empowers the male, making possible major contributions to
culture and society.
Unlike the male’s experience, the onset of the phallic stage for females
entails a major trauma: the realization that she does not have a penis. Often,
the realization is accompanied by the notion that the mother is responsible
for her own and her daughter’s castrated state. Here the little girl turns away
from her mother as the primary love object and turns toward her father, lim-
iting her future chances for same-sex identification. Feelings of inferiority
pervade, and she falls victim to penis envy, a chronic wish for the superior
male organ. Freud believed that, as a result of this trauma, the remaining
course of female development would be difficult at best and that the accom-
plishment of same-sex identification was questionable. The girl’s life is thus
spent in search of a substitute penis, which Freud thought might be a hus-
band or a child, particularly a male child. Indeed, Freud believed that the
single most rewarding relationship in a woman’s life would be her relation-
ship with her son, regarding which her feelings would be totally unam-
bivalent.
901
Psychology Basics
Sigmund Freud in London in 1938, a year before his death at age eighty-three. (Library of
Congress)
Freud believed that the foundations of personality were in place by the

end of the phallic stage. He described the post-Oedipal period, beginning
with the latency stage, as a period when children repress, or make uncon-
scious, the sexual conflicts of the Oedipal period. Females during this time
are said to be more passive and less aggressive than boys, but, like boys, they
tend to seek out same-sex play groups.
The final psychosexual stage of development is the genital stage. Unlike
the previous, more self-centered periods of stimulation and gratification,
the genital stage marks a period of sexual attraction to others and a time
during which social activities and career goals become important before
marriage. The child is thus transformed into an adult. Freud believed that,
in some cases, failure to resolve the female Oedipus complex results in neu-
rosis, which he often observed in his practice with women patients. He be-
lieved that in other cases the lack of resolution caused a masculinity com-
plex in which women attempt to succeed in traditionally male endeavors
(he offered this explanation to his contemporary female analysts for their
behavior). Freud believed that the female’s failure to unite with her mother
in post-Oedipal identification, and her subsequent diminished superego ca-
pacity, caused her to have a tendency toward negative personality traits and
an inability to apply objective standards of justice.
902
Criticisms
Several of Freud’s contemporaries, including some women analysts, were
critical of Freud’s views on the psychology of women. Among his critics was
Karen Horney, who rejected the idea that penis envy is central to normal fe-
male development. She acknowledged, however, that from a cultural point
of view, envy of the male role might explain some of Freud’s clinical observa-
tions better than the biological notion of penis envy. In addition, after many
years of analyzing female patients, Horney began analyzing males; from her
observations, she concluded that males often exhibit an intense envy of
pregnancy, childbirth, and motherhood, as well as of the breasts and of the
act of suckling.
Free Interpretation and Dream Analysis

Historically, psychoanalysis has represented a method of psychological ob-
servation, a set of theoretical constructs or ideas, and an approach to psy-
chotherapy. When Freud began psychoanalysis, it was a method of observa-
tion intended to broaden the knowledge of human behavior. Believing that
the unconscious is the major clue to solving problems of human behavior,
Freud used two processes to understand it: free association and dream inter-
pretation. Free association, the reporting of what comes to mind in an
unedited fashion, was an important tool used to discover the contents of the
unconscious. Freud believed that all thoughts are connected in some fash-
ion and that therefore the spontaneous utterances of the patient are always
meaningful clues to what has been repressed or buried in the unconscious.
Freud also believed that the unconscious can be clarified by means of dream
interpretation. Those thoughts and impulses that are unacceptable to the
conscious mind are given symbols in dreams.
An interesting study conducted by Calvin Hall in 1964 illustrates how the
interpretation of dreams has been used in research—in this case, to test
Freud’s observation that the superego is not as strong in females as it appears
to be in males. Hall reasoned that a person with a strong internalized super-
ego would be independent of external agents, whereas a person who has a less
internalized superego would tend to disown his or her own guilt and blame
external authority figures. Hall further made the assumption that dreams in
which the dreamer was the victim of aggression were expressions of an
externalized superego, whereas dreams in which the dreamer was the victim
of misfortune (accident, circumstance) were expressions of an internalized
superego. It was hypothesized that females would be more likely to dream of
themselves as victims of aggression and males would be more likely to dream
of themselves as victims of misfortune. Careful content analysis of more than
three thousand dreams of young adults was performed. Results supported the
hypotheses, although Hall cautioned that additional hypotheses should be
tested and more diverse data collected to support thoroughly Freud’s theory
of the differences between the male and the female superego.
903
Psychology Basics
Transference and the Unconscious

Freud was also the first to understand and describe the concept of transfer-
ence, the patient’s positive or negative feelings that develop toward the ther-
apist during the long, intimate process of analysis. These feelings often re-
late to earlier ones that the patient has had for significant others: namely,
mother, father, or sibling. The analysis of transference has become ex-
tremely important to neo-Freudian analysts, particularly as it relates to the
treatment of borderline and other personality disturbances.
Another aspect of Freud’s legacy involves the many theoretical constructs
that psychoanalysis has generated. Among these is the concept of the uncon-
scious. Freud provided many everyday examples of the operation of the un-
conscious as he described slips of the tongue and other phenomena. He was
convinced that such slips, now known as “Freudian slips,” were not accidental
at all but somehow expressed unconscious wishes, thoughts, or desires. For
example, the woman who loses her wedding ring wishes she had never had it.
Mental Illness Therapy

Finally, psychoanalysis also represents a method of therapy that Freud and
later analysts used to treat the symptoms of mental illness. Practicing for
many years, Freud refined his technique, using free association and dream
interpretation to help patients gain insight into themselves by recognizing
their unconscious patterns and to help them work through the unconscious
conflicts that affect everyday life. Many of Freud’s patients were women, and
it was from these women’s recollections in analysis that Freud built his the-
ory of female development. Some of Freud’s critics argue that building a
theory of normal development from the observation of pathology or abnor-
mality represents an inappropriate conceptual leap.
Sexual Basis of Neurosis

During years of conducting analysis, Freud became convinced of the sexual
basis of neurosis. He believed that sexual experiences occurring prior to pu-
berty and stored in the unconscious as memories produced conflict that
later caused certain neurotic conditions. These ideas, often referred to as
Freud’s seduction theory, were used to explain hysterical symptoms such as
paralysis, blindness, inability to understand the spoken word (receptive
aphasia), and sexual dysfunction as the result of sexual abuse, probably oc-
curring before ages six to eight. It is important to note, however, that Freud
later revised his thinking on infantile sexuality and concluded that it is the
thought or psychic reality of the individual that counts more than the physi-
cal reality of events. In other words, a person might fantasize a seduction,
store the fantasy in unconscious memory (repress it), and have that con-
flictual memory cause neurosis just as readily as the memory of an actual se-
duction. Some recent critics have suggested that Freud’s reformulation rep-
resented a form of denial of his inability to recognize the prevalence of
sexual abuse at that time.
904
Freud’s Background and Impact

Born in 1856 to Jewish parents, Freud lived and practiced most of his life in
Vienna. He was graduated from medical school in 1881 and practiced as a
clinical neurologist for several years before becoming interested in the “talk-
ing cure” that his colleague, Josef Breuer, had developed as a means of deal-
ing with his patients’ emotional symptoms. Freud’s writings and lectures on
the subject of hysteria and its sexual roots led him to be ostracized by most of
his medical colleagues. His medical training and the influence of the work
of Charles Darwin were largely responsible for his emphasis on sexual and
aggressive instincts as the basis for behavior.
Freud’s theory was important because it was the first of its kind and be-
cause it was controversial, generating further research into and theorizing
about the female personality.
Challenges to Freudian Theory

Over the years, many aspects of Freudian theory have been challenged.
Freud’s notion that penis envy is a primary motivator in the female personal-
ity was challenged by Karen Horney, who believed that, if it existed, a
woman’s envy was related to the male’s privileged role in society. Freud’s
idea that the clitoral orgasm is immature and must be surrendered for the
vaginal orgasm at puberty spurred work by William Masters and Virginia
Johnson, who concluded, after much rigorous research, that orgasm is a re-
action of the entire pelvic area.
Freud’s theory has forced critics to determine what is uniquely female
about personality. In Toward a New Psychology of Women (1976), Jean Baker
Miller attempted to show how traditional theories of female behavior have
failed to acknowledge the essence of the female personality. Miller sug-
gested that affiliation is the cornerstone of the female experience and that it
is in response to her relationships with others that a woman’s personality
grows and develops.
In her book In a Different Voice (1982), Carol Gilligan disputes Freud’s no-
tion that females show less of a sense of justice than males and have weak su-
peregos. She argues that morality involves respect for the needs of self bal-
anced with respect for the needs of others; thus, it is not that females lack
the justice principle but rather that they have different expressions of justice
and different internal and external demands.
Heavily influenced by Freud, many object-relations theorists continue to
make contributions in the area of psychotherapy with clients whose early re-
lationships have been disturbed or disrupted. This work will continue to
constitute the basis for decisions made by courts, adoption agencies, and so-
cial-service agencies regarding the placement of children.
Freud’s views on the origins of neurosis may continue to play a role in the
understanding of multiple personality disorder and its roots in early sexual
abuse. The concept of body memory, the physical memory that abuse has
occurred, may well bridge the gap between Freud’s concepts of repressed
905
Psychology Basics
psychic memory and repressed actual memory of early sexual abuse; it may
streamline the treatment of this condition. Freud’s theory will no doubt
continue to generate controversy, motivating both theory and research in
the area of women’s personality development.

Freud, Sigmund. New Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis. New York: W. W.
Norton, 1933. This volume contains seven lectures or papers that Freud
wrote toward the end of his career. Among them is “The Psychology of
Women,” in which he attempts to explain some fundamental differences
between the sexes. Freud describes female behavior and the Oedipus
complex for males and females, and he elaborates on the role of penis
envy in female development. The volume also contains lectures on
dreams, on the structure of personality, and on anxiety and the instincts.
__________. The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund
Freud. Edited by James Strachey. London: Hogarth Press, 1966-1973. Vol-
ume 7 in this collection of Freud’s works contains a detailed case history
of a woman named Dora, whom Freud treated over a period of years. This
case history illustrates Freud’s ideas about the causes of neurosis and hys-
terical symptoms. The work also contains three essays on sexuality, in-
cluding sexual aberrations, infantile sexuality, and puberty.
Gilligan, Carol. In a Different Voice. Reprint. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Uni-
versity Press, 1993. Traditional theories of development have tried to im-
pose male thinking and values on female psychology. Gilligan discusses
the importance of relationships as well as female conceptions of morality,
challenging Freud’s views on female superego development.
Horney, Karen. Feminine Psychology. Reprint. Edited by Harold Kelman. New
York: W. W. Norton, 1993. A collection of some of Horney’s early works in
which she describes Freudian ideas on the psychology of women and of-
fers her own observations and conclusions. Horney disputes Freud’s no-
tion of penis envy and in later essays explores such topics as distrust be-
tween the sexes, premenstrual tension, and female masochism.
Miller, Jean Baker. Toward a New Psychology of Women. 1976. 2d ed. Boston:
Beacon Press, 1987. Miller proposes that traditional theories of female
development have overlooked a critical ingredient in female behavior—
affiliation—which she believes is a cornerstone of female psychology.
Miller, Jonathan, ed. Freud: The Man, His World, His Influence. Boston: Little,
Brown, 1972. Miller has edited a series of essays that put Freud’s work in
historical, social, and cultural perspective. One essay, by Friedrich Heer,
describes the impact of Freud’s Jewish background on his life and work in
Vienna. Another, by Martin Esslin, describes Vienna, the exciting and
culturally rich background for Freud’s work.
Rychlak, Joseph F. Introduction to Personality and Psychotherapy. 2d ed. Boston:
Houghton Mifflin, 1981. This introductory personality text carefully re-
views the work of several leading psychologists and psychotherapists, in-
906
cluding Sigmund Freud. Rychlak describes the gradual development of

Freud’s structural hypothesis, and he reviews Freud’s ideas about the in-
stincts, dynamic concepts such as defense mechanisms, and the develop-
ment of the Oedipus complex for males and females, noting the con-
cerns of modern feminists who have found Freud’s work offensive.
Ruth T. Hannon
See also: Abnormality: Psychological Models; Consciousness; Dreams; In-

stinct Theory; Psychoanalysis; Psychoanalytic Psychology; Psychoanalytic
Psychology and Personality: Sigmund Freud; Women’s Psychology: Carol
Gilligan; Women’s Psychology: Karen Horney.
907
Glossary
Absolute threshold: The smallest amount of stimulus that elicits a sensation 50
percent of the time.
Accommodation: In Jean Piaget’s theory of development, adjusting the inter-
pretation (schema) of an object or event to include a new instance; in vi-
sion, the ability of the lens to focus light on the retina by changing its
shape.
Acetylcholine (ACh): A cholinergic neurotransmitter important in producing
muscular contraction and in some autonomic nerve transmissions.
Achievement motivation: The tendency for people to strive for moderately dif-
ficult goals because of the relative attractiveness of success and repulsive-
ness of failure.
Acquisition: In learning, the process by which an association is formed in
classical or operant conditioning; in memory, the stage at which informa-
tion is stored in memory.
Action potential: A rapid change in electrical charges across a neuron’s cell
membrane, with depolarization followed by repolarization, leading to a
nerve impulse moving down an axon; associated with nerve and muscle
activity.
Actor-observer bias: The tendency to infer that other people’s behavior is
caused by dispositional factors but that one’s own behavior is the product
of situational causes.
Actualizing tendency: The force toward maintaining and enhancing the or-
ganism, achieving congruence between experience and awareness, and
realizing potentials.
Adaptation: Any heritable characteristic that presumably has developed as a
result of natural selection and thus increases an animal’s ability to survive
and reproduce.
Addiction: Physical dependence on a substance; components include toler-
ance, psychological dependence, and physical withdrawal symptoms.
Adolescence: The period of life extending from the onset of puberty to early
adulthood.
Adrenal glands: The suprarenal glands, small, caplike structures sitting each
on top of one kidney; in general, they function in response to stress, but
they are also important in regulating metabolic and sexual functions.
Affect: A class name given to feelings, emotions, or dispositions as a mode of
mental functioning.
Affective disorders: Functional mental disorders associated with emotions or
feelings (also called mood disorders); examples include depression and
bipolar disorders.
Afferent: A sensory neuron or a dendrite carrying information toward a
structure; for example, carrying sensory stimuli coming into the reticular
formation.
908
Glossary
Affiliation motive: The motive to seek the company of others and to be with
one’s own kind, based on such things as cooperation, similarity, friend-
ship, sex, and protection.
Aggression: Behavior intended to harm another person or thing.
Agoraphobia: An intense fear of being in places or situations in which help
may not be available or escape could be difficult.
Allele: One of the many forms of a gene; it may be dominant (needing only
one copy for the trait to appear) or recessive (needing two copies).
Altruism: A phenomenon in human and animal behaviors in which individu-
als unselfishly sacrifice their own genetic fitness in order to help other in-
dividuals in a group.
Alzheimer’s disease: A form of presenile dementia, characterized by disorien-
tation, loss of memory, speech disturbances, and personality disorders.
Amplitude: The peak deviation from the rest state of the movement of a vi-
brating object, or the ambient state of the medium through which vibra-
tion is conducted.
Anal stage: According to Sigmund Freud, the second psychosexual stage of
personality development, approximately from ages two to four; sexual
energy is focused on the anus and on pleasures and conflicts associated
with retaining and eliminating feces.
Analgesia: The reduction or elimination of pain.
Analytical psychology: A school of psychology founded by Carl Jung that views
the human mind as the result of prior experiences and the preparation of
future goals; it deemphasizes the role of sexuality in psychological disor-
ders.
Androgens: Male sex hormones secreted by the testes; testosterone, the pri-
mary mammalian male androgen, is responsible for the development
and maturation of male sexual structures and sexual behaviors.
Androgyny: The expression of both traditionally feminine and traditionally
masculine attributes.
Anorexia nervosa: An eating disorder characterized by an obsessive-compul-
sive concern for thinness achieved by dieting, often combined with ex-
treme exercising and sometimes part of a binge-purge cycle.
Anterograde amnesia: An inability to form new memories after the onset of
amnesia.
Antidepressants: Drugs that are used in the treatment of depression, many of
which affect or mimic neurotransmitters; classes of antidepressants in-
clude the tricyclics and monoamine oxidase inhibitors (MAOIs).
Antisocial personality disorder: A personality disorder characterized by a his-
tory of impulsive, risk-taking, and perhaps chronic criminal behavior,
and by opportunistic interpersonal relations.
Anxiety: A chronic fearlike state that is accompanied by feelings of impend-
ing doom and that cannot be explained by an actual threatening object
or event.
909
Psychology Basics
Aphasia: Partial or total loss of the use of language as a result of brain dam-
age, characterized by an inability to use or comprehend language.
Applied research: Research intended to solve existing problems, as opposed to
“basic research,” which seeks knowledge for its own sake.
Aptitude: The potential to develop an ability with training or experience.
Archetypes: In Carl Jung’s theory, universal, inherited themes—such as the
motifs of the self, hero, and shadow—that exercise an influence on virtu-
ally all human beings.
Archival data: Information collected at an earlier time by someone other
than the present researcher, often for purposes very different from those
of the present research.
Artificial intelligence: The use of computers to simulate aspects of human
thinking and, in some cases, behavior.
Assimilation: The interpretation of a new instance of an object or event in
terms of one’s preexisting schema or understanding; the fit, never per-
fect, is close enough.
Attachment: An emotional bond between infant and caregiver based on re-
ciprocal interaction patterns.
Attention: The ability to focus mentally.
Attitude: A relatively stable evaluation of a person or thing; it can be either
positive or negative, can vary in level of intensity, and has an affective,
cognitive, and behavioral component.
Attribution: The process by which one gathers information about the self and
others and interprets it to determine the cause of an event or behavior.
Attributional biases: Typical motivational and cognitive errors in the attribu-
tion process; tendencies that are shared among people in using informa-
tion in illogical or unwarranted ways.
Autonomic nervous system: The division of the peripheral nervous system that
regulates basic, automatically controlled life processes such as cardiovas-
cular function, digestive function, and genital function.
Availability heuristic: A decision-making heuristic whereby a person estimates
the probability of some occurrence or event depending on how easily ex-
amples of that event can be remembered.
Aversion therapy: A therapy that involves pairing something negative (such as
electric shock) with an undesired behavior (such as drinking alcohol or
smoking cigarettes).
Axon: The single fiberlike extension of a neuron that carries information
away from the cell body toward the next cell in a pathway.
Beck Depression Inventory (BDI): A brief questionnaire used to measure the se-
verity of depression developed by Aaron Beck.
Behavioral therapy: A branch of psychotherapy narrowly conceived as the ap-
plication of classical and operant conditioning to the alteration of clini-
cal problems but more broadly conceived as applied experimental psy-
chology in a clinical context.
910
Glossary
Behaviorism: A theoretical approach which states that the environment is the

primary cause of behavior and that only external, observable stimuli and
responses are available to objective study.
Between-subject designs: Experimental plans in which different participants re-
ceive each level of the independent variable.
Biofeedback: A psychophysiological technique in which an individual moni-
tors a specific, supposedly involuntary, bodily function such as blood
pressure or heart rate and consciously attempts to control this function
through the use of learning principles.
Bipolar disorder: A disorder characterized by the occurrence of one or more
manic episodes, usually interspersed with one or more major depressive
episodes.
Brain stem: The lower part of the brain, between the brain and spinal cord,
which activates the cortex and makes perception and consciousness pos-
sible; it includes the midbrain, pons, medulla, and cerebellum.
Bystander effect: The tendency for an individual to be less likely to help as the
number of other people present increases.
Cardinal trait: According to Gordon W. Allport’s theory of personality, a sin-

gle outstanding characteristic that dominates a person’s life; few individ-
uals are characterized by a cardinal disposition.
Case study: An in-depth method of data collection in which all available back-
ground data on an individual or group are reviewed; typically used in psy-
chotherapy.
Catecholamines: A neurotransmitter group derived from the amino acid tyro-
sine that includes dopamine, epinephrine, and norepinephrine; they are
activated in stressful situations.
Catharsis: A reduction of psychological tension or physiological arousal by
expressing (either directly or vicariously) repressed aggressive or sexual
anxieties.
Central nervous system: The nerve cells, fibers, and other tissues associated
with the brain and spinal cord.
Central traits: According to Gordon Allport’s theory, the relatively few (five
to ten) distinctive and descriptive characteristics that provide direction
and focus to a person’s life.
Cerebellum: The portion of the brain that controls voluntary muscle activity,
including posture and body movement; located behind the brain stem.
Cerebral commissures: Fiber tracts, such as the corpus callosum and anterior
commissure, that connect and allow neural communication between the
cerebral hemispheres.
Cerebral cortex: The outer layer of the cerebrum; controls higher-level brain
functions such as thinking, reasoning, motor coordination, memory, and
language.
Cerebral hemispheres: Two anatomically similar hemispheres that make up the
911
Psychology Basics
outer surface of the brain (the cerebral cortex); separated by the cere-
bral longitudinal fissure.
Cerebrospinal fluid: A fluid, derived from blood, that circulates in and around
the ventricles of the brain and the spinal cord.
Cerebrum: The largest and uppermost portion of the brain; the cerebrum
performs sensory and motor functions and affects memory, speech, and
emotional functions.
Chaining: The process by which several neutral stimuli are presented in a se-
ries; they eventually assume reinforcing qualities by being ultimately
paired with an innate reinforcer.
Children’s Depression Inventory (CDI): A modified version of the Beck Depres-
sion Inventory (BDI) that was developed to measure the severity of de-
pression in children, developed by Maria Kovacs.
Chromosomes: Microscopic threadlike bodies in the nuclei of cells; they carry
the genes, which convey hereditary characteristics.
Circadian rhythm: A cyclical variation in a biological process or behavior that
has a duration of about a day.
Classical conditioning: A form of associative learning in which a neutral stimu-
lus, called the conditioned stimulus (CS), is repeatedly paired with a bio-
logically significant unconditioned stimulus (US) so that the CS acquires
the same power to elicit response as the US; also called Pavlovian condi-
tioning.
Clinical psychologist: A person with a Ph.D. in psychology, specially trained to
assess and treat mental disorders and behavior problems.
Cognition: Mental processes involved in the acquisition and use of knowledge,
such as attention, thinking, problem solving, and perception; cognitive
learning emphasizes these processes in the acquisition of new behaviors.
Cognitive appraisal: An assessment of the meaningfulness of an event to an in-
dividual; events that are appraised as harmful or potentially harmful
elicit stress.
Cognitive behavior therapy: Therapy that integrates principles of learning the-
ory with cognitive strategies to treat disorders such as depression, anxiety,
and other behavioral problems (such as smoking or obesity).
Cognitive dissonance theory: Leon Festinger’s theory that inconsistencies among
one’s cognitions cause tension and that individuals are motivated to re-
duce this tension by changing discrepant attitudes.
Cognitive map: A mental representation of an external area that is used to
guide one’s behavior.
Cognitive processes: The processes of thought, which include attending to an
event, storing information in memory, recalling information, and mak-
ing sense of information; they enable people to perceive events.
Cognitive psychology: An area of study that investigates mental processes; areas
within cognitive psychology include attention, perception, language,
learning, memory, problem solving, and logic.
Cognitive science: A multidisciplinary approach to the study of cognition from
912
Glossary
the perspectives of psychology, computer science, neuroscience, philoso-

phy, and linguistics.
Cohort: An identifiable group of people; in developmental research, group
members are commonly associated by their birth dates and shared histor-
ical experiences.
Collective unconscious: In Carl Jung’s theory, memory traces of repeated expe-
riences that have been passed down to all humankind as a function of
evolutionary development; includes inherited tendencies to behave in
certain ways and contains the archetypes.
Color: The brain’s interpretation of electromagnetic radiation of different
wavelengths within the range of visible light.
Compensation: In Alfred Adler’s theory, a defense mechanism for overcom-
ing feelings of inferiority by trying harder to excel; in Sigmund Freud’s
theory, the process of learning alternative ways to accomplish a task while
making up for an inferiority—a process that could involve dreams that
adjust psychologically for waking imbalances.
Compulsions: Ritualistic patterns of behavior that commonly follow obsessive
thinking and that reduce the intensity of the anxiety-evoking thoughts.
Concrete operational stage: The third stage of Jean Piaget’s theory, during
which children acquire basic logical rules and concrete concepts; occurs
between the ages of seven and eleven.
Conditioned response (CR): In Pavlovian conditioning, the behavior and emo-
tional quality that occurs when a conditioned stimulus is presented; re-
lated to but not the same as the unconditioned response.
Conditioned stimulus (CS): A previously neutral stimulus (a sight, sound,
touch, or smell) that, after Pavlovian conditioning, will elicit the condi-
tioned response (CR).
Conditioned taste aversion: An avoidance of a food or drink that has been fol-
lowed by illness when consumed in the past.
Conditioning: A type of learning in which an animal learns a concept by asso-
ciating it with some object or by the administration of rewards or punish-
ments.
Conditions of worth: In Carl Rogers’s theory, externally based conditions for
love and praise; the expectation that the child must behave in accor-
dance with parental standards in order to receive love.
Cone: One type of visual receptor found in the retina of the eye; primarily for
color vision and acute daytime vision.
Confounding of variables: The variation of other variables along with the inde-
pendent variable of interest, as a result of which any effects cannot be at-
tributed with certainty to the independent variable.
Consciousness: A level of awareness that includes those things of which an in-
dividual is aware at any given moment, such as current ideas, thoughts,
accessed memories, and feelings.
Consensual validation: The verification of subjective beliefs by obtaining a
consensus among other people.
913
Psychology Basics
Consensus information: Information concerning other people’s responses to

an object; in attribution theory, high consensus generally leads people to
attribute situational rather than personal causes to a behavior.
Conservation: In Jean Piaget’s theory, understanding that the physical prop-
erties (number, length, mass, volume) remain constant even though ap-
pearances may change; a concrete-operational skill.
Consistency information: Information concerning a person’s response to an
object over time. In attribution theory, high consistency implies that be-
havior is dispositional or typical of a person.
Consolidation: A neural process by which short-term memories become
stored in long-term memory.
Construct: A formal concept representing the relationships between vari-
ables or processes such as motivation and behavior; may be empirical (ob-
servable) or hypothetical (inferred).
Construct validity: A type of validity that assesses the extent to which a test
score (variable) correlates with other tests (variables) already established
as valid measures of the item.
Consumer psychology: The subfield of psychology that studies selling, advertis-
ing, and buying; the goal of its practitioners is generally to communicate
clearly and to persuade consumers to buy products.
Context dependence: The phenomenon in which memory functions more ef-
fectively when material is recalled in the same environment in which it
was originally learned, compared with recall in a different environment.
Contingency: A relationship between a response and its consequence or be-
tween two stimuli; sometimes considered a dependency.
Contingency management: A method of behavior modification that involves
providing or removing positive rewards in accordance with whether the
individual being treated engages in the expected behavior.
Continuous reinforcement: A schedule in which each response is followed by a
reinforcer.
Control group: A group of subjects that are like the experimental groups in all
ways except that they do not experience the independent variable; used
as a comparison measure.
Controlling variable: An extraneous factor that might influence the depen-
dent variable, making it difficult to evaluate the effect of the indepen-
dent variable; in an experiment, attempts are made to isolate or control
such effects systematically.
Convergent thinking: Creative thinking in which possible solutions to a prob-
lem are systematically eliminated in search for the best solution; the type
of ordinary thinking in which most people generally engage.
Conversion disorder: A psychological disorder in which a person experiences
physical symptoms, such as the loss or impairment of some motor or sen-
sory function (paralysis or blindness, for example), in the absence of an
organic cause.
914
Glossary
Coping: Responses directed at dealing with demands (in particular, threaten-

ing or stressful ones) upon an organism; these responses may either im-
prove or reduce long-term functioning.
Correlation: The degree of relatedness or correspondence between two vari-
ables, expressed by a coefficient that can range from +1.00 to −1.00; 0.00
signifies no correspondence.
Cortex: The surface (or outer layer) of the brain, which receives sensory in-
put, interprets it, and relates behavior to external stimuli; responsible for
perception and conscious thought.
Cortical brain centers: The portions of the brain making up the cerebral cor-
tex and controlling voluntary behavior, higher reasoning, and language
skills; they develop rapidly during the first two years of life.
Countertransference: The phenomenon in which an analyst either shifts feel-
ings from his or her past onto a patient or is affected by the client’s emo-
tional problems; caused by a patient’s perceived similarity to individuals
or experiences in the analyst’s life.
Creativity: Cognitive abilities in areas such as fluency, flexibility, originality,
elaboration, visualization, metaphorical thinking, and problem defini-
tion; the ability to originate something that is both new and appropriate.
Criterion group: A group used to validate a measurement instrument; in the
case of interest inventories, it refers to persons in a particular occupa-
tional group.
Critical period: A time during which the developing organism is particularly
sensitive to the influence of certain inputs or experiences necessary to
foster normal development; in nonhuman animals, a specific time peri-
od during which a certain type of learning such as imprinting must occur.
Cross-sectional design: A design in which subgroups of a population are ran-
domly sampled; the members of the sample are then tested or observed.
Cue-producing response: A response that serves as a cue for other responses;
words (speech) can cue behaviors, and thoughts can cue other thoughts.
Cutaneous senses: Relating to the skin sense, as in responses to touch or tem-
perature.
Cyclothymia: A milder version of a cyclical mood disorder in which mood
swings can occur but are not as intense as in bipolar disorder.
Daily hassles: Seemingly minor everyday events that are a constant source of
stress.
Dark adaptation: An increase in the sensitivity of rods and cones to light
through an increase in the concentration of light-absorbing pigments.
Data: A collection of observations from an experiment or survey.
Death instinct: The unconscious desire for death and destruction in order to
escape the tensions of living.
Debriefing: Discussing an experiment and its purpose with subjects after its
completion; ethically required if the experiment involved deception.
Decay: The disappearance of a memory trace.
915
Psychology Basics
Deduction: A type of logic by which one draws a specific conclusion from one
or more known truths or premises; often formed as an “if/then” state-
ment.
Defense mechanism: According to Sigmund Freud, a psychological strategy by
which an unacceptable sexual or aggressive impulse may be kept from
conscious thought or expressed in a disguised fashion.
Deindividuation: The loss of self-awareness and evaluation apprehension that
accompanies situations that foster personal and physical anonymity.
Delusion: A symptom of psychosis that consists of a strong irrational belief
held despite considerable evidence against it; types include delusions of
grandeur, reference, and persecution.
Dementia: Globally impaired intellectual functioning (memory reasoning)
in adults as a function of brain impairment; it does not mean “craziness”
but a loss or impairment of mental power.
Dendrite: A branching extension of a neuron through which information en-
ters the cell; there may be one or many dendrites on a neuron.
Dependent variable: The outcome measure in a study; the effect of the inde-
pendent variable is measured by changes in the dependent variable.
Depolarization: A shift in ions and electrical charges across a cell membrane,
causing loss of resting membrane potential and bringing the cell closer to
the action potential.
Depression: A psychological disorder characterized by extreme feelings of
sadness, hopelessness, or personal unworthiness as well as loss of energy,
withdrawal, and either lack of sleep or excessive sleep.
Depth perception: The ability to see three-dimensional features, such as the dis-
tance of an object from oneself and the shape of an object.
Descriptive statistics: Procedures that summarize and organize data sets; they
include mean, median, range, correlation, and variability.
Desensitization: A behavioral technique of gradually removing anxiety associ-
ated with certain situations by associating a relaxed state with these situa-
tions.
Determinism: The theory or doctrine that acts of the will, occurrences in na-
ture, or social or psychological phenomena are causally determined by
preceding events or natural laws.
Development: The continuous and cumulative process of age-related changes
in physical growth, thought, perception, and behavior of people and ani-
mals; a result of both biological and environmental influences.
Developmental psychology: The subfield of psychology that studies biological,
social, and intellectual changes as they occur throughout the human life
cycle.
Deviancy: The quality of having a condition or engaging in behavior that is
atypical in a social group and is considered undesirable.
Diagnosis: The classification or labeling of a patient’s problem within one of
a set of recognized categories of abnormal behavior, determined with the
aid of interviews and psychological tests.
916
Glossary
Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM): A handbook cre-

ated by the American Psychiatric Association for diagnosing and classify-
ing mental disorders; used by mental health professionals and insurance
companies.
Diffusion of responsibility: The reduction of personal responsibility that is
commonly experienced in group situations; diffusion of responsibility in-
creases as the size of the crowd increases.
Discounting: Reducing the role of a particular cause in producing a behavior
because of the presence of other plausible causes.
Discrimination: In perception, the ability to see that two patterns differ in
some way; in intergroup relations, behavior (usually unfavorable) toward
persons that is based on their group membership rather than on their in-
dividual personalities.
Discriminative stimulus: A stimulus that signals the availability of a conse-
quence, given that a response occurs.
Dispersion: A statistical measure of variability; a measure (standard deviation,
range, semi-interquartile range, or variance) that provides information
about the difference among the scores.
Displacement: According to Sigmund Freud, a defense mechanism by which a
person redirects his or her aggressive impulse onto a target that may sub-
stitute for the target that originally aroused the person’s aggression.
Display: A visual dance or series of movements or gestures by an individual or
animal to communicate such things as dominance, aggression, and court-
ship to other individuals.
Display rules: Culturally determined rules regarding the appropriate expres-
sion of emotions.
Dispositional: Relating to disposition or personality rather than to situation.
Dissociative disorders: Disorders that occur when some psychological func-
tion, such as memory, is split off from the rest of the conscious mind; not
caused by brain dysfunction.
Dissonance: An unpleasant psychological and physiological state caused by
an inconsistency between cognitions.
Distal stimulus: An object or other sensory element in the environment.
Distinctiveness information: Information concerning a person’s response to
an object under given conditions; in attribution theory, high distinctive-
ness suggests that individuals are behaving uniquely toward a given tar-
get/object.
Diurnal enuresis: The presence of enuretic episodes when the individual is
awake.
Divergent thinking: Thinking that results in new and different responses that
most people cannot, or do not, offer; the type of thinking most clearly in-
volved in creativity.
Domestic violence: Physical, emotional, psychological, or sexual abuse perpe-
trated by an individual toward a member of his or her own family; typi-
cally the abuse follows a repetitive, predictable pattern.
917
Psychology Basics
Dopamine: One type of neurotransmitter, a chemical that is released from

one nerve cell and stimulates receptors on another, thus transferring a
message between them; associated with movement and with treatment of
depression.
Double bind: A form of communication that often occurs when a family mem-
ber sends two messages, requests, or commands that are logically incon-
sistent, contradictory, or impossible, resulting in a “damned if one does,
damned if one doesn’t” situation; a hypothesis about the development of
schizophrenia.
Double-blind method: A procedure in which neither the experimenter nor the
subjects know who is receiving treatment and who is not; this controls for
subject and experimenter biases and expectations.
Down syndrome: A chromosomal abnormality that causes mental retardation
as well as certain physical defects; caused by an extra (third) chromo-
some on chromosome pair 21.
Drive: The tendency of a person or animal to engage in behaviors brought
about by some change or condition inside that organism; often gener-
ated by deprivation (hunger or thirst) or exposure to painful or other
noxious stimuli.
Drive reduction hypothesis: The idea that a physiological need state triggers a
series of behaviors aimed at reducing the unpleasant state; drive reduc-
tion is reinforcing.
Dysfunctional family: A family grouping that is characterized by the presence
of disturbed interactions and communications; particularly an abusive,
incestuous, or alcoholic family.
Dyslexia: Diffculties in reading, usually after damage to the left cerebral
hemisphere.
Dysphoria: A symptom of clinical depression; extreme sadness.
Dysthymic disorder: A form of depression in which mild to moderate levels of
depressive symptoms persist chronically.
Early recollections: A projective technique in which the patient attempts to re-

member things that happened in the distant past; these provide clues to
the patient’s current use of private logic.
Eating disorders: Afflictions resulting from dysfunctional relationships to
hunger, food, and eating.
Echoic memory: Sensory memory for sound.
Echolalia: An involuntary and parrotlike repetition of words or phrases spo-
ken by others.
Eclectic therapy: Therapy in which a combination of models and techniques is
employed, rather than a single approach.
Educational psychology: The subfield of psychology that studies the effective-
ness of education, usually formal education; educational psychologists
seek to develop new educational techniques and to improve the learning
process.
918
Glossary
Ego: In psychoanalytic theory, the part of the personality responsible for per-
ceiving reality and thinking; mediates between the demands of the plea-
sure-seeking id, the rule-following superego, and reality.
Egocentric thought: A cognitive tendency in childhood in which the child as-
sumes that everyone shares his or her own perspective; the cognitive in-
ability to understand the different perspective of another.
Elaborative rehearsal: Giving meaning to information to enable encoding it in
memory.
Electroconvulsive therapy (ECT): A treatment for severe depression in which an
electric current is passed through the brain of the patient; sometimes re-
ferred to as electric shock therapy.
Electroencephalogram (EEG): The graphic recording of the electrical activity of
the brain (brain waves).
Electroencephalography: Measurement of the electrical output of the brain,
which may then sometimes be brought under voluntary control by bio-
feedback and relaxation.
Embryonic phase: The period of rapid prenatal change that follows the zygote
period; extends from the second to the eighth week after conception.
Emotions: Psychological responses that include a set of physiological changes,
expressive behaviors, and a subjective experience.
Empathy: In therapy, the therapist’s ability to focus attention on the needs
and experience of the client; also refers to the therapist’s ability to com-
municate an understanding of the client’s emotional state.
Empirical evidence: Data or information derived objectively from the physical
senses, without reliance on personal faith, intuition, or introspection.
Empiricism: A philosophy holding that knowledge is learned through experi-
ence and that infants begin life like blank slates, learning about their en-
vironment through experience.
Encoding: The transformation of incoming sensory information into a form
of code that the memory system can accept and use.
Endocrine gland: A gland that produces one or more hormones and secretes
them into the blood so that they can serve as intercellular messengers.
Endocrine system: A system of ductless glands in the bodies of vertebrate ani-
mals that secretes hormones which travel through the bloodstream to tar-
get tissues, whose functioning is altered by the hormones.
Endogenous behavior: An innate, or inborn, behavior that is established by the
animal’s inherited genetic code (DNA) and that is not influenced by the
animal’s experiences or environment.
Endorphins: A group of endogenous, opiate-like neuropeptides of the cen-
tral nervous system that simulate analgesia and interfere with transmis-
sion of pain impulses; the brain’s own morphine.
Enkephalins: Peptides containing five amino acids, within the endorphin
group, that may act as neurotransmitters; the first of the endorphins to be
discovered.
919
Psychology Basics
Enmeshment: An excessively close relationship between parent and child in

which adult concerns and needs are communicated and in which over-
dependence on the child is apparent.
Entitlement: The expectation of special or unusually favorable treatment by
others; commonly seen among narcissistic personalities.
Entropy: In Carl Jung’s analytical theory, a concept maintaining that aspects
of a person’s psychic energy which are not in balance will tend to seek a
state of equilibrium.
Enuresis: The inability to control the release of urine; nocturnal enuresis is
also called bed-wetting.
Environmental psychology: The subfield of psychology that studies the relation-
ship between the environment and behavior, particularly the effects of
the physical and social environments (such as noise or crowding) on be-
havior.
Environmental stressor: A condition in the environment, such as crowding,
noise, toxic chemicals, or extreme temperatures, that produces stress
(bodily or mental tension).
Epilepsy: A disorder of the nervous system in which the cortex produces elec-
trical firing that causes convulsions and other forms of seizures; thought
by some to be linked to the reticular formation.
Epinephrine: The neurotransmitter released from the adrenal gland as a re-
sult of innervation of the autonomic nervous system; formerly called
adrenaline.
Episodic memory: A form of long-term memory involving temporal and spatial
information, including personal experiences.
Equipotentiality: In Pavlovian conditioning, the idea that any stimulus paired
with an effective unconditioned stimulus will come to elicit a conditioned
response with equal facility.
Equity theory: A theory in attraction and work motivation that contends that
individuals are motivated to remain in relationships they perceive to be
fair, just, and equitable—that is, where one’s outcomes are proportional
to one’s inputs, particularly when contrasted with others in the relation-
ship.
Equivalence: A principle stating that an increase in energy or value in one as-
pect of the psyche is accompanied by a decrease in another area.
Estradiol: The primary sex hormone of mammalian females, which is respon-
sible for the menstrual cycle and for development of secondary sex char-
acteristics; a primary estrogen, secreted by the corpus luteum.
Ethnocentrism: An attitude of uncritically assuming the superiority of the in-
group culture.
Ethology: A branch of zoology that studies animals in their natural environ-
ments; often concerned with investigating the adaptive significance and
innate basis of behaviors.
Etiology: The factors that are thought to cause or contribute to the develop-
ment of a particular disorder.
920
Glossary
Eustress: Positive arousal or stress, appraised as a challenge rather than as a

threat.
Evoked potential: A brain response that is triggered by electroencephalogra-
phy using discrete sensory stimuli.
Excitation transfer: The theory that arousal from one source can intensify an
emotional reaction to a different source (for example, that sexual arousal
can increase the response to an aggressive cue).
Existentialism: A philosophical viewpoint emphasizing human existence and
the human situation in the world that gives meaning to life through the
free choice of mature values and commitment to responsible goals; the
critical goal involves finding one’s true self and living according to this
potential.
Exogenous substances: Substances not normally occurring in the body, present
only when administered; exogenous substances include substances such
as drugs or synthetic test compounds mimicking endogenous substances.
Expectancy confirmation bias: Interpreting ambiguous information as being
supportive of expectations; mistakenly “seeing” what is expected.
Expectancy theory: A cognitive motivation model which proposes that people
choose to perform behaviors they believe to be the most likely to lead to
positive outcomes; in work theory, workers are more motivated when
they perceive congruence between their efforts, products, and rewards.
Experimentation: One of several data collection methods; requires systemati-
cally manipulating the levels of an independent variable under con-
trolled conditions in order to measure its impact on a dependent vari-
able.
Experimenter bias: Biases introduced into a research study as a result of the ex-
pectations of the experimenter.
Expressive aphasia: Difficulties in expressing language, usually after damage
to Broca’s area in the left frontal lobe of the cerebral cortex.
External validity: The extent to which the results of a research study can be
generalized to different populations, settings, or conditions.
Externalization: A defense mechanism in which one experiences unresolved,
repressed inner turmoil as occurring outside oneself; holding external
factors responsible for one’s problems.
Extinction: A process by which the probability of a response is decreased; in
classical or Pavlovian conditioning, a process in which the temporal con-
tiguity of the conditioned stimulus and the unconditioned stimulus is dis-
rupted and the learned association is lost; in operant or instrumental
conditioning, a process in which undesirable behavior is not followed by
reinforcement.
Extraneous variable: A variable that has a detrimental affect on a research
study, making it difficult to determine if the result is attributable to the
variable under study or to some unknown variable not controlled for; for
example, in jury decision making, the effect of defendant attractiveness.
921
Psychology Basics
Extrinsic motivation: Motivation to perform an activity only because the activ-

ity leads to a valued outcome external to the activity itself.
Extrinsic religion: An immature religious orientation that uses religion for
self-serving purposes such as security or a sense of social or economic well-
being.
Factor analysis: A statistical technique wherein a set of correlated variables

can be regrouped in terms of the degree of commonality they share.
Family therapy: A type of psychotherapy that focuses on correcting the faulty
interactions among family members that maintain children’s psychologi-
cal problems.
Feminist analysis: The examination of the ways in which inequality, injustice,
or oppression devalues women or limits their potential, both individually
and collectively.
Fetal phase: The third period of prenatal development, extending from the
ninth week of pregnancy until birth.
Fetishism: A sexual behavior in which a person becomes aroused by focusing
on an inanimate object or a part of the human body.
Field research: An approach in which evidence is gathered in a “natural” set-
ting, such as the workplace; by contrast, laboratory research involves an
artificial, contrived setting.
Fight-or-flight response: A sequence of physiological changes, described by
Walter B. Cannon, that occurs in response to threat and prepares the or-
ganism to flee from or fight the threat; includes increases in heart rate,
blood pressure, and respiration.
Fixation: In psychoanalytic theory, an inability to progress to the next level of
psychosexual development because of overgratification or undergratifi-
cation of desires at a particular stage.
Flashback: A type of traumatic reexperiencing in which a person becomes de-
tached from reality and thinks, feels, and acts as if a previous traumatic
experience were happening again.
Flocking: A defensive maneuver in many mammalian and bird species in
which a scattered group of individuals implodes into a compact cluster at
the approach of a predator.
Flooding: A type of therapy in which a phobic person imagines his or her
most-feared situation until fear decreases.
Fluid intelligence: The form of intelligence that reflects speed of information
processing, reasoning, and memory capacity rather than factual knowl-
edge (crystallized intelligence); associated with Raymond Cattell.
Forebrain: A developmentally defined division of the brain that contains
structures such as the cerebral hemispheres, the thalamus, and the hypo-
thalamus.
Forensic psychology: The application of psychological skills in the legal profes-
sion—for example, in jury selection, sanity determination, and assessing
competency to stand trial.
922
Glossary
Forgetting: The loss of information from memory.

Formal operational stage: According to Jean Piaget, the fourth stage of cogni-
tive development, reached at adolescence; characterized by the ability to
engage in abstract thinking, hypothetical constructs, and unobserved
logical possibilities.
Free association: The psychoanalytic method in which a patient talks sponta-
neously without restriction; thought to reveal repressed conflicts of the
unconscious.
Frequency: The number of complete back-and-forth movements or pressure
changes (cycles) from the rest or ambient state that occur each second;
measured in units called hertz.
Frequency distribution: The pairing of a measurement or score with the num-
ber of people or subjects obtaining that measurement.
Frontal lobe: The anterior portion of each cerebral hemisphere, containing
control of motor areas and most of the higher intellectual functions of
the brain, including speech.
Frustration: A psychological state of arousal that results when a person is pre-
vented from attaining a goal.
Frustration-aggression hypothesis: A concept, pioneered by John Dollard, stat-
ing that aggressive behavior is born of frustration in attempting to reach
a goal.
Fugue state: A flight from reality in which the individual develops amnesia,
leaves his or her present situation, travels to a new location, and estab-
lishes a new identity.
Functional autonomy: A concept, pioneered by Gordon W. Allport, that many
adult motives are independent in purpose from their childhood origins.
Functional disorders: Signs and symptoms for which no organic or physiologi-
cal basis can be found.
Functional fixedness: An inability to think of novel uses for objects because of
a fixation on their usual functions.
Functionalism: An early school of American psychology that argued for the
study of the human mind from the standpoint of understanding con-
sciousness in terms of its purpose rather than its elements.
Fundamental attribution error: Underestimating the influence of situations
and overestimating the influence of personality traits in causing behavior.
Gamete: A reproductive sex cell; the female cell is known as the ovum, and
the male cell is known as the sperm.
Gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA): The most common neurotransmitter in
the brain, derived from the amino acid glutamic acid; an inhibitor that
seems to affect mood and emotion.
Gender: Social maleness or femaleness, reflected in the behaviors and char-
acteristics that society expects from people of one biological sex.
Gender identity: A child’s accurate labeling of himself or herself by gender;
also, a person’s inner sense of femaleness or maleness.
923
Psychology Basics
Gender schema: A general knowledge framework that organizes information

and guides perceptions related to males and females.
Gene: The basic unit of heredity; a segment of a DNA molecule that contains
hereditary instructions for an individual’s physical traits and abilities and
for the cell’s production of proteins.
General adaptation syndrome (GAS): The three-stage physiological response
pattern of the body to stress that was proposed by Hans Selye; the three
stages are the alarm reaction, resistance stage, and exhaustion stage.
Generalization: The process by which behavior learned in one situation trans-
fers to new situations.
Generativity: In Erik Erikson’s theory of personality, the seventh stage, associ-
ated with the desire to leave a legacy; the need to take care of future gen-
erations through the experiences of caring, nurturing, and educating.
Genetics: The biochemical basis of inherited characteristics.
Genital stage: In Sigmund Freud’s theory, the fifth psychosexual stage, begin-
ning at adolescence and extending throughout adulthood; the individ-
ual learns to experience sexual gratification with a partner.
Genotype: The genetic makeup of an individual.
Gestalt: A German word, for which there is no precise translation, that is gen-
erally used to refer to a form, a whole, or a configuration.
Gestalt school of psychology: A school of psychology which maintains that the
overall configuration of a stimulus array, rather than its individual ele-
ments, forms the basis of perception.
Gestalt therapy: A form of psychotherapy, initiated by Fritz Perls, that empha-
sizes awareness of the present and employs an active therapist-client rela-
tionship.
Giftedness: A marked ability to learn more rapidly, perform more intricate
problems, and solve problems more rapidly than is normally expected for
a given age; operationally defined as an IQ score above 130 on an individ-
ually administered test.
Goal setting: A motivational technique used to increase productivity in which
employees are given specific performance objectives and time deadlines.
Gray matter: Unmyelinated neurons that make up the cerebral cortex, so
called because they lack the fatty covering (myelin) found on neurons of
the white matter.
Group dynamics: The study of how groups influence individual functioning.
Gustation: The sense of taste.
Gyrus: A convolution on the surface of the brain that results from the
infolding of the cortex (surface).
Habit: An association or connection between a cue and a response, such as

stopping (the response) at a red light (the cue) while driving.
Habituation: A decrease in response to repeated presentations of a stimulus
that is not simply caused by fatigued sensory receptors.
Hallucinogen: A substance that can alter perception (vision and audition, in
924
Glossary
particular); examples include LSD, PCP, peyote, psilocybin, and possibly

marijuana.
Hardiness: A constellation of behaviors and perceptions, characterized by
perceptions of control, commitment, and challenge, that are thought to
buffer the effects of stress; introduced by Suzanne Kobasa.
Hawthorne effect: A phenomenon that occurs when a subject’s behavior
changes after the subject discovers that he or she is being studied.
Hedonic: Associated with the seeking of pleasure and the avoidance of pain.
Helplessness: A condition in which one has little or no control over the events
in one’s life; viewed by Martin Seligman as an important cause of depres-
sion.
Heredity: The transmission of characteristics from parent to offspring through
genes in the chromosomes.
Heuristic: A shortcut or rule of thumb used for decision making or problem
solving that often leads to, but does not guarantee, a correct response.
Higher-order conditioning: The linking of successive conditioned stimuli, the
last of which elicits the conditioned response; higher-order associations
are easily broken.
Hindbrain: A developmentally defined division of the brain that contains the
pons, medulla, and cerebellum.
Hippocampus: A structure located in the temporal lobe (lateral cortical area)
of the brain that has important memory functions.
Homeostasis: A term referring to the idea that the body tries to maintain
steady states—that is, to maintain physiological characteristics within rel-
atively narrow and optimum levels.
Homophobia: A fear, prejudice, or hatred toward homosexuals, usually based
upon irrational stereotyping.
Hormone: A chemical “messenger,” usually composed of protein or steroids,
that is produced and secreted by an endocrine gland and released into
the bloodstream; it targets specific genes in certain body tissue cells.
Hostile aggression: Aggressive behavior that is associated with anger and is in-
tended to harm another.
Humanistic psychology: A branch of psychology that emphasizes the human
tendencies toward growth and fulfillment, autonomy, choice, responsi-
bility, and ultimate values such as truth, love, and justice; exemplified by
the theories of Carl Rogers and Abraham Maslow.
Hypnagogic hallucination: A vivid auditory or visual hallucination that occurs
at the transition from wakefulness to sleep or from sleep to wakefulness;
associated with narcolepsy.
Hypnosis: An altered state of consciousness brought on by special induction
techniques (usually progressive relaxation instructions) and character-
ized by varying degrees of responsiveness to suggestions.
Hypnotic susceptibility: A subject’s measured level of responsiveness to hyp-
notic suggestions on standardized scales.
Hypochondriasis: A psychological disorder in which the person is unrealisti-
925
Psychology Basics
cally preoccupied with the fear of disease and worries excessively about
his or her health.
Hypothalamus: A small region near the base of the brain that controls the pi-
tuitary gland, autonomic nervous system, and behaviors important for
survival, including eating, drinking, and temperature regulation.
Hypothesis: An educated guess about the relationship between two or more
variables, derived from inductive reasoning; often tested by an experi-
ment.
Iconic memory: Brief sensory memory for vision.

Id: The part of the psyche that contains the instincts and is directed solely by
pleasure seeking; it is the most primitive part of the psyche and was
thought by Sigmund Freud to fuel the ego and superego.
Idealized self: Alienation from the real self that is characterized by grandiose,
unrealistic conceptions of the self and unattainable standards.
Identification: The internalization of parental or societal values, behaviors,
and attitudes; in Freudian theory, a defense and resolution of incestuous
feelings toward the opposite-sex parent that is important in the develop-
ment of the superego.
Identity: A personal configuration of occupational, sexual, and ideological
commitments; according to Erik Erikson, the positive pole of the fifth
stage of psychosocial development.
Identity crisis: According to Erik Erikson, the central developmental issue in
adolescence; encompasses a struggle between an integrated core identity
and role confusion.
Idiographic study: The study of the unique patterns of the individual through
methods such as case studies, autobiographies, and tests that examine
patterns of behavior within a single person.
Illusions: Beliefs that are unsupported by evidence or that require facts to be
perceived in a particular manner.
Imagery: The use of visualization to imagine the physical movements in-
volved in executing a skill.
Imitation: The performance of behaviors that were learned by observing the
actions of others.
Immune response: The body’s response to invasion by disease-producing or-
ganisms; proteins (antibodies) are produced that mark the unwanted
cells for destruction.
Immutable characteristics: Physical attributes (such as gender) that are present
at birth and that other people assume gives them information as to the
kind of person they are seeing.
Implosion therapy: A therapy in which the patient imagines his or her feared
situation, plus elements from psychodynamic theory that are related to
the fear until fear decreases.
Impression management: The attempt to control the impressions of oneself
that others form; synonymous with “self-presentation.”
926
Glossary
Imprinting: The innate behavioral attachment that a young animal forms

with another individual (for example, its mother), with food, or with an
object during a brief critical period shortly after birth; especially seen in
ducks and chicks.
In-group: A social group to which a person belongs or with which a person is
identified, thereby forming part of the self-concept.
In-group bias: The tendency to discriminate in favor of one’s own group.
Incentive: A motivating force or system of rewards that is presented to an indi-
vidual if he or she behaves or successfully performs specified tasks ac-
cording to the norms of society; a goal object.
Incompetency: The legally established lack of sufficient knowledge and judg-
ment to maintain a given right or responsibility.
Incongruence: In Carl Rogers’s theory, inconsistency or distortion between
one’s real and ideal self; a lack of genuineness.
Independent variable: The factor that is manipulated by the experimenter in
order to assess its causal impact on the dependent variable.
Individual psychology: Alfred Adler’s school of personality theory and ther-
apy; stresses the unity of the individual and his or her striving for superi-
ority to compensate for feelings of inferiority.
Induction: A type of logic by which one arrives at a general premise or conclu-
sion based on generalization from a large number of known specific cases.
Industrial/organizational psychology: The subfield of psychology that studies
behavior in business and industry; practitioners analyze placement, train-
ing, and supervision of personnel, study organizational and communica-
tion structures, and explore ways to maximize efficiency.
Inflection: An addition to the stem of a word which indicates subtle modula-
tions in meaning, such as plurality (more than one) or tense (present
time or past time); in English, inflections are all suffixes.
Information-processing model: The approach of most modern cognitive psy-
chologists; it interprets cognition as the flow of information through in-
terrelated stages (input, processing, storage, and retrieval) in much the
same way that information is processed by a computer.
Innate: A term describing any inborn characteristic or behavior that is deter-
mined and controlled largely by the genes.
Insanity: A legal term for having a mental disease or defect so great that crim-
inal intent or responsibility are not possible; it renders one incompetent.
Insight: A sudden mental inspiration or comprehension of a problem that
was previously unsolved.
Insomnia: Difficulty in falling asleep or in remaining asleep for sufficient pe-
riods.
Instinct: An innate or inherited tendency that motivates a person or animal
to act in often complex sequences without reasoning, instruction, or ex-
perience; in Freudian theory, a biological source of excitation that di-
rects the development of personality into adulthood, such as the life in-
stinct (Eros) and death instinct (Thanatos).
927
Psychology Basics
Institutional racism: The behavior patterns followed in organizations and in

society at large that produce discrimination against members of racial mi-
norities regardless of the prejudice or lack thereof of individuals.
Instrumental aggression: Aggressive behavior that is a by-product of another
activity; instrumental aggression occurs only incidentally, as a means to
another end.
Instrumental conditioning: The learning of the relationship between a volun-
tary action and the reinforcements or punishments that follow that ac-
tion; also known as operant conditioning.
Integration: The function of most of the neurons of the cerebral cortex; sum-
marizing incoming sensory information and producing a consensus as to
what the nervous system will do next.
Intelligence: The ability to perform various mental tasks, including reasoning,
knowledge, comprehension, memory, applying concepts, and manipu-
lating figures; thought to reflect one’s learning potential.
Intelligence quotient (IQ): A measure of a person’s mental ability (as reflected
by intelligence test scores) in comparison with the rest of the population
at a comparable age.
Intensity: A measure of a physical aspect of a stimulus, such as the frequency
of a sound or the brightness of a color.
Interest inventory: A type of test designed to determine areas of interest and
enjoyment, often for the purpose of matching a person with a career.
Interference: The loss or displacement of a memory trace because of compet-
ing information that is presented.
Intermittent reinforcement: Any reinforcement schedule in which some but not
all responses are rewarded; particularly difficult to extinguish.
Internal validity: The extent to which the dependent variable is caused by the
independent variable; if relevant plausible rival alternative hypotheses
can be ruled out, the study has strong internal validity.
Interneuron: A neuron that receives information from a sensory neuron and
transmits a message to a motor neuron; very common in the brain and
important in integration.
Interrater reliability: The obtained level of agreement between two observers
when scoring the same observations with the same behavioral taxonomy.
Interval schedule: A schedule in which reinforcer delivery is contingent upon
performance of a response after a specified amount of time has elapsed.
Intrinsic motivation: Motivation based on the desire to achieve or perform a
task for its own sake, because it produces satisfaction or enjoyment,
rather than for external rewards.
Introspection: The self-report of one’s own sensations, perceptions, experi-
ences, and thoughts; analyses of and reports on the content of one’s own
conscious experiences.
Irradiation: Nervous excitement generated in a specific brain center by an
unconditioned stimulus that spreads to surrounding areas of the cerebral
cortex.
928
Glossary
Kinesthetic: Related to the sensation of body position, presence, or move-

ment, resulting mostly from the stimulation of sensory nerves in muscles,
tendons, and joints.
Korsakoff’s syndrome: Alcohol-induced brain damage that causes disorienta-
tion, impaired long-term memory, and production of false memories to
fill memory gaps.
Latency: In Sigmund Freud’s theory, the period between approximately age

six and adolescence, when sexual instincts are not strongly manifested;
strictly speaking, not a psychosexual stage.
Latent content: According to psychoanalytic theory, the hidden content of a
dream, camouflaged by the manifest content.
Lateral geniculate nucleus: A subdivision of the thalamus in the brain, which
receives the nerve impulse from the retina; it assembles visual information.
Laterality: Specialization by sides of almost symmetrical structures; speech is
lateralized in human brains, because it is mainly controlled by the left
hemispheres of almost all right-handed people.
Law of Effect: Thorndike’s basic law of instrumental conditioning, which
holds that responses followed by certain events will be either more or less
likely to recur.
Leakage: Nonverbal behavior that reveals information that a person wishes to
conceal; especially useful in deception detection.
Learned helplessness: The hypothesized result of experiences in which behav-
ior performed seems to bear no relationship to the appearance or con-
trol of a stressor.
Learning: A modification in behavior as the result of experience that in-
volves changes in the nervous system which are not caused by fatigue,
maturation, or injury.
Lesion: Damage or injury to brain tissue that is caused by disease or trauma
or produced experimentally using mechanical, electrical, or chemical
methods.
Levels-of-processing model: The perspective that holds that how well something
is remembered is based on how elaborately incoming information is
mentally processed.
Libido: The energy used to direct behavior that is pleasurable either for the
self or others; when it is directed toward the self, it results in self-gratifica-
tion, follows the pleasure principle, and is immature.
Limbic system: An integrated set of cerebral structures (including the amyg-
dala, hypothalamus, hippocampus, and septal area) that play a vital role
in the regulation of emotion and motivation.
Linguistic relativity hypothesis: The idea that the structure of particular lan-
guages that people speak affects the way they perceive the world.
Linguistics: A field of inquiry that focuses on the underlying structure of lan-
guage; linguists study phonology (the sound system), syntax (sentence
structure), and semantics (meaning), among other topics.
929
Psychology Basics
Lithium carbonate: An alkaline compound that modulates the intensity of

mood swings and is particularly effective in the dampening of symptoms
of manic excitability.
Locus of control: Beliefs concerning the sources of power over one’s life; per-
sons who believe they can generally control the direction of their lives
have an internal locus of control, whereas those who believe that their
lives are influenced more by fate have an external locus of control.
Long-term memory: A memory system of unlimited capacity that consists of
more or less permanent knowledge.
Longitudinal study: A research methodology that requires the testing of the
same subjects repeatedly over a specified period of time.
Loudness: The strength of sound as heard; related to sound pressure level
but also affected by frequency.
Magnitude estimation: A technique for measuring perceptual experience by

having persons assign numbers to indicate the “magnitude” of an experi-
ence.
Main effect: A statistically significant difference in behavior related to differ-
ent levels of a variable and not affected by any other variable.
Major depressive episode: A disorder of mood and functioning, meeting clearly
specified criteria and present for at least two weeks, which is character-
ized by dysphoric mood or apathy.
Mania: A phase of bipolar disorder in which the mood is one of elation, eu-
phoria, or irritability; a disorder in which manic symptoms occur, includ-
ing hyperactivity, agitation, restlessness, and grandiosity, and then are fol-
lowed by a return to a normal mood state.
Manifest content: In Freudian theory, the content of a dream just as it is expe-
rienced or recalled; masks the dream’s latent content.
Masculine protest: The denying of inferiority feelings through rebelliousness,
violence, or maintaining a tough exterior.
Maturation: Development attributable to one’s genetic timetable rather
than to experience.
Mean: The arithmetic average of all the data measuring one characteristic; it
can be used as a descriptive or inferential statistic.
Mechanoreceptor: A sensory receptor that is sensitive to mechanical stimula-
tion, such as touch, movement of a joint, or stretching of a muscle.
Medical model: A view in which abnormality consists of a number of diseases
that originate in bodily functions, especially in the brain, and have de-
fined symptoms, treatments, and outcomes.
Medulla oblongata: The bulbous portion of the brain stem that directly con-
nects with the spinal cord; controls cardiac and respiratory activity.
Melatonin: A hormone produced by the pineal gland within the forebrain
that is usually released into the blood during the night phase of the light-
dark cycle.
930
Glossary
Memory: The mental processes that are involved in storing and recalling pre-
viously experienced images, information, and events.
Mere exposure: A psychological phenomenon in which liking tends to in-
crease as a person sees more of something or someone.
Meta-analysis: A set of quantitative (statistical) procedures used to evaluate a
body of empirical literature.
Metastasis: The transfer of disease from one part of the body to an unrelated
part, often through the bloodstream or lymphatic system.
Midbrain: The section of the brain just above the hindbrain; influences audi-
tory and visual processes and arousal.
Midlife crisis: A sense of reevaluation, and sometimes panic, that strikes some
individuals during middle age; impulsive behavior, reassessment of goals,
and career changes can result.
Mind-body problem: A psychological question originating from philosophy
and religion that concerns how to understand the relationship between a
physical body or brain and a nonphysical mind or subjective experience.
Mineralocorticoids: The proinflammatory hormones aldosterone and deoxy-
corticosterone, secreted by the adrenal cortex and having a role in salt
metabolism.
Misattribution: Attributing an event to any factor other than the true cause.
Mnemonics: Strategies for improving memory through placing information
in an organized context.
Monoamine oxidase inhibitors (MAOIs): A class of antidepressant drugs.
Monoamines: A group of neurotransmitters derived from a single amino acid;
they include serotonin and the catecholamines.
Monosynaptic reflex: A reflex system that consists of only one synapse, the syn-
apse between the sensory input and motor output.
Mood disorders: Functional mental disorders associated with emotions or feel-
ings (also called affective disorders); examples include depression and
bipolar disorders.
Morpheme: The smallest part of a word that has a discernible meaning.
Morphology: The rules in a given language that govern how morphemes can
be combined to form words.
Motivation: A hypothetical construct used to explain behavior and its direc-
tion, intensity, and persistence.
Motor neurons: The cells of the central nervous system responsible for caus-
ing muscular activity.
Multiple personality disorder: A rare mental disorder characterized by the de-
velopment and existence or two or more relatively unique and indepen-
dent personalities in the same individual.
Nanometer: A billionth of a meter.

Narcolepsy: A condition in which an individual is prone to fall suddenly into a
deep sleep.
Nativism: A philosophy which holds that knowledge is innate and that the
931
Psychology Basics
neonate enters the world prepared for certain kinds of environmental in-
puts.
Natural selection: The process by which those characteristics of a species that
help it to survive or adapt to its environment tend to be passed along by
members that live long enough to have offspring.
Need: A state of an organism attributable to deprivation of a biological or psy-
chological requirement; it is related to a disturbance in the homeostatic
state.
Negative reinforcement: The procedure whereby the probability of a response
is increased by the contingent removal of an aversive stimulus.
Neo-Freudian: A term for psychoanalysts who place more emphasis on secu-
rity and interpersonal relations as determining behavior than on the bio-
logical theories of Sigmund Freud; Neo-Freudians include Alfred Adler,
Carl Jung, Karen Horney, Harry Stack Sullivan, and Erik Erikson.
Nerve impulse: Electrical activity transmitted through a nerve fiber.
Nervous system: An array of billions of neurons (conducting nerve cells) that
transmits electrical information throughout the body and thereby con-
trols practically all bodily processes.
Neurologist: A physician who specializes in the diagnosis and treatment of dis-
orders of the nervous system.
Neuron: An individual nerve cell, the basic unit of the nervous system; re-
ceives and transmits electrical information and consists of a cell body,
dendrites, and an axon.
Neuropsychology: The study of brain-behavior relationships, usually involving
behavioral tests and correlating results with brain areas.
Neuropsychopharmacology: The field of study of the relationship among behav-
ior, neuronal functioning, and drugs.
Neurosis: Any functional disorder of the mind or the emotions, occurring
without obvious brain damage and involving anxiety, phobic responses,
or other abnormal behavior symptoms.
Neurotransmitter: A chemical substance released from one nerve cell that
communicates activity by binding to and changing the activity of another
nerve cell, muscle, or gland; some stimulate, others inhibit.
Nomothetic study: A research approach that compares groups of people in or-
der to identify general principles; the dominant method of personality
research.
Nonparticipant observation: A field technique in which the researcher pas-
sively observes the behavior of the subjects, trying not to get involved in
the setting.
Nonverbal communication: Communication through any means other than
words; includes facial expression, tone of voice, and posture.
Normal distribution: A bell-shaped curve that often provides an accurate de-
scription of the distribution of scores obtained in research; it forms the
basis of many statistical tests.
932
Glossary
Observational learning: Learning that results from observing other people’s

behavior and its consequences.
Observational study: A research technique in which a scientist systematically
watches for and records occurrences of the phenomena under study
without actively influencing them.
Obsessions: Intrusive, recurrent, anxiety-provoking thoughts, ideas, images,
or impulses that interfere with an individual’s daily functioning.
Obsessive-compulsive disorder: A chronic, debilitating anxiety disorder charac-
terized by continuous obsessive thinking and frequent compulsive behav-
iors.
Occipital lobe: The posterior portion of each cerebral hemisphere, where vi-
sual stimuli are received and integrated.
Oedipus complex: In Freudian theory, sexual attraction to the parent of the
opposite sex, and jealousy of and fear of retribution from the parent of
the same sex; first manifested in the phallic stage (in girls, sometimes
called the Electra complex).
Olfaction: The sense of smell.
Operant: The basic response unit in instrumental conditioning; a response
which, when emitted, operates upon its environment and is instrumental
in providing some consequences.
Operant conditioning: Learning in which a behavior increases or decreases de-
pending on whether the behavior is followed by reward or punishment;
also known as instrumental conditioning.
Operational definition: A description of a measurement or manipulation in
terms that are unambiguous, observable, and easily identified.
Opiates: A class of drugs that relieve pain; opiates include morphine, heroin,
and several naturally occurring peptides.
Oral stage: In Freudian theory, the first stage of psychosexual development,
from birth to approximately age two; sexual energy focuses on the
mouth, and conflicts may arise over nursing, biting, or chewing.
Organic disorder: A symptomatology with a known physiological or neurologi-
cal basis.
Organizational effects: The early and permanent effects of a hormone; for ex-
ample, the sex hormones, which produce differentiation in the develop-
ing embryo of primordial gonads, internal reproductive structures, and
external genitalia.
Out-group: Any social group to which an individual does not belong and
which, as a consequence, may be viewed in a negative way.
Overextension: The application of a word to more objects than ordinary adult
usage allows; for example, when a child refers to all small four-legged ani-
mals as “dog.”
Overjustification effect: The tendency of external factors that are perceived to
be controlling an individual’s behavior to undermine the individual’s in-
trinsic motivation to engage in that behavior.
933
Psychology Basics
Papilla: A small bundle of taste receptor cells surrounded by supportive cells

and communicating with the exterior through a small pore.
Paradoxical intervention: A therapeutic technique in which a therapist gives a
patient or family a task that appears to contradict the goals of treatment.
Parallel distributed processing (PDP): A neurally inspired model in which infor-
mation is processed in a massively parallel and interactive network; the
course of processing is determined by the connection strengths between
units of the network.
Paranoia: A psychosis characterized by delusions, particularly delusions of
persecution, and pervasive suspiciousness; paranoia rarely involves hallu-
cinations.
Parasympathetic nervous system: A branch of the autonomic nervous system;
responsible for maintaining or reestablishing homeostasis.
Parietal lobe: The side and upper-middle part of each cerebral hemisphere
and the site of sensory reception from the skin, muscles, and other areas;
also contains part of the general interpretive area.
Pavlovian conditioning: Learning in which two stimuli are presented one after
the other, and the response to the first changes because of the response
automatically elicited by the second; also called classical conditioning.
Penis envy: In Freudian theory, the strong envy that females develop of the
male organ because they subconsciously believe they have been cas-
trated; Sigmund Freud proposed that penis envy dominates the female
personality.
Perception: The psychological process by which information that comes in
through the sense organs is meaningfully interpreted by the brain.
Perceptual constancy: The tendency to perceive figures as constant and stable
in terms of shape, color, size, or brightness.
Peripheral nervous system: All the nerves located outside the bones of the skull
and spinal cord.
Persona: A major Jungian archetype representing one’s public personality;
the mask that one wears in order to be acceptable to society at large.
Personality: An individual’s unique collection of behavioral responses (physi-
cal, emotional, and intellectual) that are consistent across time and situa-
tions.
Personality disorder: A disorder involving deep-rooted behavior patterns that
are inflexible and maladaptive and that cause distress in an individual’s
relationships with others.
Personality trait: A stable disposition to behave in a given way over time and
across situations.
Phallic stage: In Freudian theory, the third stage of psychosexual develop-
ment, from approximately age four to age six, in which sexual energy fo-
cuses on the genitals.
Phenomenology: An approach that stresses openness to direct experience in
introspective or unsophisticated ways, without using analysis, theory, ex-
pectations, or interpretation.
934
Glossary
Pheromone: A hormone or other chemical that is produced and released

from the tissues of one individual and targets tissues in another individ-
ual, usually with a consciously or unconsciously detectable scent.
Phobia: An anxiety disorder involving an intense irrational fear of a particu-
lar class of things (such as horses) or a situation (such as heights).
Phoneme: A minimal unit of sound that can signal a difference in meaning.
Phonology: The specification, for a given language, of which speech sounds
may occur and how they may be combined, as well as the pitch and stress
patterns that accompany words and sentences.
Pineal gland: A light-sensitive endocrine gland that is located toward the
back of the brain and that controls reproductive cycles in many mamma-
lian species.
Pitch: The highness or lowness of a sound as heard; related to frequency but
also affected by loudness.
Pituitary: An endocrine gland located in the brain that controls several other
endocrine glands and that cooperates with the hypothalamus of the ner-
vous system in controlling physiology.
Placebo: A substance or treatment (such as a pill or an injection) that has no
intrinsic effect but is presented as having some effect.
Placebo effect: The relief of pain or the causing of a desired behavioral effect
as a result of a patient’s belief that a substance or treatment will be effec-
tive when, in fact, the substance or treatment has no known effect; for ex-
ample, a sugar pill may relieve a backache if given by a trusted doctor.
Plasticity: The ability of neurons and neural networks to grow into specific
patterns based partially upon the organism’s genetics and partially upon
the organism’s learned experience; in the brain, neurons can modify the
structural organization in order to compensate for neural damage.
Play therapy: A system of individual psychotherapy in which children’s play is
utilized to explain and reduce symptoms of their psychological disorders.
Pons: A part of the brain stem that serves as the nerve connection between
the cerebellum and the brain stem.
Population: All members of a specified group that a researcher is interested
in studying.
Positive reinforcement: A procedure used to increase the frequency of a re-
sponse by presenting a favorable consequence following the response.
Positron emission tomography (PET): An imaging technique that allows blood
flow, energy metabolism, and chemical activity to be visualized in the liv-
ing human brain.
Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD): A pathological condition caused by se-
vere stress such as an earthquake or a divorce; it has an acute stage and a
chronic stage, and symptoms involve reexperiencing the traumatic event.
Postsynaptic potential: A chemical stimulus that is produced in a postsynaptic
cell; may excite the cell to come nearer to electrical firing, or may inhibit
firing.
935
Psychology Basics
Power law: A statement of the lawful relationship between two variables that
expresses one of them as the other raised to some exponent.
Pragmatism: A philosophical position that provided the framework of func-
tionalism by proposing that the value of something lies in its usefulness.
Prejudice: Liking or disliking of persons based on their category or group
membership rather than on their individual personalities; predomi-
nantly refers to unfavorable reactions.
Preoperational stage: In Jean Piaget’s theory, a transitional stage of childhood
(ages two to seven, approximately), after mental representations (sym-
bols) are acquired but before they can be logically manipulated.
Preparedness: The idea that, through evolution, animals have been geneti-
cally prepared to learn certain things important to their survival.
Primacy effect: The tendency for things that are seen or received first to be
better recalled and more influential than things that come later.
Primary motive: A motive that arises from innate, biological needs and that
must be met for survival.
Primary reinforcer: A stimulus that acts as a natural, unlearned reinforcer.
Primary sex characteristics: The physiological features of the sex organs.
Priming: An increase in the availability of certain types of information in
memory in response to a stimulus.
Prisoner’s dilemma: A laboratory game used by psychologists to study the com-
parative strategies of cooperation and competition.
Probability: The proportion of times a particular event will occur; also, the
study of uncertainty that is the foundation of inferential statistics.
Progesterone: A female sex hormone secreted by the corpus luteum of the
ovary; maintains the lining of the uterus during pregnancy and the sec-
ond half of the menstrual cycle.
Programmed instruction: A self-paced training program characterized by many
small, increasingly difficult lessons separated by frequent tests.
Progressive muscle relaxation: A relaxation technique that systematically works
through all the major muscle groups of the body by first tensing, then re-
laxing each group and paying attention to the changes.
Projective task: Any task that provides an open-ended response that may re-
veal aspects of one’s personality; tasks or tests commonly include stan-
dard stimuli that are ambiguous in nature.
Proposition: A mental representation based on the underlying structure of
language; a proposition is the smallest unit of knowledge that can be
stated.
Prosocial behavior: Behavior intended to benefit another; can be motivated by
either egoistic or altruistic concern.
Prototype: A “best example” of a concept—one that contains the most typical
features of that concept.
Proxemics: The use of space as a special elaboration of culture; it is usually di-
vided into the subfields of territory and personal space.
936
Glossary
Proximo-distal development: Motor development that proceeds from the cen-

ter of the body to its periphery.
Psychoactive drugs: Chemical substances that act on the brain to create psy-
chological effects; usually classified as depressants, stimulants, narcotics
(opiates), hallucinogens, or antipsychotics.
Psychoanalytic theory: A set of theories conceived by Sigmund Freud that see
the roots of human behavior and mental disorders in unconscious moti-
vation and in childhood and early adulthood conflict.
Psychobiology: The study of the interactions between biological and psycho-
logical processes.
Psychogenic disorder: An illness that is attributable primarily to a psychological
conflict or to emotional stress.
Psychometrics: The theory or technique of psychological measurement; the
measurement of psychological differences among people and the statisti-
cal analysis of those differences.
Psychophysics: The study of the relationship between physical units of a stimu-
lus, such as amplitude, and its sensory, experienced qualities, such as
loudness.
Psychophysiology: The study of the interaction between the psyche (mind and
emotions) and the physiology (physical processes such as blood pressure
and heart rate) of the organism.
Psychosis: A general term referring to a severe mental disorder, with or
without organic damage, characterized by deterioration of normal in-
tellectual and social function and by partial or complete withdrawal from
reality; includes schizophrenia and mood disorders such as bipolar dis-
order.
Psychosocial crisis: In Erik Erikson’s theory, a turning point in the process of
development precipitated by the individual having to face a new set of so-
cial demands and new social relationships.
Psychosomatic disorder: A physical disorder that results from, or is worsened
by, psychological factors; synonymous with psychophysiological disorder
and includes stress-related disorders.
Psychosurgery: Brain surgery intended to alter an inappropriate or maladap-
tive behavior.
Psychotherapy: A general category of treatment techniques for mental disor-
ders; most psychotherapy uses talking as a tool and centers on the client-
psychotherapist relationship to develop awareness and provide support.
Punishment: The procedure of decreasing the probability of a behavior by
the response-contingent delivery of an aversive stimulus.
Quasi-experimental designs: Experimental plans that do not allow subjects to

be assigned randomly to treatment conditions.
Questionnaires: A survey tool; research subjects view questions in electronic
or written format and respond in the same format.
937
Psychology Basics
Random assignment: The most common technique for establishing equiva-

lent groups by balancing subject characteristics through the assigning of
subjects to groups through some random process.
Rapid eye movement (REM) sleep: A special stage of sleep that involves desyn-
chronized electrical brain activity, muscle paralysis, rapid eye move-
ments, and narrative dream recall.
Ratio schedule: A reinforcement schedule in which reinforcer delivery is con-
tingent upon the performance of a specified number of responses.
Rational-emotive therapy: A cognitive-based psychotherapy, pioneered by Al-
bert Ellis, that attempts to replace or modify a client’s irrational, inappro-
priate, or problematic thought processes, outlooks, and self-concept.
Realistic conflict theory: A theory from social psychology that suggests that di-
rect competition for scarce or valued resources can lead to prejudice.
Receptive aphasia: Difficulties in comprehending spoken and written mate-
rial, usually after damage to Wernicke’s area in the left temporal lobe of
the cerebral cortex.
Receptive field: The region and pattern in space to which a single neuron re-
sponds.
Receptor: A specific protein structure on a target cell to which a neurotrans-
mitter binds, producing a stimulatory or inhibitory response.
Recessive gene: A gene whose corresponding trait will not be expressed unless
the gene is paired with another recessive gene for that trait.
Reciprocal determinism: An interactional model proposing that environment,
personal factors, and behavior all operate as interacting determinants of
one another.
Reductionism: An aspect of the scientific method which seeks to understand
complex and often interactive processes by reducing them to more basic
components and principles.
Reflex: An unlearned and automatic biologically programmed response to a
particular stimulus.
Reflex arc: The simplest behavioral response, in which an impulse is carried
by a sensory neuron to the spinal cord, crosses a synapse to a motor neu-
ron, and stimulates a response.
Regression: An ego defense mechanism that a person experiencing stress or
conflict uses to return to an earlier stage of development.
Regulators: Gestures and expressions made by listeners that are informative
for speakers; they convey comprehension or acceptance, or indicate
when the other person may speak.
Reinforcement: An operation or process that increases the probability that a
learned behavior will be repeated.
Reinforcer: A stimulus or event that, when delivered contingently upon a re-
sponse, will increase the probability of the recurrence of that response.
Relative deprivation: The proposition that people’s attitudes, aspirations, and
grievances largely depend on the frame of reference within which they
are conceived.
938
Glossary
Reliability: The consistency of a psychological measure, which can be as-

sessed by means of stability over repeated administrations or agreement
among different observers.
Representativeness: A heuristic in which an estimate of the probability of an
event or sample is determined by the degree to which it resembles the
originating process or population.
Repression: In psychoanalytic theory, a defense mechanism that keeps unac-
ceptable thoughts and impulses from becoming conscious.
Response cost: Negative consequences that follow the commission of an unde-
sired behavior, decreasing the rate at which the misbehavior will recur.
Response hierarchy: An arrangement of alternative responses to a cue, in a hi-
erarchy from that most likely to occur to that least likely to occur.
Resting membrane potential: The maintenance of difference in electrical charges
between the inside and outside of a neuron’s cell membrane, keeping it
polarized with closed ion channels.
Retardation: A condition wherein a person has mental abilities that are far
below average; other skills and abilities, such as adaptive behavior, may
also be marginal; measured by an IQ score of less than 70.
Reticular formation: A core of neurons extending through the medulla, pons,
and midbrain that controls arousal and sleeping/waking, as well as motor
functions such as muscle tone and posture.
Retina: The light-sensitive area at the back of the eye, containing the
photoreceptors (rods and cones) that detect light.
Retrieval: The process of locating information stored in memory and bring-
ing it into awareness.
Retrograde amnesia: The type of amnesia that involves an inability to remem-
ber things that occurred before the onset of the amnesia.
Rhodopsin: The visual pigment in the cells of the rods that responds to light.
Rod: A photoreceptor of the retina specialized for the detection of light with-
out discrimination of color.
Role: A social position that is associated with a set of behavioral expectations.
Rule-governed behavior: Behavior that is under the discriminative control of
formalized contingencies.
Sample: A subset of a population; a group of elements selected from a larger,

well-defined pool of elements.
Sampling error: The extent to which population parameters deviate from a
sample statistic.
Satiety: A feeling of fullness and satisfaction.
Schema: An active organization of prior knowledge, beliefs, and experience
which is used in perceiving the environment, retrieving information
from memory, and directing behavior (plural, schemata).
Schizophrenia: Any of a group of psychotic reactions characterized by with-
drawal from reality with accompanying affective, behavioral, and intellec-
tual disturbances, including illusions and hallucinations.
939
Psychology Basics
Schwann cell: A type of insulating nerve cell that wraps around neurons lo-
cated peripherally throughout the organism.
Script: An event schema in which a customary sequence of actions, actors,
and props is specified; for example, behavior at a restaurant.
Seasonal affective disorder (SAD): Bipolar disorder that undergoes a seasonal
fluctuation resulting from various factors, including seasonal changes in
the intensity and duration of sunlight.
Secondary reinforcement: A learned reinforcer that has acquired reinforcing
qualities by being paired with other reinforcers.
Secondary sex characteristics: Physical features other than genitals that differ-
entiate women and men; for example, facial hair.
Self: The unified and integrated center of one’s experience and awareness,
which one experiences both subjectively, as an actor, and objectively, as a
recipient of actions.
Self-actualization: A biologically and culturally determined process involving
a tendency toward growth and full realization of one’s potential, charac-
terized by acceptance, autonomy, accuracy, creativity, and community; pi-
oneered by Abraham Maslow.
Self-concept: The sum total of the attributes, abilities, attitudes, and values
that an individual believes defines who he or she is.
Self-efficacy: The perception or judgment of one’s ability to perform a certain
action successfully or to control one’s circumstances.
Self-esteem: The evaluative part of the self-concept; one’s feeling of self-worth.
Self-image: The self as the individual pictures or imagines it.
Self-perception: A psychological process whereby individuals infer the nature
of their attitudes and beliefs by observing their own behavior.
Semantic memory: The long-term representation of a person’s factual knowl-
edge of the world.
Sensation: The process by which the nervous system and sensory receptors
receive and represent stimuli received from the environment.
Sensorimotor stage: The first of Jean Piaget’s developmental stages, lasting
from birth to about two years of age, during which objects become famil-
iar and are interpreted by appropriate habitual, motor, and sensory pro-
cesses.
Sensory memory: The persistence of a sensory impression for less than a sec-
ond; it allows the information to be processed further.
Serial processing: A theory concerning how people scan information in mem-
ory that suggests that as the number of items in memory increases, so
does the amount of time taken to determine whether an item is present
in memory.
Set point: An organism’s personal homeostatic level for a particular body
weight, which results from factors such as early feeding experiences and
heredity.
Sex: Biological maleness or femaleness, determined by genetic endowment
and hormones.
940
Glossary
Sex typing: The process of acquiring traits, attitudes, and behaviors seen as
appropriate for members of one’s gender; gender-role acquisition.
Sexual instinct: In Sigmund Freud’s theory, the innate tendency toward plea-
sure seeking, particularly through achieving sexual aims and objects.
Shaping: The acquiring of instrumental behavior in small steps or incre-
ments through the reinforcement of successively closer approximations
to the desired final behavior.
Short-term memory: A memory system of limited capacity that uses rehearsal
processes either to retain current memories or to pass them on to long-
term memory.
Significance level: The degree of likelihood that research results are attribut-
able to chance.
Skinner box: The most commonly used apparatus for studying instrumental
conditioning; manipulation of a lever (for rats, monkeys, or humans) or
an illuminated disk (for pigeons) produces consequences; named for B.
F. Skinner.
Social categorization: The classification of people and groups according to at-
tributes that are personally meaningful.
Social cognition: The area of social psychology concerned with how people
make sense of social events, including the actions of others.
Social comparison: Comparing attitudes, skills, and feelings with those of simi-
lar people in order to determine relative standing in a group or the ac-
ceptability of one’s own positions.
Social facilitation: The enhancement of a person’s most dominant response
as a result of the presence of others; for some tasks, such as simple ones,
performance is enhanced, while for others, such as novel tasks, perfor-
mance is impaired.
Social identity theory: A theory maintaining that people are motivated to cre-
ate and maintain a positive identity in terms of personal qualities and, es-
pecially, group memberships.
Social learning theory: The approach to personality that emphasizes the learn-
ing of behavior via observations and direct reward; exemplified by the
theories of Albert Bandura and Walter Mischel.
Social loafing: The tendency to expend less effort while in the presence of
others; most likely to occur on additive tasks in which one’s individual ef-
fort is obscured as a result of the collective efforts of the group.
Social phobia: A condition characterized by fear of the possible scrutiny or
criticism of others.
Social psychology: A subfield of psychology that studies how individuals are af-
fected by environmental factors and particularly by other people.
Social support: The relationships with other people that provide emotional,
informational, or tangible resources that affect one’s health and psycho-
logical comfort.
Socialization: The process of learning and internalizing social rules and stan-
dards.
941
Psychology Basics
Sociobiology: The application of the principles of evolutionary biology to the

understanding of social behavior.
Somatization disorder: A mental syndrome in which a person chronically has a
number of vague but dramatic medical complaints that apparently have
no physical cause.
Somatoform disorders: A group of mental disorders in which a person has phys-
ical complaints or symptoms that appear to be caused by psychological
rather than physical factors; for example, hypochondriasis.
Somnambulism: The scientific term for sleepwalking; formerly a term for hyp-
nosis.
Spinal cord: The part of the central nervous system that is enclosed within the
backbone; conducts nerve impulses to and from the brain.
Spontaneous recovery: The recovery of extinguished behaviors over time in
the absence of any specific treatment or training.
Sports psychology: The subfield of psychology that applies psychological prin-
ciples to physical activities such as competitive sports; frequently con-
cerned with maximizing athletic performance.
Sprouting: A process that occurs when remaining nerve fibers branch and
form new connections to replace those that have been lost.
Stage theory of development: The belief that development moves through a set
sequence of stages; the quality of behavior at each stage is unique but is
dependent upon movement through earlier stages.
Standard deviation: A measure of how variable or spread out a group of scores
is from the mean.
Standardization: The administration, scoring, and interpretation of a test in a
prescribed manner so that differences in test results can be attributed to
the testee.
Statistical significance: Differences in behavior large enough that they are
probably related to the subject variables or manipulated variables by dif-
ferences too large to be caused by chance alone.
Stereotype: A set of beliefs, often rigidly held, about the characteristics of an
entire group.
Stimulants: Drugs that cause behavioral or physiological stimulation, includ-
ing amphetamines, cocaine, and their respective derivatives; caffeine;
nicotine; and some antidepressants.
Stimulus: An environmental circumstance to which an organism may re-
spond; it may be as specific as a single physical event or as global as a so-
cial situation.
Stimulus generalization: The ability of stimuli that are similar to other stimuli
to elicit a response that was previously elicited only by the first stimuli.
Storage: The stage of memory between encoding and retrieval; the period for
which memories are held.
Strange situation: An experimental technique designed to measure the qual-
ity of the mother-infant attachment relationship.
942
Glossary
Stress: The judgment that a problem exceeds one’s available resources, re-
sulting from a primary appraisal of the problem and a secondary ap-
praisal of the coping resources.
Stressor: Anything that produces a demand on an organism.
Striate cortex: The region of the occipital lobe that reconstitutes visual images
for recognition.
Stroke: A vascular injury resulting from either the rupture of a vessel or the
blocking of blood flow in an artery.
Structuralism: An early school of psychology that sought to define the basic
elements of mind and the laws governing their combination.
Sublimation: According to Sigmund Freud, a defense mechanism by which a
person may redirect aggressive impulses by engaging in a socially sanc-
tioned activity.
Suffix: A morpheme that attaches to the end of a word.
Superego: In Freudian theory, the part of the psyche that contains parental
and societal standards of morality and that acts to prohibit expression of
instinctual drives; includes the conscience and the ego-ideal.
Syllogism: A logical argument constructed of a major premise, a minor prem-
ise, and a conclusion, the validity of which is determined by rules of infer-
ence.
Symbiotic relationship: An overprotective, often enmeshed relationship be-
tween a parent and child.
Sympathetic nervous system: A division of the autonomic nervous system that
prepares the organism for energy expenditure.
Synapse: The junction between two neurons over which a nerve impulse is
chemically transduced.
Synchronized electroencephalogram: A regular, repetitive brain-wave pattern that
is caused by multitudes of neurons firing at the same time and the same
rate in a given brain region.
Systematic desensitization: An exposure therapy in which the phobic patient is
gradually presented with a feared object or situation.
Systems theory: A concept in which the family grouping is viewed as a biosocial
subsystem existing within the larger system of society; intrafamilial com-
munications are the mechanisms of subsystem interchange.
Tachistoscope: An experimental apparatus for presenting visual information

very briefly to the right or left visual field; sometimes called a T-scope.
Tardive dyskinesia: Slow, involuntary motor movements, especially of the
mouth and tongue, which can become permanent and untreatable; can
result from psychoactive drug treatment.
Temporal lobe: The lower portion on the side of each cerebral hemisphere,
containing the sites of sensory interpretation, memory of visual and audi-
tory patterns, and part of the general interpretive area.
Test-retest reliability: A common way of determining consistency, by adminis-
tering the same test twice to the same persons.
943
Psychology Basics
Testosterone: The principal male sex hormone produced by the testes.

Thalamus: A portion of the diencephalon, located at the base of the fore-
brain, which receives sensory information from the body and relays these
signals to the appropriate regions of the cerebrum.
Thematic Apperception Test (TAT): A personality test in which individuals dem-
onstrate their needs by describing what is happening in a series of ambig-
uous pictures.
Theory: A model explaining the relationship between several phenomena;
derived from several related hypotheses which have survived many tests.
Therapy: The systematic habilitation of a disorder.
Thermoreceptor: A sensory receptor specialized for the detection of changes
in the flow of heat.
Threshold: The minimum stimulus intensity necessary for an individual to de-
tect a stimulus; usually defined as that intensity detected 50 percent of the
time it is presented.
Thyroxine: The major hormone produced and secreted by the thyroid gland;
stimulates protein synthesis and the basal metabolic rate.
Trait theory: A way of conceptualizing personality in terms of relatively persis-
tent and consistent behavior patterns that are manifested in a wide range
of circumstances.
Transduction: The process of changing physical energy, such as light, into
neural messages.
Transference: The phenomenon in which a person in psychoanalysis shifts
thoughts or emotions concerning people in his or her past (most often
parents) onto the analyst.
Transvestite: A person who, for fun or sexual arousal, often dresses and acts
like a member of the opposite sex (going “in drag”); most are heterosex-
ual males.
Tricyclics: A class of antidepressant drugs.
Two-factor theory: A behavioral theory of anxiety stating that fear is caused by
Pavlovian conditioning and that avoidance of the feared object is main-
tained by operant conditioning.
Type A personality: A behavior pattern that describes individuals who are
driven, competitive, high-strung, impatient, time-urgent, intense, and
easily angered; some researchers have associated this pattern with in-
creased risk of heart disease.
Unconditional positive regard: The attempt by a therapist to convey to a client

that he or she genuinely cares for the client.
Unconditioned response (UR): An innate or unlearned behavior that occurs au-
tomatically following some stimulus; a reflex.
Unconditioned stimulus (US): A stimulus that elicits an unconditioned re-
sponse; the relation between unconditioned stimuli and unconditioned
responses is unlearned.
944
Glossary
Unconscious: The deep-rooted aspects of the mind; Sigmund Freud claimed

that the unconscious includes negative instincts and urges that are too
disturbing for people to be aware of consciously.
Unipolar depression: A disorder characterized by the occurrence of one or
more major depressive episodes but no manic episodes.
Validity: A statistical value that states the degree to which a test measures
what it is intended to measure; the test is usually compared to external
criteria.
Vicarious learning: Learning (for example, learning to fear something) with-
out direct experience, either by observing or by receiving verbal informa-
tion.
Visual cortex: The top six cell layers in the back of the brain, which are spe-
cialized for organizing and interpreting visual information.
Visual dyslexia: The lack of ability to translate observed written or printed
language into meaningful terms.
Voyeurism: The derivation of sexual pleasure from looking at the naked bod-
ies or sexual activities of others without their consent.
Wavelength: The distance traveled by a wave front in the time given by one cy-
cle (the period of the wave); has an inverse relation to frequency.
White matter: The tissue within the central nervous system, consisting primar-
ily of nerve fibers.
Within-subject design: An experimental plan in which each subject receives
each level of the independent variable.
Working through: A psychoanalytical term that describes the process by which
clients develop more adaptive behavior once they have gained insight
into the causes of their psychological disorders.
Yerkes-Dodson law: The principle that moderate levels of arousal tend to yield
optimal performance.
Zeitgeber: A German word meaning “time giver”; a factor that serves as a syn-
chronizer or entraining agent, such as sunlight in the morning.
945
Biographical List of
Psychologists
Adler, Alfred (1870-1937). Originally a Freudian psychologist, Adler
had by 1911 broken from Sigmund Freud, resigning as president of the Vi-
enna Psychoanalytic Society when the break became apparent. Adler was
known for his work on individual personality and his theory of the creative
self. He eschewed environment and heredity as the major governing factors
in people’s lives. He considered these factors raw materials that individuals
can shape as they will.
Allport, Gordon (1897-1967). Allport was well known for his theory of
functional autonomy, which disputes Sigmund Freud’s notion that adult
conduct stems from instincts, desires, and needs that all people share. He re-
sisted classifying people according to such elemental motives. For him, each
personality was unique and could not be categorized according to a precon-
ceived set of motivations.
Bandura, Albert (1925- ). The learning theory advanced by Ban-
dura postulated that people learn largely through realizing what the conse-
quences are of their behavior or of the behavior of others. He advocated ob-
servational learning. His social cognitive theory influenced learning theory
in the last quarter of the twentieth century.
Beck, Aaron T. (1921- ). Recognized for his work in cognitive ther-
apy, Beck sought to alter the thinking of depressed patients by encouraging
them to assess their problems in alternative ways capable of solution. He also
moved his patients toward understanding how their problems might be the
result of their own actions or inactions. The Beck Depression Inventory, a
twenty-one-item instrument based on a four-point scale, is used as a quanti-
tative tool for ascertaining the symptoms of depression in adolescents and
adults.
Berkowitz, Leonard (1926- ). A social psychologist, Berkowitz gained
a worldwide reputation as an expert on human aggression, which he defined as
an externally elicited drive to harm others. He believed that aggression could
be sparked involuntarily by stimuli from the surrounding environment.
Binet, Alfred (1857-1911). Binet, collaborating with Theodore Simon,
devised tests for measuring intelligence, later called intelligence quotient
(IQ) tests. Although he originally contended that intelligence was too com-
plex to be reduced to mere numbers, he ultimately accepted the simplified
modes of measurement, devised by William Stern and refined by Lewis
Terman, that considered IQ to be equal to mental age divided by chronolog-
ical age and multiplied by one hundred. Terman added the last element so
that IQ could be expressed in whole numbers rather than in numbers re-
quiring decimal points.
Brentano, Franz Clemens (1838-1917). Brentano questioned the the-
946
Biographical List of Psychologists
ories of the mind espoused by many contemporary psychologists and physi-

cians who were mainly concerned with the brain as a physical entity. Bren-
tano denied the necessity of understanding the physiological mechanisms
underlying mental events, contending that experimental psychology was
more limited and limiting than many of his colleagues believed because it
involves the systematic manipulation of variables, then noting their effect
upon other variables. Brentano believed that any study of the mind should
emphasize process over a material view of the mind’s content.
Breuer, Josef (1842-1925). A noted physician and researcher, Breuer
grew close to the young Sigmund Freud, fourteen years his junior. Freud
said that while he was still a student preparing for his last examinations in
medical school, Breuer applied the methods of psychoanalysis to one of his
patients, Anna O., who suffered from hysteria and whom he treated system-
atically from 1880 to 1882, thereby, in Freud’s eyes, inaugurating the field of
psychoanalysis.
Cannon, Walter B. (1871-1945). A Harvard University professor of
physiology, Cannon demonstrated the effects emotions have on the human
body. His work led to the mapping of the brain’s hypothalamus and limbic
systems. Cannon challenged the theory proposed by William James and
C. G. Lange that situations caused by certain stimuli produce specific bodily
reactions, such as increase heart beat or increases or decreases in blood
pressure, pointing out that similar bodily reactions occur in a wide variety of
emotional states. He noted that the viscera, with few sensory nerves, are un-
likely to perceive changes, contending that autonomic reactions often have
relatively long periods of latency.
Cattell, James McKeen (1860-1944). Convinced that applied psychol-
ogy underlies every aspect of human activity, Cattell was a member of the
functionalist school, which demanded that psychology be a practical sci-
ence. Unlike the structuralists, the functionalists were concerned with the
function of the mind rather than with its contents. The approach of Cattell
and other functionalists was biological rather than physiological. He was
elected president of the American Psychological Association at the age of
thirty-five, succeeding William James in that post.
Dewey, John (1859-1952). Generally considered the most significant ed-
ucational philosopher of the twentieth century, Dewey regarded the divi-
sion of the elements of human reflexes into sensory, brain, and motor pro-
cesses as inaccurate and misleading. He contended that there is a stream of
behavior and that human reflexes are part of a coordinated system that can-
not be viewed as anything but a unified whole. Dewey accepted the inevita-
bility of social change but believed that it could be influenced favorably by
proper planning. He is considered the father of progressive education.
Dollard, John (1900-1980). The frustration-aggression hypothesis of
Dollard and his partner Neil E. Miller departs from the explanations of
Sigmund Freud and Konrad Lorenz, which are essentially biological. Miller
and Dollard place considerable emphasis on explanations that have to do
947
Psychology Basics
with social learning and environmental factors. They collaborated on Frus-

trations and Aggression (1963).
Dix, Dorothea Lynde (1802-1887). While teaching inmates in a Boston
prison, Dix concluded that many of the women confined as criminals were
really mentally ill. She began a campaign to publicize and improve the treat-
ment of the mentally ill in the United States and later in Europe. When she
began her crusade in 1841, only 15 percent of people needing care received
it. By 1890, that proportion had increased to 70 percent.
Ebbinghaus, Hermann (1850-1909). Ebbinghaus is best remembered
for his systematic study of learning and memory, which flew in the face of
Wilhelm Wundt’s proclamation that the higher mental processes could not
be studied experimentally. A rationalist, Ebbinghaus conducted experi-
ments based on learning out-of-context groups of syllables from a pool of
2,300 that he had devised. His chief interests were in such topics as meaning,
imagery, and individual differences in cognitive styles.
Egas Moniz, António (1874-1955). Egas Moniz was a Portuguese neu-
rologist, who, aware of C. R. Jacobson’s experiments in altering the behavior
of chimpanzees by the removal of the frontal lobes of their brains, con-
cluded that such procedures would produce similar results in humans. He
was a pioneer in the now largely discredited area of psychosurgery. He was
awarded the 1949 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his discovery of
the therapeutic value of leucotomy (lobotomy) in certain psychoses.
Ellis, Albert (1913- ). As a psychoanalyst and sex therapist, Ellis
became disenchanted with the methods of psychoanalysis and sought new
means of approaching his patients, which he outlined in New Approaches to
Psychotherapy (1955). He devised a rational-emotive therapy (RET) which
was initially scorned by most of his colleagues, many of whom eventually
came to see the practical wisdom of this approach. His Sex Without Guilt
(1958) was widely distributed and influenced much subsequent thinking
about sex and sex therapy.
Erikson, Erik (1902-1994). In Childhood and Society (1950), one of the
most influential books on learning theory in the twentieth century, Erikson
defined eight developmental stages through which humans pass as they
move from infancy to later adulthood. An understanding of these stages,
particularly the first five that move from infancy to adolescence, substan-
tially affected learning theory in the United States.
Eysenck, Hans (1916-1997). In his theory of personality, Eysenck related
the dimensions of introversion/extroversion and neuroticism/stability to the
way the nervous system is constituted. He enumerated the characteristics that
distinguish behavior therapy from dynamic psychotherapy.
Freud, Anna (1895-1982). The youngest child of Sigmund Freud, Freud
became, like her father, a psychoanalyst. Her work, exclusively with chil-
dren, earned her a worldwide reputation as a child psychoanalyst. Following
her father’s death, she was regarded as the worldwide leader of the Freudian
movement in psychology.
948
Freud, Sigmund (1856-1939). Perhaps the most renowned figure in the

field of psychoanalysis, Freud introduced the free-association technique
into that field. From his patients’ free associations, Freud realized that psy-
choanalysts have to determine the structure and nature of their patients’
unconscious minds. He identified and named the Oedipus complex, which
contends that on the unconscious level a male’s mother is the object of his
sexual desire, thereby setting up his father as a competitor. Freud also identi-
fied the id, the ego, and the superego as cornerstones of the human psyche.
Fromm, Erich (1900-1980). In his most renowned book, Escape from Free-
dom (1941), Fromm speculated that freedom is a frightening thing to many
people and that when they recognize that they are free, they immediately at-
tempt to affiliate themselves with people or organizations that will reduce or
totally eliminate their choices. He concluded that being free places an enor-
mous responsibility upon people, who are often willing to trade freedom for
the security of having a structure and direction provided by an external
force.
Gilligan, Carol (1936- ). Gilligan served as chief investigator for a
number of studies of the development of girls and women. Her major re-
search interests were in adolescence, moral reasoning, and conflict resolu-
tion, with particular emphasis on the contributions women’s thinking have
made to psychological theory. She pursued her studies because of the lack
of attention women and girls received in most psychological research. She
uncovered a “deep sense of outrage and despair” over the disconnection
women feel because they believe their feelings have been ignored. Her
books In a Different Voice: Psychological Theory and Women’s Development (1982)
and Meeting at the Crossroads: Women’s Psychology And Girls’ Development (co-
authored with Lyn M. Brown, 1992) have gained widespread recognition
among psychologists concerned with matters of gender.
Hall, G. Stanley (1844-1924). A man of diverse talents, Hall was an
antistructuralist who embraced the evolutionary theories of Charles Darwin
and adapted them to psychology, particularly in his recapitulation theory,
which hypothesized that every child from the embryonic stage to maturity
recapitulates, first quite rapidly and later more slowly, every stage of devel-
opment through which the human race has passed from its earliest, prehis-
toric beginnings. As president of Clark University in Worcester, Massachu-
setts, for thirty-one years (1888-1919), Hall made the university a major
center for the study of psychology. He was the first person in the United
States to call for sex education in public schools.
Horney, Karen (1885-1952). A physician, Horney denied that Sigmund
Freud’s theories on biological motivation were relevant for the people of
her day. For her, social and cultural influences were preeminent. She con-
tended that psychological problems grow out of disturbed human relation-
ships, particularly those between children and their parents. Her essays
about the psychology of women are cogent and were compiled in Feminine
Psychology (1967).
949
Psychology Basics
James, William (1842-1910). James’s ideas sowed early seeds in psycho-

logical thought that eventually germinated into the school of functionalism.
Wrestling with the implications of German materialism, Charles Darwin’s
theory of evolution—from which freedom of choice seemed to be absent—
and predetermination, James finally, after reading an essay on free will by
Charles Renouvier (1815-1903), moved in new directions that led to the
pragmatism for which he is most remembered. His recognition of the im-
portance of stream of consciousness led away from generalizing about hu-
mans and their psychological constituents and led to a theory that empha-
sized the individuality and instinctuality of humans.
Johnson, Virginia E. (1925- ). Johnson, along with her partner Wil-
liam H. Masters, was among the leading sexual therapists in the United
States. They gathered scientific data relating to sex by means of electroen-
cephalography, electrocardiography, and the use of color monitors. They
worked with 694 volunteers, photographed in various modes of sexual stim-
ulation, carefully protecting their subjects’ identities and privacy. They clas-
sified four stages of sexual arousal. Their work, especially Human Sexual Re-
sponse (1966) and Human Sexual Inadequacy (1970), helped to spark the
sexual revolution of the late 1960’s and the 1970’s.
Jung, Carl (1875-1961). Noted for his word-association research, Jung
was essentially Freudian in his formative years as a psychologist, although his
thinking began to diverge from that of Sigmund Freud beginning in 1909.
Jung employed Freud’s notions of the preconscious and unconscious minds
to arrive at the concept of the personal unconscious. This led him to his re-
nowned theory of the collective unconscious that drew on common experi-
ence of people through the ages. Jung contended that predispositions of
the human mind are inherited and that in the collective unconscious there
exist archetypes, so that at birth the mind is not the blank slate postulated by
John Locke (1632-1704) but rather that it contains structures inherited
from previous spans of human existence.
Kelly, George A. (1905-1967). Notably iconoclastic, Kelly eschewed
much of the theoretical psychology of his day, including a great deal of
Sigmund Freud’s. In dealing with subjects, Kelly concluded that whether a
person has a psychological problem depends largely on how that person
views life. While scientists create theories that help them to predict future
events, the general public creates systems constructs to make similar predic-
tions. His two-volume work The Psychology of Personal Constructs (1955) ex-
plains in great detail how nonscientists create their systems constructs.
Kinsey, Alfred (1894-1956). Kinsey had a distinguished career as a zool-
ogist at Indiana University, where his early work dealt with the life cycle, evo-
lution, geographic distribution, and speciation of the gall wasp. He gained
his greatest renown, however, for his extensive studies of human sexual be-
havior, begun in the late 1930’s. They culminated in the publication of his
landmark study, Sexual Behavior in the Human Male (1948), which was fol-
lowed by a similar study on the human female in 1953. At the time of his
950
death, he was the founding director of the Institute for Sex Research of
Bloomington, Indiana.
Kohlberg, Lawrence (1927-1987). Kohlberg’s greatest contribution
was his research on the moral development of children and adolescents.
Kohlberg ran an extensive longitudinal study in which he recorded the
responses of boys aged seven through adolescence to hypothetical moral
dilemmas. He concluded that children and adults pass through six identifi-
able stages in their moral development, which stems from cognitive devel-
opment. Older children shape their responses on increasingly broad and
abstract ethical standards. Kohlberg detected an evolution from self-interest
to more principled, selfless behavior and developed a chronological hierar-
chy of moral development.
Kraepelin, Emil (1856-1926). Kraepelin’s chief contribution to psy-
chology was his formulation of a comprehensive list of mental disorders
published in 1883. It was used worldwide for more than a century until, in
1952, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) was pub-
lished by the American Psychological Association. Kraepelin identified the
mental condition of dementia praecox and demonstrated that it was treat-
able and manageable. He renamed the condition schizophrenia, which
means “a splitting of the personality.”
Lacan, Jacques (1901-1961). Lacan was trained as a psychiatrist. In the
1930’s and 1940’s he worked with psychotic patients. In the 1950’s, he began
to develop his own version of psychoanalysis, based on the ideas he found in
structuralist linguistics and anthropology. He questioned Sigmund Freud’s
notion of the unconscious. Whereas Freud believed that by bringing the
contents of the unconscious into consciousness he could minimize repres-
sion and neurosis, Lacan contended that the ego can not replace the uncon-
scious or control it. For Lacan, the ego or “I” self is only an illusion, a prod-
uct of the unconscious itself, and the unconscious is the center of all being.
Lewin, Kurt (1890-1947). An early apostle of Gestalt psychology, Lewin
applied Gestalt principles to such areas as motivation, personality, and par-
ticularly group dynamics. For Lewin, many psychologists clung too tena-
ciously to the notion that the inner determinants of behavior are foremost
in shaping human events. This Aristotelian view was contrary to the Galilean
view that how organisms behave depends upon the totality of forces acting
upon them at any given time. For Lewin, human behavior can be under-
stood only in the light of the many complex, dynamic forces acting upon a
person. He viewed groups as physical systems comparable to the brain. He
detected an interdependence within members of groups that dynamically
affected their functioning.
Maslow, Abraham (1908-1970). Maslow made humanistic psychology a
recognized branch of the field. His early experimental work with monkeys
led him to conclude that physical strength had less to do with dominance
than the inner confidence of animals, although as he matured, he saw little
value in studying nonhuman animals. His emphasis was on studying individ-
951
Psychology Basics
uals rather than groups and using subjective reality as the most effective key
to understanding human behavior. Maslow’s hierarchy of needs led to his
concept of self-actualization, for which he is best known.
Masters, William H. (1915-2001). Masters, along with his partner Vir-
ginia E. Johnson, was among the leading sexual therapists in the United
States. They gathered scientific data relating to sex by means of electroen-
cephalography, electrocardiography, and the use of color monitors. They
worked with 694 volunteers, photographed in various modes of sexual stim-
ulation, carefully protecting their subjects’ identities and privacy. Masters
and Johnson classified four stages of sexual arousal. Their work, especially
Human Sexual Response (1966) and Human Sexual Inadequacy (1970), helped
to spark the sexual revolution of the late 1960’s and the 1970’s.
Meichenbaum, Donald (1940- ). Meichenbaum, a founder of the
“cognitive revolution” in psychotherapy, advocated the constructivist per-
spective. Professor of psychology at the University of Waterloo in Ontario,
Canada, he has been a prolific writer, researcher, and lecturer. Meichen-
baum wrote the influential book Cognitive Behavior Modification: An Integrative
Approach (1977). His Clinical Handbook/Treatment Manual for PTSD (1994) is
an impressive summary of information for clinicians and researchers work-
ing with persons suffering the effects of traumatic stress.
Miller, Neal E. (1909-2002). The frustration-aggression hypothesis of
Miller and his partner John Dollard departs from the explanations of
Sigmund Freud and Konrad Lorenz, which are essentially biological. Miller
and Dollard place considerable emphasis on explanations that have to do
with social learning and environmental factors. They collaborated on Frus-
trations and Aggression (1963).
Mischel, Walter (1929- ). Mischel refused to acknowledge that
there exist stable characteristics of personality, contending that behavior de-
pends upon specific situations. He questioned the validity of personality
inventories and the data obtained from them. For Mischel, the assessment
of personality based upon traits is specious because it overgeneralizes.
Mischel’s most notable works on personality are Personality and Assessment
(1968) and Introduction to Personality (1971; rev. ed., 1981).
Murray, Henry A. (1893-1988) Murray had a background in a variety of
disciplines, including psychology, chemistry, and biology. He taught at Har-
vard University from 1927 to 1968 and helped to establish the Boston Psy-
choanalytic Society. He drew his theory of personality from both Freudian
and Jungian psychoanalysis, postulating an elaborate system of basic motiva-
tional forces. Murray developed the Thematic Apperception Test (TAT),
widely used for assessing personality.
Pavlov, Ivan Petrovich (1849-1936). Pavlov gained his reputation for
his work on conditioned and unconditioned responses. Using dogs that
were fed after a bell sounded, he accustomed the dogs to associating the
sound of the bell with food. Once they had made this association, Pavlov
found that sounding the bell caused them to salivate even though no food
952
was forthcoming. Pavlov was a positivist whose life was centered on his labo-
ratory work. He had a low opinion of psychology, not because of its empha-
sis on consciousness but because of its use of introspection.
Piaget, Jean (1896-1980). Piaget was a central figure in the study of hu-
man development. His theory of genetic epistemology links the devel-
opment of intellectual ability to biological maturity and experience. He
contended that when an experience fits a child’s cognitive structure, assimi-
lation takes place. When such an experience does not fit its cognitive struc-
ture, the cognitive structure is adjusted, by a process that Piaget called
accommodation, so that it can be assimilated. His stages of intellectual de-
velopment have been instrumental in teacher education.
Pinel, Philippe (1745-1826). Pinel’s book Philosophy of Madness (1793)
changed the way that many physicians viewed mental illness. Pinel was ap-
palled at the treatment of mental patients, many of whom were chained and
abused. He demonstrated that violent behavior among patients who were
chained often disappeared when their chains were removed. Pinel also
called for a cessation of the blood-letting that was a common means of treat-
ment in his day.
Rogers, Carl (1902-1987). Renowned for his client-centered approach
to psychotherapy, Rogers outlined his methods in his widely used book,
Client-Centered Therapy: Its Current Practice, Implications, and Theory (1951).
Rogers’s nondirective approach was unique and was based on his belief that
therapists function most productively when they seek to understand and ac-
cept their patients’ subjective reality. His complex theory of personality is
clearly articulated in Client-Centered Therapy.
Rorschach, Hermann (1884-1922). As a small child, Rorschach loved
an activity called Klecksography, a way of making pictures by using ink blots.
This enthusiasm led to his life’s work. Undecided about whether to study
medicine or art, he finally opted for medicine, but his continuing interest in
inkblots caused him to devise a way to use them in exploring the human psy-
che. Rorschach began showing inkblots to schoolchildren, whose reactions
he noted and analyzed. After receiving his medical degree in 1912, he tested
three hundred patients and one hundred “normal” people, using inkblots
to analyze their unconscious minds. In 1921, he published Psychodiagnostics:
A Diagnostic Test Based on Perception, which fully described his unique diagnos-
tic method.
Rush, Benjamin (1745-1813). Sometimes referred to as the first psychia-
trist in the United States, Rush published Diseases of the Mind in 1812. He
complained that mentally ill people were treated criminally and urged that
their shackles be removed. He said that such patients should never be put
on display for the amusement of others. Despite his revolutionary views,
Rush nevertheless accepted bloodletting as a viable treatment for mental
disorders, as well as rotating patients to relieve their confused minds and
strapping them in tranquilizing chairs in order to calm those who were agi-
tated.
953
Psychology Basics
Selye, Hans (1907-1982). Selye demonstrated how environmental stress

and anxiety could lead to the release of hormones that, over time, could
produce a number of the biochemical and physiological disorders common
in industrial societies of the twentieth century. Selye’s theory greatly af-
fected popular views of stress. In The Stress of Life (1978), he reduced the re-
search on stress to terms the public could understand and appreciate.
Simon, Théodore (1873-1961). In 1904, Simon, an intern in a French
institution for mentally retarded children, worked with Alfred Binet to cre-
ate tests that would quantify intelligence, differentiating intellectually nor-
mal children from those who were intellectually deficient. Together, Simon
and Binet in 1905 produced the Binet-Simon Scale of Intelligence, which
led to the development of a broad range of tests to measure people’s intelli-
gence quotient (IQ).
Skinner, B. F. (1904-1990). Skinner’s belief that behavior is controlled
by environmental reinforcement mechanisms gave him reason to think that
understanding such mechanisms can help to solve many of society’s prob-
lems. In his view, it is more pressing to understand the environment rather
than the mind or the inner self. His method was to manipulate environmen-
tal factors and note the effect that such alterations had on behavior. His ap-
proach has been designated “descriptive behaviorism.”
Spencer, Herbert (1820-1903). Spencer applied the concept of evolu-
tion to the human mind and to human societies. For him, everything in the
universe begins as an undifferentiated whole. Evolution leads to differentia-
tion so that systems become increasingly complex. After Charles Darwin’s
On the Origin of Species (1859) appeared, Spencer shifted his emphasis from
acquired characteristics to natural selection. He coined the term “survival of
the fittest,” which is widely associated with Darwinian thought.
Sullivan, Harry Stack (1892-1949). An American psychiatrist, Sulli-
van, along with his teacher William Alanson White (1870-1937), extended
Freudian psychoanalysis to the treatment of patients with severe mental dis-
orders, particularly schizophrenia. Sullivan argued that schizophrenics were
curable, blaming cultural forces for the condition of many such patients.
His writing, especially Schizophrenia as a Human Process (1962), greatly al-
tered the views of many psychiatrists.
Terman, Lewis M. (1877-1956). Working in the field of psychological
testing and measurements, Terman abbreviated the term “intelligence quo-
tient” to IQ. He modified William Stern’s method of measuring IQ by add-
ing one element to it. Once mental age had been divided by chronological
age, he multiplied the result by one hundred so that it could be expressed as
a whole number rather than as one with a decimal point.
Thorndike, Edward L. (1874-1949). A pioneer in the field of learning
theory, Thorndike was also intrigued by and wrote in such fields as verbal
behavior, transfer of training, the measurement of sociological events, edu-
cational methodology, and comparative psychology. Well known for his the-
ories of the Law of Effect and the Law of Exercise, he subdivided the latter
954
into the Law of Use and the Law of Disuse. The former stated that if an asso-
ciation led to a feeling of satisfaction, it would be strengthened, whereas if it
led to an unsatisfying feeling, it would be weakened. He later repudiated
these theories. In time, the functionalism that he espoused was absorbed
into mainstream psychology.
Titchener, Edward (1867-1927). British-born psychologist Titchener
spent thirty-five years at Cornell University as director of its psychological
laboratory, creating there the largest psychology doctoral program in the
United States. Convinced that there was little value in applied psychology,
Titchener dogmatically insisted that the field, in order to be truly scientific,
must deal with pure knowledge. Despite his close relationship with John B.
Watson, Titchener eschewed behaviorism and became the founder of the
structuralist school of psychology, which opposed not only behaviorism
but also such other schools of psychology as functionalism and faculty psy-
chology.
Watson, John B. (1878-1958). A major researcher in animal psychology,
Watson was the founder of the behaviorist school of psychology. His aca-
demic career ended precipitously in 1920 when he was found to be having
an adulterous affair with a research assistant. He began to write for the pop-
ular press and in 1921 joined the J. Walter Thompson Company, a leading
advertising company, of which he became vice president in 1924, remaining
there for the rest of his working life. Watson continued his interest and writ-
ing in psychology and had a significant effect upon the behaviorists who fol-
lowed him.
Wundt, Wilhelm (1832-1920). One of the most prolific writers in the
field of psychology, Wundt held that psychology was a scientific field and
that it had become an experimental science. Whereas the other sciences
were based on what Wundt termed “mediate experiences,” psychology was
based on “immediate experiences.” He sought to use experimental psychol-
ogy to discover the basic components of thought and to understand how
mental elements combine into complex mental experiences. His method
was based largely on introspection, or self-observation and analysis.
R. Baird Shuman
955
Web Site Directory
AAASP Online: Association for the Advancement of Applied
Sport Psychology
http://www.aaasponline.org
Offers valuable background information that explains the nature of
sport psychology, the growing variety and number of people who use it, the
services provided by sport psychologists, and how to find a qualified sport
psychology professional. Other features include a consultant finder, a list of
AAASP publications, a section on how to become an AAASP certified con-
sultant, and links to other sport psychology sites.
All About Depression

http://www.allaboutdepression.com
This small but attractive and well-designed site is maintained by Prentiss
Price, a Ph.D. in counseling psychology who works for a college counseling
center. The site’s major sections are overview of depression, causes, diagno-
sis, treatment, medication, and resources (contact information or links for
organizations). Each topic’s page has a table of contents along the left edge
and a “professional recommendations” section highlighting the most im-
portant advice.
American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry (AACAP)

www.aacap.org
This organization hopes its site will aid the treatment and understanding
of children and youths with behavioral, mental, or developmental disorders.
Particularly useful are the fact sheets for family members and other care-
givers. The Facts for Families series of more than fifty texts includes discus-
sions of alcohol, bed-wetting, divorce, guns, lying, pregnancy, talking about
sex, and violent behavior. The site also provides a glossary of symptoms and
mental illnesses that might affect teenagers, policy statements on topics
such as juvenile death sentences and psychoactive medications for children
and youth, and information for professionals.
American Association of Suicidology (AAS)

http://www.suicidology.org
This site’s sections include a detailed outline for understanding and
helping someone who is suicidal; an online bookstore, with resources
grouped by topic and audience; recent suicide news; crisis centers or sup-
port groups searchable by state and city; guidance on obtaining AAS certifi-
cation; and a resource page, listing suicide statistics, school guidelines, spe-
cifics on suicide among youth and the elderly, and more.
956
Web Site Directory
American Psychological Association (APA)

http://www.apa.org
This extensive site, from the world’s largest professional association for
psychologists, offers a wide range of information for a variety of audiences.
Though content-rich and detailed, the site is clearly organized and easy to
navigate. The main page has sections providing recent news, classified ads,
portals for psychologists, students, and the public, membership informa-
tion, and more. Resources for the public include full text reports from APA’s
news site, links to information pages on twelve topics (including aging, chil-
dren, depression, mind-body health, parenting and family, women, and vio-
lence), and links to help pages. Also includes resources for psychologists.
Association for the Study of Dreams

http://www.asdreams.org/index.htm
This international nonprofit organization’s site features selected articles
from the association’s magazine, Dream Time, and its journal, Dreaming; edu-
cational pages, with answers to common questions about dreams and night-
mares, and a science project file; and a classified list of dream-related and
dream-sharing Web sites and e-mail lists.
Birth Psychology
http://www.birthpsychology.com
This site is provided by the Association for Pre- and Perinatal Psychology
and Health (APPAH). Its sections include life before birth (fetal senses,
sound, prebirth communication, and prenatal memory and learning); birth
and the origins of violence; the birth scene (obstetrics, circumcision, and
more); healing of prenatal and perinatal trauma; abstracts and index for
APPAH’s Journal of Prenatal and Perinatal Psychology and Health; a bibli-
ography of books, videos, and journals; and a current list of practitioners
and programs.
C. G. Jung Page
http://www.cgjungpage.org
This full-featured site aids novice readers with an introduction to Jungian
psychology in the form of a Jung Lexicon. The resources page includes links
to the Web sites of institutes and societies offering Jungian training. There
are also links to the bibliography of the Journal of Analytical Psychology;
links to numerous full-text analytical psychology articles; and film commen-
taries, book reviews, and literary articles employing Jungian criticism.
Center for the Study of Autism

http://www.autism.org
The center, located in Salem, Oregon, conducts research on autism ther-
apies and provides information for parents and care providers. Sections in-
clude a detailed overview of autism; texts on subgroups and related disor-
957
Psychology Basics
ders; about twenty topical issues, including auditory processing problems,

self-injurious behavior, and how to determine whether a treatment has
helped; interventions (more than thirty, including music therapy, the hug
machine, and nutrition); the sibling center; interviews with autism experts;
and a detailed page of autism links.
Classics in the History of Psychology

http://psychclassics.yorku.ca
This site collects important public-domain scholarly texts from psychol-
ogy and related fields. There are more than 150 articles and 25 books, as well
as links to more than 200 related works on other sites. Some texts are accom-
panied by introductory essays written for the site. The texts can be accessed
by author or by topic (including behaviorism, intelligence testing, psycho-
analysis and psychotherapy, cognition, and women in psychology). Users
can search the site by keyword.
Community Psychology Net

http://www.communitypsychology.net
This site provides comprehensive information on community psychol-
ogy. The introductory page defines the topic, distinguishing it from sociol-
ogy, social work, and public health. The site’s organizing metaphor is the
university campus. The library provides a classified grouping of links. The
lecture hall has course syllabi and reading lists. The admissions office has
links to forty universities offering graduate programs. The career planning
center lists job ads.
Consumer Psychology
http://www.wansink.com/index.html
This small but effective site has two sections, both related to consumerism
and food. The food psychology section covers nine topics (including “Do
larger packages increase usage?” and “Measuring ad effects on brand us-
age”). For each topic, the site provides a one-paragraph overview, a more de-
tailed research brief, and usually a link to a PDF file for a journal article on
the topic, written by the site editor. There are also lesson plans suitable for
ages twelve to adult.
Criminal Profiling Research

http://www.criminalprofiling.ch
This Swiss site focuses on presenting the results of scientific research. Be-
sides a detailed, referenced introduction to the topic of criminal profiling, it
offers brief accounts of how profiling is used in the United States and Eu-
rope, a case analysis page, bibliographies of books and journal articles, links
to sites explaining how profiling is done, and a FAQ section which includes
information on profiling as a career.
958
Web Site Directory
depressedteens.com
http://www.depressedteens.com/indexnf.html
This site strives to help teenagers and their parents and teachers recog-
nize and understand the symptoms of adolescent depression and ensure
that depressed teenagers get help. An essential part of the site is informa-
tion about, and a preview of, the twenty-six-minute video Day for Night: Recog-
nizing Teenage Depression. Includes, among other areas, a fact sheet on adoles-
cent depression.
dotCOMSENSE
http://helping.apa.org/dotcomsense
This small site, based on a brochure produced by the American Psycho-
logical Association, guides Web users in protecting their privacy on bulletin
boards, chat rooms, and Web sites (particularly on those dealing with men-
tal health) that ask for personal information or use cookies. Also gives help-
ful guidelines for assessing the credibility and accuracy of sites providing
mental health information. It lists other Web sites devoted to evaluation of
online information.
Eating Disorder Referral and Information Center

(EDRIC)
http://www.edreferral.com
EDRIC provides information for friends and family members as well as
treatment referrals for individuals with eating disorders. Sections include a
search form for therapists or treatment centers, lists of job openings at treat-
ment centers, treatment scholarships, and recommended books and Web
sites. Also examines movement therapy, causes, assessment, treatment, con-
sequences, body image, introductory information on specific disorders, and
eating disorders among males, athletes, and pregnant women.
ECT.org: Information About Electroconvulsive Therapy

http://ECT.org
This site aims to be the Web’s most comprehensive source of electrocon-
vulsive therapy (ECT) information. Juli Lawrence, the site’s creator, had
ECT in 1994 and hopes her site, which discusses all aspects of the topic, will
help others considering ECT in making an informed decision. The site pro-
vides attractive, clearly arranged links (with annotations) to information on
these topics: effects (memory loss and, possibly, brain damage); resources
(studies, statistics, and official statements from organizations); news; self-
help (alternatives to ECT); message boards and event calendars; and the
Hall of Shame (“the very worst ECT practitioners and researchers”).
Encyclopedia of Psychology
http://www.psychology.org
“Intended to facilitate browsing in any area of psychology,” this site pro-
959
Psychology Basics
vides access to more than two thousand Web sites. Categories of topics in-
clude careers, environment behavior relationships (with forty-five subcate-
gories and more than one thousand links), organizations, paradigms and
theories, people and history, publications, and resources. All categories are
divided into subtopics. The Web page for each subtopic includes links to
texts and to Web sites. An annotation for each site (usually detailed and of-
ten noting the level of user for whom it is appropriate) is generally provided.
Explorations in Learning and Instruction:

The Theory into Practice Database
http://tip.psychology.org
Provides brief but detailed summaries of fifty major theories of human
learning and instruction, all of which have extensive scientific support. The
summaries include the name of the theory’s originator, an overview of the
theory, its principles and application, an example, references for further
study, and sometimes a video clip or Web site links. The theories include
adult learning, andragogy, cognitive dissonance, Criterion Referenced In-
struction, experiential learning, lateral thinking, multiple intelligences, op-
erant conditioning, and more.
Freud Net
http://psychoanalysis.org
The site of the New York Psychoanalytic Institute’s Abraham A. Brill Li-
brary. The library maintains what might be the world’s largest collection of
information on psychoanalysis. Provides a helpful page of selected links
about Sigmund Freud: museum, exhibition, and library sites; links to texts
of Freud’s writings (with a warning that most of his works are still under
copyright, so only the earlier, inferior translations are in the public do-
main); and writings about Freud.
Great Ideas in Personality

http://www.personalityresearch.org
This sites deals with scientific research in personality psychology. It pro-
vides detailed information on personality theories, grouping them into
twelve sections, including behaviorism, evolutionary psychology, attach-
ment theory, basic emotions, personality disorders, interpersonal theory,
and more. The page describing each theory includes a brief description,
names of the theorists involved, references to published works, and links to
additional Web sources. The site also features sections on personality in gen-
eral, practical information for psychology students, links to personality jour-
nal sites, and links to personality courses sites for professors.
Health Emotions Research Institute

http://www.healthemotions.org
This clear, attractive site of the University of Wisconsin’s Health Emo-
960
Web Site Directory
tions Research Institute provides information on studies of positive emo-

tions, their influence on the body, and the implications of this research for
preventing disease, affecting definitions of health, and fostering resilience.
The site explains the institute’s mission and its current projects—including
biological consequences of meditation, biological substrates of resilience,
and biological bases of positive affective styles.
The Humor Project, Inc.

http://www.humorproject.com
The Humor Project, founded in 1977, focuses on the positive power of
humor by training individuals and organizations (through its lectures, work-
shops, conferences, and publications) to use humor and creativity. The site’s
playful spirit is immediately apparent in the visitor counter, with its con-
stantly whirling numbers. Includes descriptions of program offerings, the
annual workshop, and the international humor conference; an online
bookstore; a daily article, interview, and reader’s “di-jest”; a spotlight col-
umn; and “Today’s Laffirmation.”
Internet Mental Health

http://www.mentalhealth.com
This award-winning site, established in 1995, is intended for both profes-
sionals and the public. It functions as an encyclopedia for more than fifty
common mental disorders. For each disorder, the site gives both the Ameri-
can and European descriptions, treatment information, research informa-
tion, booklets prepared by professional organizations and support groups,
and magazine articles. The site has links to online diagnostic programs for
personality, anxiety, mood, eating, and substance abuse disorders as well as
for schizophrenia and attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). It
also provides encyclopedic information on common psychiatric medica-
tions, a mental health magazine, and links to popular mental health sites.
Memory and Reality: Website of the False Memory

Syndrome Foundation
http://fmsfonline.org
This foundation works to prevent False Memory Syndrome, investigate
reasons for its spread, and help families affected by it. Includes a detailed
FAQ section; the current newsletter; a searchable archive of newsletter is-
sues back to 1992; a document explaining hypnosis, hypnotic susceptibility,
and their role in creating false memories; information about USA v. Peter-
son, Seward, Mueck, Keraga, and Davis, the first criminal trial to bring
charges against therapists regarding false memories; a detailed page dealing
with retractors; and discussions of scientific studies.
961
Psychology Basics
MHN: Mental Help Net

http://mentalhelp.net
Developed in 1994, this award-winning site strives “to catalog, review, and
make available to everyone all online mental health resources as they be-
come available.” Groups the sites into subject categories, which are divided
into two lists: issues and disorders, and information. For each topic, the
page might include basic information (summarized from DSM-IV); links
categorized by type; and news, book reviews, self-help groups, and resources
(such as treatment facilities, therapists, professional conferences, and clini-
cal job openings). The site also contains a daily mental health news section
and a professional area.
NAMI: The Nation’s Voice on Mental Illness

http://www.nami.org
This site represents the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill (NAMI), a
support and advocacy organization for friends and family of people with se-
vere mental illnesses—and for the individuals themselves. It contains a
search form for locating NAMI affiliate organizations; information about
the NAMI helpline; fact sheets on specific illnesses, treatments, and medica-
tions; purchase information for NAMI’s books, videos, brochures, and
newsmagazines; public policy information and statements; and a links to
NAMI research reports.
National Association for Self-Esteem (NASE)

www.self-esteem-nase.org
This association works to integrate self-esteem into American society and
thus enhance the personal happiness of every individual. The site provides a
review of research on self-esteem, relating it to problems such as substance
abuse, violence, crime, teenage pregnancy, and suicide. There are also arti-
cles from NASE’s newsletter, a categorized reading list, a list of published
self-esteem educational programs, and a description of NASE’s Parent Link
Network for raising socially responsible children.
Positive Psychology
http://psych.upenn.edu/seligman/pospsy.htm
This content-rich site is maintained by Martin Seligman, past president of
the American Psychological Association and a researcher on positive psy-
chology, optimism, and learned helplessness. The site offers several articles,
columns, and book chapters by Seligman that define and explore the pa-
rameters of positive psychology. There are also professional summaries, a
concept paper for a network of positive psychology scholars, an e-mail direc-
tory of researchers, questionnaires (some downloadable) that researchers
can use, and a grouping of essays, units, syllabi, and reading lists for teaching
positive psychology.
962
Web Site Directory
Procrastination Research Group (PRG)

http://www.carleton.ca/~tpychyl
This clear, attractive site is provided by a university learning group at
Carleton University’s psychology department (Ottawa, Canada) and collects
research and information on procrastination worldwide. The Research Re-
sources section includes a featured journal article, summaries of student pa-
pers (undergraduate through doctoral levels) written by the PRG, and a
comprehensive procrastination bibliography. The site also has a useful self-
help page. The latter includes a brief outline of signs of procrastination, sug-
gested strategies for reducing it, a list of recommended readings, and a con-
cise grouping of links to other sites.
Psych Central: Dr. Grohol’s Mental Health Page

http://psychcentral.com/grohol.htm
This site provides links to more than 1,700 Web sites that have been re-
viewed by the author. Its main access point is the resources section, which
consists of thirty categories (some as specific as “Bipolar” and “Attack on
America,” others as broad as “Professional Psychology Resources”). Each
category is further subdivided into topics or formats (such as books or sup-
port groups). The page for each of the 1,700 Web sites gives a brief but usu-
ally detailed description of the site, the date last updated, the number of hits
it has received from Psych Central, and its rating by Psych Central users. Be-
sides the Web site links, the site provides concise descriptions of symptoms
and treatments for mental disorders, “Have I Got?” quizzes for several disor-
ders, live chat, book reviews, essays, and psychology and mental health news.
Psychology
http://psychology.about.com/mbody.htm
This content-rich site’s main organization is its thirty “essentials” cate-
gories (including adult development, cognitive psychology, dreams, love,
industrial/organizational psychology, sport psychology, and more). Each
topic has additional sections. Another access method, by subject, includes
the essentials but adds about seventy additional categories.
Psychology Information Online

http://www.psychologyinfo.com
Provides a wide range of information (aimed at consumers, college stu-
dents, and psychologists) on the practice of psychology. The information
falls into these categories: psychotherapy and counseling, diagnosis and dis-
orders, psychological testing and evaluation, other forms of treatment, be-
havior therapy, forensic psychiatry, and psychological consultations for legal
situations. There are separate access points for the three categories of users.
In addition, users can consult the navigation guide, the list of links, or the al-
phabetical subject index for each category.
963
Psychology Basics
Psychology Virtual Library

http://www.clas.ufl.edu/users/gthursby/psi
This clear, attractive site is part of the World Wide Web Virtual Library,
which evaluates each site it includes. The seventeen categories include aca-
demic psychology, books, journals, university psychology departments, clini-
cal social work, directories of psychology sites, mental health, history of psy-
chology, and more. Each category has its own subsections. The Stress Virtual
Library includes, for example, links for books and publishers, e-mail lists
and news groups, mental health resources, professional organizations, stress
management, and commercial products. The links on each page are anno-
tated.
RxList: The Internet drug index

http://www.rxlist.com
This site, founded in 1995, is maintained by Neil Sandow, a licensed, ex-
perienced California pharmacist. The site’s primary content includes FAQ
sections on more than 4,500 popular drugs, 1,000 professional mono-
graphs, and 1,500 patient-oriented monographs. Visitors can search for
drugs by brand name, generic name, ID Imprint code, or NDC code. Each
FAQ section explains the purpose of the drug, who should not use it, how to
take it, potential problems, and what to do in case of missed doses or over-
doses. Other features include a search page for alternatives (such as ho-
meopathies or herbal remedies) and a list of the top two hundred prescrip-
tions filled in each of the last six years.
schizophrenia.com
http://www.schizophrenia.com
This site was established in 1996 by Brian Chiko in memory of his brother,
a schizophrenia patient who committed suicide. Its purpose is to provide,
free of charge, accurate information for those who have the disease or
whose lives have been affected by it. The site’s introduction to schizophrenia
is clear and well organized. Other topics covered include causes, diagnosis,
medication, managing depression, preventing suicide, getting financial as-
sistance, and assisted or involuntary treatment.
The Shyness Home Page

http://www.shyness.com
This small site is sponsored by the Shyness Institute in Palo Alto, Califor-
nia. It provides information on upcoming shyness workshops and an e-mail
link enabling visitors to ask the institute questions. Also provides links to, or
contact information for, a wide range of other shyness resources: newsgroups;
shyness clinics; brochures and articles; organizations offering classes, work-
shops, and coaching; reading lists; and research papers.
964
Web Site Directory
Sleepnet.com
http://www.sleepnet.com
Provides information (not medical advice) to improve sleep and links to
other noncommercial sleep information sites. Sections include information
on a wide range of sleep disorders and sleep-related topics (sleep apnea, in-
somnia, narcolepsy, restless legs, shift work, and circadian rhythms), a glos-
sary, a categorized list of links to news articles, public sleep forums, and an e-
mail newsletter.
Social Phobia/Social Anxiety Association Home Page

http://www.socialphobia.org
The site explains that social phobia, a frequently misdiagnosed condi-
tion, is the world’s third largest mental health problem. It provides defini-
tions and background information, a weekly mailing list, a link to the Social
Anxiety Institute’s page (offering a variety of therapy programs), and other
social phobia links, including personal testimonies and reading lists.
Social Science Information Gateway: Psychology

http://sosig.esrc.bris.ac.uk/psychology
Lists and describes high-quality Web sites and texts, arranged into eighteen
subcategories. Users can search by keyword or browse within the subcate-
gories—including mental health, general psychology, consumer psychology,
animal psychology, psychological disorders, developmental psychology, sport
psychology, and more. Each subcategory contains further groupings by sub-
ject and by type of site. The latter might include books, bibliographies, jour-
nals, educational materials, e-mail lists and discussion groups, organizations,
research projects, and resource guides. The page describing each Web site
gives a descriptive summary, keywords, and the site administrator’s e-mail ad-
dress.
Society for Light Treatment and Biological Rhythms

http://www.sltbr.org
This society supports those with research or clinical interests in biological
rhythm disorders—including those caused by seasonal affective disorder,
sleep disorders, jet lag, shift work, and premenstrual syndrome—and thera-
pies for those conditions. The information for the general public includes a
detailed “Questions and Answers About Seasonal Affective Disorder and
Light Therapy” page as well as links to other Web articles and sites about sea-
sonal affective disorder, sleep disorders, melatonin, and circadian rhythms.
Stress Inc.—The Commerce of Coping

http://stress.jrn.columbia.edu/site/index.html
This creative, attractive site depicts ways in which society has moved from
the 1950’s, when stress was primarily an engineering term, to the present
day. Sections of the site (representing the commerce of stress) include pub-
965
Psychology Basics
lishing, advertising, fitness (focusing on yoga), toys, consulting, ergonom-

ics, and yoga. In addition, the site provides a brief history of stress, a stress
quiz, information on fringe stress-relief techniques, and tension-breakers.
Traffic Psychology at the University of Hawaii

http://www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/leonj/leonpsy/traffic/tpintro.html
This site, maintained by Dr. Leon James, a psychology professor at the
University of Hawaii, has extensive texts and references on the origins and
theories of traffic psychology. James provides an inventory of driving behav-
ior and the psychological aspects of traffic flow, a comprehensive bibliogra-
phy on driving psychology, a self-test for individuals to determine how they
would operate within the nine zones of the driving personality, and a twenty-
year overview of what James has learned from teaching his traffic psychology
course.
The Whole Brain Atlas

http://www.med.harvard.edu/AANLIB
Sections of this award-winning site cover the normal brain (with images
of normal aging), cerebrovascular disease, brain tumors, degenerative dis-
orders (such as Alzheimer’s and Huntington’s diseases), and inflammatory
or infectious diseases (such as multiple sclerosis, AIDS dementia, Lyme dis-
ease, and herpes).
WholeFamily
http://www.wholefamily.com/index.html
This site offers problem-solving texts (written by credentialed profession-
als) about situations encountered within family relationships. The site’s main
portals are its centers for marriage, parents, seniors, and teens. “What’s
New” adds sections on additional topics. There are also questions and an-
swers. The site provides chat rooms, topical discussion-forums, “real life dra-
mas,” the editor’s column, a family soap opera, and a site newsletter.
Glenn Ellen Starr Stilling
966
Indexes
Categorized List of Entries
Abnormality Models Childhood and Adolescence
Abnormality: Psychological Models Adolescence: Cognitive Skills
Madness: Historical Concepts Adolescence: Sexuality
Psychopathology Aggression
S-R Theory: Neal E. Miller and Attachment and Bonding in
John Dollard Infancy and Childhood
Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity
Aging Disorder (ADHD)
Aging: Cognitive Changes Autism
Alzheimer’s Disease Development
Death and Dying Developmental Disabilities
Dementia Domestic Violence
Depression Eating Disorders
Nervous System Gender-Identity Formation
Suicide Identity Crises
Mental Retardation
Anxiety Disorders Moral Development
Anxiety Disorders Phobias
Drug Therapies Speech Disorders
Motivation Substance Use Disorders
Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder Women’s Psychology: Carol
Phobias Gilligan
Psychosurgery
Self Classic Analytic Themes and
Issues
Behavioral and Cognitive Analytic Psychology: Jacques Lacan
Models Death and Dying
Abnormality: Psychological Dreams
Models Psychoanalysis
Aging: Cognitive Changes Psychoanalytic Psychology and
Anxiety Disorders Personality: Sigmund Freud
Behaviorism Psychology: Definition
Cognitive Social Learning: Women’s Psychology:
Walter Mischel Carol Gilligan
Development Women’s Psychology:
Motivation Karen Horney
Personal Constructs: Women’s Psychology:
George A. Kelly Sigmund Freud
S-R Theory: Neal E. Miller and Cognition
John Dollard Adolescence: Cognitive Skills
Social Learning: Albert Bandura Aging: Cognitive Changes
969
Psychology Basics
Alzheimer’s Disease Developmental Psychology

Cognitive Development: Jean Piaget Adolescence: Cognitive Skills
Cognitive Therapy Adolescence: Sexuality
Consciousness Aging: Cognitive Changes
Consciousness: Altered States Attachment and Bonding in
Dementia Infancy and Childhood
Developmental Disabilities Cognitive Development:
Dreams Jean Piaget
Gender-Identity Formation Death and Dying
Giftedness Development
Language Developmental Disabilities
Logic and Reasoning Gender-Identity Formation
Memory Giftedness
Neuropsychology Helping
Psychosomatic Disorders Identity Crises
Thought: Study and Measurement Mental Retardation
Moral Development
Conditioning Psychoanalysis
Behaviorism Self
Conditioning
Habituation and Sensitization Diagnosis
Learning Diagnosis
Memory: Animal Research Madness: Historical Concepts
Motivation Psychopathology
Pavlovian Conditioning Survey Research: Questionnaires
Radical Behaviorism: B. F. Skinner and Interviews
Consciousness Emotions
Consciousness Affiliation and Friendship
Consciousness: Altered States Aggression
Dreams Bipolar Disorder
Self Clinical Depression
Sleep Death and Dying
Depression
Depression Emotions
Alzheimer’s Disease Endocrine System
Bipolar Disorder Hormones and Behavior
Clinical Depression Mood Disorders
Death and Dying Motivation
Dementia Support Groups
Depression
Drug Therapies Endocrine System
Mood Disorders Emotions
Psychosurgery Endocrine System
Suicide Hormones and Behavior
970
Imprinting Language
Nervous System Language
Psychosurgery Nervous System
Thirst Speech Disorders
Experimentation Learning
Animal Experimentation Aging: Cognitive Changes
Behaviorism Behaviorism
Experimentation: Independent, Brain Structure
Dependent, and Control Conditioning
Variables Habituation and Sensitization
Survey Research: Questionnaires Imprinting
and Interviews Learned Helplessness
Learning
Group Processes Learning Disorders
Crowd Behavior Memory
Groups Memory: Animal Research
Helping Motivation
Industrial/Organizational Nervous System
Psychology Pavlovian Conditioning
Support Groups Race and Intelligence
Senses
Humanistic-phenomenological Social Learning: Albert Bandura
Models
Abnormality: Psychological Memory
Models Aging: Cognitive Changes
Analytic Psychology: Alzheimer’s Disease
Jacques Lacan Dementia
Humanistic Trait Models: Imprinting
Gordon Allport Memory
Personology: Henry A. Murray Memory: Animal Research
Psychoanalysis Motivation
Social Psychological Models: Nervous System
Erich Fromm Senses
Intelligence Methodology
Aging: Cognitive Changes Animal Experimentation
Creativity and Intelligence Behaviorism
Giftedness Case-Study Methodologies
Intelligence Diagnosis
Intelligence Tests Experimentation: Independent,
Memory Dependent, and Control
Mental Retardation Variables
Race and Intelligence Motivation
Psychoanalysis
971
Psychology Basics
Psychology: Definition Neuropsychology

Psychosurgery Parkinson’s Disease
Support Groups Psychopathology
Survey Research: Questionnaires Psychosomatic Disorders
and Interviews Schizophrenia: Background, Types,
and Symptoms
Motivation Schizophrenia: Theoretical
Affiliation and Friendship Explanations
Crowd Behavior Speech Disorders
Drives
Eating Disorders Origin and Definition of
Emotions Psychology
Field Theory: Kurt Lewin Behaviorism
Helping Cognitive Psychology
Homosexuality Madness: Historical Concepts
Hunger Neuropsychology
Industrial/Organizational Psychoanalytic Psychology
Psychology Psychology: Definition
Instinct Theory Psychology: Fields of Specialization
Learning Structuralism and Functionalism
Motivation
Psychoanalysis Personality
Substance Use Disorders Aggression
Thirst Analytic Psychology: Jacques Lacan
Women’s Psychology: Analytical Psychology: Carl Jung
Carol Gilligan Cognitive Social Learning: Walter
Mischel
Nervous System Ego Psychology: Erik Erikson
Behaviorism Field Theory: Kurt Lewin
Brain Structure Helping
Drug Therapies Humanistic Trait Models: Gordon
Memory: Animal Research Allport
Nervous System Individual Psychology: Alfred Adler
Neuropsychology Motivation
Parkinson’s Disease Multiple Personality
Reflexes Personal Constructs:
Substance Use Disorders George A. Kelly
Organic Disorders Personality: Psychophysiological
Alzheimer’s Disease Measures
Death and Dying Personality Theory
Developmental Disabilities Personology: Henry A. Murray
Drug Therapies Psychoanalysis
Mental Retardation Psychoanalytic Psychology and
Nervous System Personality: Sigmund Freud
972
Psychopathology Social Psychological Models: Erich

Radical Behaviorism: B. F. Skinner Fromm
Self Social Psychological Models:
Social Learning: Albert Bandura Karen Horney
Social Psychological Models:
Erich Fromm Psychopathology
Social Psychological Models: Abnormality: Psychological
Karen Horney Models
Women’s Psychology: Aggression
Carol Gilligan Aging: Cognitive Changes
Women’s Psychology: Alzheimer’s Disease
Karen Horney Amnesia and Fugue
Women’s Psychology: Anxiety Disorders
Sigmund Freud Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity
Disorder (ADHD)
Psychobiology Autism
Aggression Bipolar Disorder
Aging: Cognitive Changes Clinical Depression
Brain Structure Dementia
Drug Therapies Depression
Emotions Domestic Violence
Endocrine System Drug Therapies
Hormones and Behavior Eating Disorders
Hunger Madness: Historical Concepts
Imprinting Mood Disorders
Learning Multiple Personality
Memory: Animal Research Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder
Nervous System Parkinson’s Disease
Psychosurgery Personality Disorders
Race and Intelligence Phobias
Reflexes Psychopathology
Senses Psychosomatic Disorders
Substance Use Disorders Schizophrenia: Background, Types,
Thirst and Symptoms
Schizophrenia: Theoretical
Psychodynamic and Explanations
Neoanalytic Models Sexual Variants and Paraphilias
Analytic Psychology: Jacques Lacan Substance Use Disorders
Analytical Psychology: Carl Jung Suicide
Anxiety Disorders
Individual Psychology: Alfred Adler Psychotherapy
Psychoanalysis Abnormality: Psychological Models
Psychoanalytic Psychology Analytical Psychotherapy
Psychoanalytic Psychology and Cognitive Behavior Therapy
Personality: Sigmund Freud Psychoanalysis
973
Psychology Basics
Psychotherapy: Goals and Stress

Techniques Aggression
Support Groups Death and Dying
Drug Therapies
Sensation and Perception Learned Helplessness
Aging: Cognitive Changes Psychosomatic Disorders
Hormones and Behavior Stress
Nervous System Stress: Behavioral and
Sensation and Perception Psychological Responses
Senses Stress: Physiological Responses
Sexuality Substance Use Disorders
Adolescence: Sexuality Support Groups
Drug Therapies
Homosexuality Thought
Psychoanalytic Psychology and Aging: Cognitive Changes
Personality: Sigmund Freud Alzheimer’s Disease
Sexual Variants and Paraphilias Behaviorism
Brain Structure
Social Psychology Cognitive Psychology
Affiliation and Friendship Consciousness
Aggression Dementia
Aging: Cognitive Changes Dreams
Alzheimer’s Disease Language
Attraction Theories Logic and Reasoning
Crowd Behavior Nervous System
Dementia Psychoanalysis
Domestic Violence Structuralism and Functionalism
Field Theory: Kurt Lewin Thought: Study and Measurement
Groups
Helping Treatments
Industrial/Organizational Analytical Psychotherapy
Psychology Cognitive Behavior Therapy
Moral Development Cognitive Therapy
Motivation Drug Therapies
Self Psychoanalysis
Self-Esteem Psychosurgery
Support Groups Psychotherapy: Goals and
Women’s Psychology: Carol Techniques
Gilligan Support Groups
974
Index
AA. See Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) ADD. See Attention-deficit hyperactivity
Ability tracking, 17 disorder (ADHD)
Abnormal behavior, 674 Addenbrooke’s Cognitive Examination
Abnormality; behavioral models, 9; (ACE), 55
biological models, 5; cognitive Addiction, 219, 908; support groups
models, 10; diathesis-stress model, and, 866
12; humanistic models, 9; Addictive brain, 855
psychoanalytic models, 7; Addictive personality, 855
psychological models, 5-13; sexual ADHD. See Attention-deficit
variations and, 776; social-learning hyperactivity disorder (ADHD)
models, 9; sociocultural models, 11 Adler, Alfred, 649, 946; Horney, Karen,
Absolute threshold, 908 and, 804; individual psychology, 430-
Abstract thinking; dementia and, 242; 437; motivation and, 555
language and, 471 ADLs. See Activities of daily living
Abuse; amnesia and, 62; domestic, 277 (ADLs)
Acceptance, death and, 238 Administration on Developmental
Accommodation, 908 Disabilities, 265
Accreditation Council of Adolescence, 908; cognitive skills, 14-
Psychoanalytic Education, 639 21; domestic violence and, 280;
Acetylcholine, 568, 908 growth spurts and, 23; identity crises
Achievement, giftedness and, 356 and, 416; psychosocial development,
Achievement motivation, 908 319; schizophrenia and, 736; self-
Achievement need, 626 esteem and, 758; sexuality, 22-29
Achievement status, 418 Adrenal glands, 908
Achievement tests, 671 Adulthood; definitions, 22; personality
Acquisition, 908; conditioning and, and, 618
591 Advertising; conditioning and, 203;
Acrophobia, 630 perception and, 761
Act psychology, 663 Affect, 732, 908
Action potential, 908 Affective disorders, 908. See also Mood
Activation-synthesis theory of dreams, disorders
287 Affective states, 664
Activation theory of motivation, 555 Afferent, 908
Active imagination, 81 Affiliation, friendship and, 30-35
Activities of daily living (ADLs), 242, Affiliation motive, 909
265 Age; dreams and, 288; intelligence
Actor-observer bias, 908 testing and, 458; suicide and, 858
Actualizing tendency, 908 Aggression, 36-41, 909; attention-
Adaptation, 908; intelligence and, 450; deficit hyperactivity disorder and,
sensory, 761; social psychology and, 107; aversive control and, 488;
794 instincts and, 446
Adaptive skills, mental retardation and, Aging; cognitive changes, 42-50;
532 hormones and, 398; individual
Adaptive theory of sleep, 783 psychology and, 433
Agnosia, 51
975
Psychology Basics
Agoraphobia, 630, 909; panic attacks Amygdala, 145

and, 96 Anal stage, 315, 657, 901, 909
Aiken, Lewis, 460 Analgesia, 909
Ainsworth, Mary, 100 Analogies, 226
Air rage, 39 Analytic language acquisition styles,
Alarm reaction, 372 467
Albert, Robert, 225 Analytic psychology; Lacan, Jacques,
Alcohol abuse; aggression and, 38; 65-71
domestic violence and, 280; Analytical psychology, 648, 909; Jung,
depression and, 247; suicide and, Carl, 72-77
247, 860 Analytical psychotherapy, 78-83
Alcoholics Anonymous (AA), 866 Anastasi, Anne, 451
Aldwin, Carolyn, 821 Anderson, Lynn, 370
Alexithymia, 821 Androgens, 909
Alienists, 508 Androgyny, 389, 909
Allele, 909 Androgyny theory, 889
Allport, Gordon, 946; humanistic trait Angell, James Rowland, 663, 848
models, 402-407; prejudice, 433; Anger, 40; death and, 238; depression
self, 748 and, 163
Alpha press, 625 Anima archetype, 74
Altered states of consciousness, 212 Animal experimentation, 84-91, 333,
Alternate personalities, 560 663; behaviorism and, 129; learning
Altruism, 909 and, 483; memory and, 524;
Altruistic suicide, 858 neuropsychology and, 572; phobias
Alzheimer, Alois, 52 and, 636
Alzheimer’s Association, 52 Animal Welfare Act, 89
Alzheimer’s disease, 46, 48, 51-58, 181, Animus archetype, 74
243, 909; amyloid-beta protein and, Anomic suicide, 858
529; animal experimentation and, Anonymous questionnaires, 870
529; neuropsychology and, 573 Anorexia nervosa, 12, 306, 909; hunger
Alzheimer’s Disease Prevention and, 411; types, 309
Initiative, 57 Antecedents, 131
Ambiguity, helping and, 382 Anterograde amnesia, 529, 909
American Association on Mental Antianxiety drugs, 303
Retardation, 260 Antidepressants, 159, 249, 301, 541,
American Institute of Psychoanalysis, 581, 909
804 Antipsychotic drugs, 304, 511;
American Psychoanalytic Association schizophrenia and, 735
(APsA), 643 Antisocial personality disorder, 605,
American Speech-Language-Hearing 909
Association, 811 Anxiety, 7, 698, 726, 813, 909; amnesia
Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and, 59; attention-deficit
of 1990, 268 hyperactivity disorder and, 107;
Aminoketones, 541 bulimia nervosa and, 310;
Amnesia, 59-64, 528 compulsions and, 578; conditioning
Amok, 12 and, 592; consciousness and, 217;
Amphetamine psychosis, 742 death and, 237; fugue and, 59;
Amplification, dreams and, 81 psychoanalysis and, 639;
Amplitude, 909 psychosurgery and, 693; sensitivity,
976
Index
613; social psychology and, 794; Associationism, 517

stress and, 819 Associative learning, 200
Anxiety disorders, 92-98, 304; cognitive Atkinson, John, 626
therapy and, 196; personality and, Atmosphere hypothesis of reasoning,
612; phobias, 630 502
Anxiety management training, 170 Attachment, 99-105, 910
Anxiety Sensitivity Index (ASI), 613 Attention, 179, 910; aggression and,
Anxiolytics, 303 37; selective, 762
Anzieu, Marguerite, 69 Attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder
Apgar test, 261 (ADHD), 106-112, 303
Aphasia, 51, 470, 910; receptive, 904 Attitudes, 910; personality and, 602
Aplysia, 374, 491, 522, 527 Attraction; affiliation and, 31; theories,
Apperception, 844 113-120
Appetite, hunger versus, 411 Attribution, 755, 910
Applied behavior analysis, 125, 133, Attributional biases, 910
208 Attributional style questionnaire, 478
Applied research, 910 Auditory Integration Training (AIT),
Approach-approach conflict, 727 124
Approach-avoidance conflict, 727 Auerbach, Stephen, 816, 821, 824
Apraxia, 51 Austin, George A., 504
Aptitude, 910 Authoritarian personality, 795
Aptitudes Research Project (ARP), 671 Autism, 121-127
Arachnophobia, 630 Automatic thoughts, 194
Arbitrary inference, 196, 249 Automaton conformist personality, 796
Arc-USA, 260 Autonomic nervous system, 567, 721,
Archetypes, 73, 649, 910; self as, 747 910
Archival data, 910 Autonomy, 317
Aristotle, 214, 287, 330, 445 Availability heuristic, 183, 500, 910
Arousal; emotional, 325; personality Aversion, 777
disorders and, 607; phobias and, Aversion therapy, 910
631; schizophrenia and, 741 Aversive control, 488
Arousal cost-reward model of helping, Avoidance, 206; anxiety and, 93;
379 phobias and, 630
Art, sensation/perception and, 765 Avoidance-avoidance conflict, 727
Artemidorus Daldianus, 285 Avoidant mother, 103
Articulation disorders, 807 Avoidant personality disorder, 605
Artificial intelligence, 182, 910; Axon, 910
reasoning and, 505
Artistic ability, intelligence quotient Back, Kurt, 33
(IQ) and, 356 Baddeley, Alan, 185, 516
Aserinsky, Eugene, 785 Bahrick, H. P., 44
Assessment, 271, 274; giftedness, 359; Bailey, Kent, 822
personality, 610 Balance, 79
Assimilation, 910 Baldwin, James Mark, 66
Associated features, 272 Baltes, Paul, 48
Association, conditioning and, 589 Banaji, M. R., 44
Association for Behavior Analysis, 712 Bandura, Albert, 171, 618, 636, 702,
Association for Death Education and 946; development, 256; personality,
Counseling, 238
977
Psychology Basics
610; self, 749; social learning, 787- Behavior therapy, 680

793 Behavioral neuroscience, 208
Barbiturates, 303 Behavioral therapy, 699, 910;
Bard, Phillip, 840 depression and, 159
Bargaining, death and, 238 Behaviorism, 128-134, 330, 346, 663,
Bartlett, Frederic C., 504, 518 911; cognitive behavior therapy and,
Basal ganglia, 145 170; instincts and, 445; motivation
Basic anxiety, 803 and, 553; personality and, 610; S-R
Basic trust, 317 theory and, 729
Bates, Elizabeth, 474 Behaviorist theories of development,
Bateson, Gregory, 739 256
Battered woman syndrome, 279 Belenky, Mary Field, 751
Baumeister, Roy, 750 Beliefs, reasoning and, 502
Bebbington, Paul, 157 Bem, Sandra, 351
Beck, Aaron T., 10, 158, 166, 194, 249, Benson, Herbert, 220, 840
326, 436, 636, 702, 861, 946 Benzodiazepines, 304
Beck Depression Inventory (BDI), 159, Bereavement, 236
910 Berger, Hans, 785
Becker, Ernest, 237 Berkowitz, Leonard, 383, 946
Bed-wetting, 784 Bernard, Claude, 410
Behavior; abuse, 277; cognition and, Berthold, Arnold Adolphe, 330
165; constructs and, 597; depression Bessel, Friedrich, 884
and, 157; development and, 254; Beta press, 625
drives and, 293; emotions and, 325; Bettelheim, Bruno, 816
endocrine system and, 331, 394; Between-subject designs, 911
gender and, 349; groups and, 368, Bias; gender differences and, 891;
864; head injuries and, 691; intelligence quotient tests and, 706;
homosexuality and, 387; imprinting questionnaire design and, 870;
and, 423; individual psychology and, reasoning and, 502
433; instincts and, 444; language Big Five system of personality, 602
and, 471; learned helplessness and, Bilateral prefrontal leucotomy, 691
478; learning and, 483; moral Binet, Alfred, 14, 227, 450, 457, 547,
development and, 546; needs and, 946
625; neuropsychology and, 571; Binet-Simon scale, 227, 450, 457
obsessive-compulsive disorder and, Binge eating, 306, 408
577; personality and, 602, 610, 618; Bingham, Walter Van Dyke, 439
psychoanalysis and, 639-640; Bini, Lucio, 691
reflexes and, 719; schizophrenia Biochemical imbalances, 139
and, 734; sexual, 774; social Bioengineering, 769
learning theory and, 787; stuttering Biofeedback, 221, 831, 911; training,
and, 809; substance abuse disorders, 840
851 Biogenic approach to
Behavior disorders, 674; attention- psychopathology, 677
deficit hyperactivity disorder, 106 Biopsychology, animal
Behavior modification; habituation experimentation and, 84
and sensitization, 372; hunger and, Biopsychosocial approach, 678, 684
413 Bipolar disorder, 135-140, 302, 911;
Behavior patterns, cognitive social depression and, 248
learning and, 188 Birth control, 26
978
Index
Birth order; giftedness and, 358; Breland, Marian, 207, 446

personality and, 431 Brentano, Franz, 663, 946
Blackwell, Arshavir, 474 Breuer, Josef, 650, 701, 905, 947
Blessed Information-Memory- Brickman, Philip, 380
Concentration Test, 245 Bright, Timothy, 252
Bleuler, Eugen, 734, 743 Broca, Paul, 147, 574
Blocking, 203 Bronfenbrenner, Urie, 44, 704
Blood pressure, emotions and, 325 Brooks, James, 159
Bloom, Benjamin, 357 Brooks-Gunn, Jeanne, 750
Boas, Franz, 709 Browne, Angela, 278
Body image; eating disorders and, 306; Bruner, Jerome, 504, 752
hunger and, 411 Bulimia nervosa, 12, 306
Body weight, hunger and, 409 Bundey, Sarah, 533
Bogen, Joe, 148 Burt, Cyril, 453, 705
Bon, Gustave le. See Le Bon, Gustave Burton, Robert, 248
Bonding, 99-105 Buss, Arnold, 327, 749
Bonet, Theophile, 542 Buys, Christian, 369
Boole, George, 504 By-product model of homosexuality,
Borderline personality disorder, 604 388
Boring, Edwin, 450 Byrne, Donn, 113
Boroditsky, Lera, 473 Bystander effect, 911
Bosard, James H. S., 366 Bystander intervention, 234
Bourgondien, Mary Van. See Van
Bourgondien, Mary Caillois, Roger, 71
Bowlby, John, 99 Cameron, Judy, 484, 490
Brady, Joseph V., 815 Canady, Herman, 709
Brain; adolescence and, 18; aggression Cancer, personality and, 685
and, 37; cognition and, 42; Cannon, Walter B., 816, 828, 840, 876,
dementia and, 242; drugs and, 300; 947
euphoria and, 853; imaging, 210; Cardinal disposition, 403
language and, 470; learning and, Cardinal trait, 911
484; memory and, 518; mind and, Cardon, Lon R., 495
131; nervous system and, 565; Care, ethic of, 886
neuropsychology and, 571; Carlson, Michael, 380
personality and, 624; Carr, Harvey A., 663, 848
psychopathology and, 678; Case-study methodologies, 151-156,
schizophrenia and, 740; self and, 650, 911
750; senses and, 767; stress and, 828 Castration, 777
Brain chemistry, 6 Castration anxiety, 318, 354, 901
Brain injuries, 181 Catatonic schizophrenia, 734
Brain lesions, memory Catecholamines, 911
experimentation and, 526 Categorical speech perception, 469
Brain stem, 567, 911 Categorization, 174
Brain structure, 141-150; Catharsis, 911
homosexuality and, 387 Caton, Richard, 785
Brain waves, consciousness and, 211 Cattell, James McKeen, 227, 457, 849,
Brainwashing, 278 947
Braswell, Lauren, 109 Cattell, Raymond B., 405, 459
Breland, Keller, 207, 446 Cause-effect relationships, 339
979
Psychology Basics
Ceci, S. J., 44 721, 912; language acquisition and,

Cellular dehydration thirst, 877 468; learning and, 483; memory
Center for Group Dynamics, 345 and, 524; psychopathology and, 676
Central dispositions, 403 Claustrophobia, 630
Central motive state, 297 Click insertion studies, 469
Central nervous system, 141, 567, 911; Clinical depression, 157-164, 247
stress and, 828; thirst and, 877 Clinical interviews, 871
Central traits, 911 Clinical psychologist, 912
Centration, 173 Clinical psychology, 669
Cerebellum, 143, 567, 911 Clore, Gerald, 113
Cerebral commissures, 911 Cognition, 42, 512, 912; motivation
Cerebral cortex, 142, 911 and, 553; sleep and, 782; social
Cerebral hemispheres, 911 learning theory and, 788
Cerebrospinal fluid, 912 Cognitive appraisal, 814, 912
Cerebrovascular risk factors for Cognitive approach to motivation, 557
dementia, 246 Cognitive approach to
Cerebrum, 567, 912 psychopathology, 677
Cerletti, Ugo, 691 Cognitive behavior therapy, 165-171,
Chaining, 912 912
Chan, Walter, 399 Cognitive-behavioral therapy, 279;
Change, personality and, 618 attention-deficit hyperactivity
Charcot, Jean-Martin, 7 disorder, 108
Charlin, Ventura, 380 Cognitive deficits, brain lesions and,
Charpentier, Paul, 299 571
Chicago school of functionalism, 848 Cognitive development; adolescence
Child abuse; multiple personality and, 18; gender identity and, 350;
disorder and, 559; sex offenders language and, 471; moral
and, 777 development and, 547; Piaget, Jean,
Child rearing, imprinting and, 427 172-178
Childhood, 99-105; attention-deficit Cognitive disorder, depression as, 158
hyperactivity disorder, 106; Cognitive dissonance theory, 912
personality and, 602, 618, 656; self- Cognitive distortions, 10; depression
esteem and, 758 and, 249
Childhood schizophrenia, 736 Cognitive domains, 572
Children; homosexuality and, 388; Cognitive function, dementia and, 242
learned helplessness and, 479 Cognitive maps, 181, 912
Children’s Depression Inventory Cognitive models of anxiety, 96
(CDI), 161, 912 Cognitive personality theory, 617
Chodorow, Nancy, 751, 887 Cognitive processes, 912
Chomsky, Noam, 185, 468 Cognitive psychology, 179-187, 669,
Chromosomal abnormalities, mental 912; logic and reasoning, 499;
retardation and, 533 pyychosomatic disorders and, 685;
Chromosomes, 912 thought and, 880
Circadian rhythms, 138, 218, 912; Cognitive science, 912
hormones and, 395; sleep and, 780 Cognitive social learning; Mischel,
Clang associations, 734 Walter, 188-193
Clark, Margaret, 383 Cognitive stage theory, 14
Clark, Russell, 379 Cognitive theory, memory and, 518
Classical conditioning, 9, 128, 200, 589,
980
Index
Cognitive therapy, 166, 194-199, 681; Conditioned emotional reactions

depression and, 251 (CER), 592
Cohabitation, domestic violence and, Conditioned response (CR), 202, 485,
281 589, 913
Cohen, Sheldon, 823 Conditioned stimulus (CS), 201, 485,
Cohesion, groups and, 865 589, 913
Cohort, 913 Conditioned suppression, 202
Collaborative relationship, 700 Conditioned taste aversion, 913
Collaborative Study of the Conditioning, 200-209, 721, 913;
Psychobiology of Depression, 248 imprinting versus, 428; instincts
Collective unconscious, 73, 78, 287, and, 447; language acquisition and,
649, 913 468; learning and, 483; motivation
Colliculi, 144 and, 554; Pavlovian, 589-595;
Color, 913; sensation/perception and, phobias and, 631; psychopathology
763 and, 676; substance abuse and, 853
Columbia school of functionalism, 849 Conditions of worth, 913
Commission on Community Conduct disorder, 605
Interrelations, 347 Cone, 913
Commissures, 148 Confession, 79
Commitments, identity crises and, 418 Confidentiality, 642
Common traits, 402 Confirmation bias, 502
Communal relationships, 32 Conflict, intergroup, 347
Communication; friendship and, 32; Conformity, 232
groups and, 865; language and, 466; Confounding of variables, 913
speech disorders and, 807 Consciousness, 210-215, 844, 913;
Community Mental Health and altered states, 216-223; perception
Retardation Act, 513 and, 760; personality and, 405;
Community mental health centers, 508 psychology and, 662; self and, 749;
Comparative psychology, 670 sleep and, 785; states, 217
Compensation, 431, 913 Consensual validation, 30, 913
Compensatory model of helping, 382 Consensus information, 914
Competence; intelligence and, 454; Consequences, 711
motivation and, 553 Conservation, 174, 914
Competency, 188 Consistency information, 914
Complexes, 73 Consolidation, 914
Complexity, groups and, 367 Consortium for Psychoanalysis, 643
Composition, group, 368 Construct, 914
Compulsions, 578, 675, 913; eating, Construct validity, 914
408 Construction corollary, 597
Computer modeling, animal Construction systems, 597
experimentation versus, 90 Constructive alternativism, 596
Computer models of cognition, 181 Constructs, 596
Computers; intelligence testing and, Consumer psychology, 670, 914
462; reasoning and, 504 Context dependence, 914
Concept Assessment Kit, 175 Contiguity, conditioning and, 202
Conceptualization, 168 Contingency, 487, 914
Concrete operational stage, 15, 174, Contingency management, 914
257, 913 Contingency of reinforcement, 713
Conditional positive regard, 10 Continuous reinforcement, 914
981
Psychology Basics
Continuous theories of development, recovery, 574; imprinting, 423;

256 language acquisition, 470
Contraceptives; adolescents and, 28 Criticism, intelligence and, 451
Control; domestic violence and, 278; Cross-dressing, 776
experimentation and, 339; learned Cross-sectional design, 915
helplessness and, 479 Crowd behavior, 230-235
Control groups, 340, 914 Crowder, R. G., 44
Controlling variables, 713, 914 Crystallized intelligence, 48, 459
Convergent thinking, 914 CS. See Conditioned stimulus (CS)
Conversion disorder, 688, 914 Cue-producing response, 915
Conversion hysteria, 684 Cues; learning and, 725; responses
Cooley, Charles, 752 and, 727
Coping, 168, 915; depression and, 250; Cultural differences, diagnosis, 274
domestic violence and, 279; Cultural influences, women’s
mechanisms, 803; personality and, psychology and, 894
602; strategies, 791; stress and, 817, Culture; psychopathology and, 679;
820 self and, 751
Core beliefs, 195 Curriculum content, gifted students
Corporal punishment, learning and, and, 361
488 Cutaneous senses, 768, 915
Corpus callosum, 148 Cycles, hormones and, 396
Corrective emotional experience, 701 Cycling, 544
Correlation, 915 Cyclothymia, 137, 915
Correlational methods, 440 Cyclothymic disorder, 543
Correlational studies, 338
Cortex, 146, 915 D sleep, 286, 782
Cortical brain centers, 915 Daily hassles, 820, 915
Costs, helping and, 379 Damasio, Antonio, 751
Cote, James, 417 Dark adaptation, 915
Counseling psychology, 669 Darley, John, 49, 234
Counselors, 508 Darwin, Charles, 663; emotions, 328;
Counterconditioning model of Fromm, Erich, and, 799;
phobias, 636 functionalism and, 847; instincts,
Counterregulation, 408 444; race and intelligence, 708;
Countertransference, 641, 915 Skinner, B. F., and, 716
Courtship behaviors versus paraphilias, Data, 915
778 Data collection, 338, 869
Cousins, Norman, 839 Dating, violence and, 280
Coyne, James, 250 Davis, Gary, 225
CR. See Conditioned response (CR) Davis, Mark, 749
Creativity, 915; cognitive psychology Dawson, Geraldine, 124
and, 179; intelligence and, 224-229, Daydreams, 219, 285
357, 454; learning and, 490 Death, 236-241, 321
Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, 243 Death instinct, 553, 915
Criminal psychology, 670 Debriefing, 915
Criteria, 270 Decay, 915
Criterion group, 915 Deci, Edward, 455
Critical period, 915; brain injury Decision making, cognitive psychology
and, 183
982
Index
Deduction, 916 Descriptive research, 338, 871

Deductive reasoning, 499 Descriptive statistics, 916
Deep structure, 468 Desensitization, 593, 701, 916; phobias
Defense mechanisms, 7, 916; death and, 636. See also Systematic
and, 236; dissociation, 559; ego and, desensitization
656; neurosis and, 803 Desire, 65; energy and, 315
Defensive aggression, 37 Destructive personality, 796
Defining Issues Test (DIT), 889 Determinism, 916
DeFries, John C., 495 Detterman, Douglas, 451
Deindividuation, 231, 367, 370, 916 Development, 254-259, 916; giftedness
Deinstitutionalization, 512; and, 358; language and, 466; moral,
schizophrenia and, 736 546; personality and, 602;
Delirium, 242 psychoanalysis and, 640; self and,
Delusions, 512, 916; dementia and, 748
242; obsessions versus, 578; Developmental disabilities, 260-269
schizophrenia and, 732 Developmental Disabilities Act of 1984,
Dement, William, 785 267
Dementia, 51, 242-246, 584-916 Developmental Disabilities Assistance
Dementia praecox, 736, 743 and Bill of Rights Act of 1990, 260
Dendrite, 916 Developmental Disabilities Services
Denial, death and, 237 and Facilities Construction Act of
Density, group, 369 1970, 260
Denver Developmental Screening Test, Developmental psychology, 670, 916
264 Deviancy, 916
Dependent personality disorder, 605 Deviant behavior, moral development
Dependent variables, 339, 916 and, 549
De Perczel, Maria, 861 Dewey, John, 663, 668, 848, 947
Depersonalization disorder, 59 Diagnosis, 270-276, 916
Depolarization, 916 Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of
Depression, 247-253, 301, 512, 698, Mental Disorders (DSM), 917;
916; attention-deficit hyperactivity diagnosis and, 270
disorder and, 107; bulimia nervosa Dialectical behavior therapy (DBT),
and, 310; children and, 158; clinical, 608
157-164; cognition and, 43; Diathesis, 541
cognitive therapy and, 194; death Diathesis-stress model; abnormality, 12;
and, 238; dementia and, 243; bipolar disorder, 138;
dysthymic disorder, 542; emotions psychopathology, 679;
and, 326; learned helplessness and, schizophrenia, 740
477, 489; obsessive-compulsive Dichotomy corollary, 597
disorder and, 579; personality and, Diencephalon, 567
612; psychoanalysis and, 639; Diener, Ed, 367
psychopathology and, 677; Dieting; eating disorders and, 307;
psychosomatic disorders and, 687; hunger and, 411
psychosurgery and, 693; stress and, Differences, Lacan, Jacques, and, 67
816, 822; suicide and, 859 Differential Aptitude Test (DAT), 671
Depressive and Manic Depressive Differential diagnosis, 272
Association (DMDA), 138 Diffusion of responsibility, 917
Depth perception, 916 Diffusion status, 419
Descartes, René, 210, 448, 746 Direct intervention, 380
983
Psychology Basics
Direct observations, 152 Freudian interpretation, 903;

Direction, intelligence and, 451 Horney, Karen, 804; incubation,
Disabilities, giftedness and, 361 288; psychoanalysis, 644, 658; sleep
Discontinuous theories of and, 782
development, 256 Drive-reduction hypothesis, 876, 918
Discounting, 917 Drives, 292-298, 726, 876, 918; learning
Discrimination, 917 and, 726
Discriminative stimulus, 713, 917 Drozdovitch, V., 533
Disease; learned helplessness and, 480; Drugs; memory and, 527;
stress and, 836; thirst and, 878 neurotransmitters and, 569; side
Disease model of mental disorders, 508 effects, 300; substance abuse and,
Disorganized schizophrenia, 734 300, 855; suicide and, 860;
Dispersion, 917 therapies, 299-305; tolerance and
Displacement, 8, 466, 917 habituation, 375
Display, 917 DSM. See Diagnostic and Statistical
Display rules, 917 Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM)
Disposition, personality traits and, 403 Dunbar, Flanders, 683
Dispositional, 917 Durkheim, Émile, 858
Dispositional variables, 190 Durkin, M. S., 533
Dissociation, 59, 559 Dying, 236-241
Dissociative disorders, 8, 59, 917 Dynamic adaptation, 794
Dissociative fugue, 60 Dynamic psychology, 849
Dissociative identity disorder, 59, 559 Dyscalculia, 494
Dissonance, 557, 917 Dysfunctional family, 918
Distal stimulus, 917 Dysgraphia, 494
Distancing, 198 Dyslexia, 494, 918
Distancing behavior, 894 Dysphoria, 157, 198, 918. See also
Distinctiveness information, 917 Gender dysphoria
Diurnal enuresis, 917 Dysthymia, 137
Divergent thinking, 917 Dysthymic disorder, 158, 542, 918
Dix, Dorothea Lynde, 510, 948 D’Zurilla, Thomas, 168
Dollard, John, 554, 725-730, 947
Domestic violence, 277-284, 917; Early recollections, 918
learned helplessness and, 479 Ears, 767
Dominant responses, 725 Eating disorders, 306-313, 918; hunger
Donders, Frans C., 881 and, 409
Dopamine, 301, 569, 586, 918; Ebbinghaus, Hermann, 457, 517, 880,
schizophrenia and, 740, 742 948
Double bind, 739, 918 Ebbinghaus forgetting curve, 883
Double-blind method, 918 Eccles, John, 750
Double depression, 542 Echoic memory, 918
Dovidio, John, 379 Echolalia, 124, 918
Down, John Langdon, 535 Eclectic therapy, 918
Down syndrome, 918; development École Française de Psychanalyse, 71
and, 258; mental retardation and, École Freudienne de Paris (EFP), 71
533 Ecological validity, 341
Downing, Leslie, 234 ECT. See Electroconvulsive therapy
Dreams, 285-291; analytical psychology, (ECT)
75, 80; consciousness and, 212; Education, 224; analytical psychology,
984
Index
80; Piaget, Jean, and, 175; 375; memory and, 520; physiology
sensation/perception and, 764 and, 611; psychoanalysis and, 639,
Education for All Handicapped 658; psychopathology and, 677;
Children Act of 1975, 268, 494 stress and, 820
Education of the Handicapped Act Empathy, 919; moral development
Amendments of 1986, 268 and, 549
Educational psychology, 669, 918 Empirical evidence, 919
EEG. See Electroencephalogram (EEG) Empiricism, 919
Egas Moniz, António, 692, 948 Encoding, 181, 919; strategies, 188
Ego, 7, 256, 294, 314, 617, 655-661, Endocrine gland, 919
747, 919; analytical psychology, 72, Endocrine system, 330-336, 393, 919;
78; anxiety and, 93; Lacan, Jacques, nervous system and, 565
66 Endogenous behavior, 423, 919
Ego identity, 418 Endorphins, 568, 841, 919; stress and,
Ego psychology, 644; Erikson, Erik, 839
314-322 Engineering psychology, 669
Egocentric speech, 471 Engram, 525
Egocentric thought, 148, 471, 919 Enkephalins, 568, 919
Egocentrism; adolescent, 17; Piaget, Enlightenment model of helping, 382
Jean, 173 Enmeshment, 920
Egoistic suicide, 858 Entitlement, 920
Eisenberger, Robert, 484 Entropy, 920
Ekman, Paul, 814 Enuresis, 784, 920
Elaborative rehearsal, 919 Environment; abnormality and, 9;
Electra complex. See Oedipus complex animal experimentation and, 524;
Electroconvulsive therapy (ECT), 139, attraction and, 114; behavior and,
159, 511, 542, 691, 919; aggression 131; dreams and, 289; giftedness
and, 38 and, 357; imprinting and, 423;
Electroencephalogram (EEG), 919 information processing and, 45;
Electroencephalography, 919 intelligence and, 452, 454, 704;
Electroshock therapy. See learned helplessness and, 477; life
Electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) space and, 345; mental retardation
Elkind, David, 17 and, 534; Parkinson’s disease and,
Ellis, Albert, 10, 165, 436, 636, 805, 948 586; personality and, 602;
Ellis, Thomas, 861 psychology and, 612; radical
Elucidation, analytical psychology, 80 behaviorism and, 711; sensation
Embryonic hormones, 335 and, 760, 767
Embryonic phase, 919 Environmental psychology, 670, 920;
Emergent processes, 255 senses and, 770
Emergent systems, self and, 750 Environmental stressor, 920
Emotional abuse, 278 Epilepsy, 920
Emotional disorders, 674; cognitive Epinephrine, 920
therapy and, 195 Episodic memory, 180, 517, 880, 920
Emotional intensity, 325 Epstein, Seymour, 814
Emotions, 323-329, 569, 919; Equipotentiality, 47, 526, 920
aggression, 36; attachment and, 100; Equity theory, 114, 920
behavior and, 165; cognitions and, Equivalence, 920
550; depression and, 157, 247; Ergonomics, 439
dreams and, 286; habituation and, Erikson, Erik, 648, 948; development,
985
Psychology Basics
255; ego psychology, 314-322; dependent, and control variables,

identity crises, 416; self, 748 337-343; industrial/organizational
Eros, 647 psychology and, 440
ERPs. See Event-related potentials Experimenter bias, 921
(ERPs) Expert systems, 182
Escape from freedom, 795 Explanatory style, immune system and,
ESP. See Extrasensory perception (ESP) 480
Esquirol, Jean-Étienne-Dominique, 457 Exposure therapy, phobias and, 635
Essence, personality and, 617 Expressive aphasia, 921
Estradiol, 920 Expressive language acquisition styles,
Estrogen, Alzheimer’s disease and, 53 467
Estrus, 334 External locus of control, 614, 686
Ethic of care, 886 External success, neurosis and, 802
Ethics; animal experimentation and, External validity, 921
85; industrial/organizational Externalization, 921
psychology and, 442 Externalized speech, 471
Ethnicity; Alzheimer’s disease and, 52; Extinction, 590, 593, 726, 921
domestic violence and, 280 Extraneous variables, 151, 921
Ethnocentrism, 920 Extrasensory perception (ESP), 762
Ethology, 372, 920; animal Extrinsic motivation, 455, 922
experimentation and, 84 Extrinsic religion, 404, 922
Etiology, 920 Extroversion, 74, 613, 649
Eugenics, 709 Eyeblink reflex, 720
Euphoria, 852 Eyeblink response, 526
Eustress, 817, 921 Eyes, 767
Euthanasia, 240 Eyewitness testimony, cognitive
Evans, Gary, 823 psychology and, 182
Event-related potentials (ERPs), 470 Eysenck, Hans, 405, 610, 948
Evoked potential, 921
Evolutionary psychology, attraction Facial expressions, stress and, 814
and, 117 Facial features, 117
Evolutionary theory of sleep, 783 Factor analysis, 452, 922
Exchange relationships, 32 Facultative homosexuality, 388
Exchange theory, groups and, 864 Failure, 755
Excitation transfer, 921 Falret, Jules, 542
Executive monkey study, 815 False negatives, 271
Exercise; stress and, 839; thirst and, False positives, 271
879 Familiarity, affiliation and, 31
Exhibitionism, 774 Familiarization, imprinting and, 426
Existentialism, 921 Family; cultural patterns and, 802;
Exogenous substances, 921 individual psychology and, 431;
Expansive behavior, 894 support group versus, 867
Expectancy confirmation bias, 921 Family environment, giftedness and,
Expectancy theory, 921 357
Experimental brain damage, 525 Family interaction theories of
Experimental neurosis, 591 schizophrenia, 739
Experimental psychology, 670 Family systems theory, 278
Experimentation, 153, 846, 921; Family therapy, 2, 278, 680, 898, 922
animal, 84-91; independent, Farberow, Norman, 860
986
Index
Father’s “No,” 66 and, 658; Horney, Karen, 804; S-R

Fatigue, 373 theory and, 728
Fear, 726, 813; anxiety and, 93; Freedom, social psychology and, 795
conditioning and, 592; death and, Freeman, Walter, 692
237; phobias and, 631; success and, Fremouw, William, 861
627, 897 Frequency, 923
Fechner, Gustav, 211, 668 Frequency distribution, 923
Feedback, self-esteem and, 754 Freud, Anna, 652, 948
Feelings, analytical psychology and, 74 Freud, Sigmund, 314, 510, 647, 668,
Female athletic triad, 309 692, 701, 949; abnormality, 7; Adler,
Feminist analysis, 922 Alfred, versus, 435; anxiety, 92;
Feminist psychological theory, 278 consciousness, 211, 216;
Fenz, Walter D., 814 development, 255; dreams, 288,
Festinger, Leon, 30, 34, 557 290; drives, 294; Fromm, Erich, and,
Fetal alcohol syndrome, mental 799; gender identity, 354; Gilligan,
retardation and, 537 Carol, versus, 888; homosexuality,
Fetal phase, 922 386; Horney, Karen, and, 801, 895;
Fetishism, 69, 775, 922 Jung, Carl, and, 76; Lacan, Jacques,
Field experimentation, 342 and, 65; moral development, 547;
Field research, 922; industrial/ motivation, 553; personality, 602,
organizational psychology and, 440 610, 617, 655-661, 833; phobias, 631;
Field theory, Lewin, Kurt, 344-348 psychoanalysis, 638; psychoanalytic
Fight-or-flight response, 398, 817, 828, psychology, 655-661;
841, 922 psychopathology, 677;
Fixation, 648, 657, 922 psychosomatic disorders, 684;
Fixed role therapy, 599 schizophrenia, 738; self, 747;
Flashback, 922 women’s psychology, 900-907
Flavell, John, 16 Freudian slips, 8, 904
Flexion reflex, 720 Freund, Kurt, 778
Flocking, 922 Friedman, Meyer, 837
Flooding, 593, 922; obsessive- Friesen, Wallace V., 814
compulsive disorder and, 580 Frigidity, 895
Fluency disorders, 807 Fritsch, Gustav, 147
Fluid intelligence, 48, 459, 922 Fromm, Erich, 315, 554, 949; social
Folie circulaire, 542 psychological models, 801-806
Folkman, Susan, 820 Frontal lobe, 147, 923
Forebrain, 922 Frontal lobe dementias, 244
Foreclosure status, 418 Frotteurism, 776
Forensic psychology, 922 Frustration, 923; aggression and, 36
Forgetting, 923; memory and, 882 Frustration-aggression hypothesis, 923
Formal operational stage, 15, 174, 257, Fugue, 59-64, 923
923 Functional analysis, 192
Formal thought, 16 Functional autonomy, 403, 923
Forsyth, D. R., 864 Functional disorders, 923
Foulkes, David, 288 Functional fixedness, 923
Fragile X syndrome, 535 Functionalism, 663, 668, 771, 843-850,
Frame of orientation, 795 923
Franzoi, Stephen, 749 Fundamental attribution error, 923
Free association, 638, 903, 923; dreams Futrell, B. A., 46
987
Psychology Basics
GABA. See Gamma-aminobutyric acid Genetic engineering, animal

(GABA) experimentation and, 525
Gaertner, Samuel L., 379 Genetic knockouts, 528
Galanter, Eugene, 760 Genetic psychology, 669
Galen, 7, 152, 674 Genetics, 924; Alzheimer’s disease and,
Galton, Francis, 455, 457, 708, 847 53; animal experimentation and, 84;
Gambler’s fallacy, 503 autism and, 122; behavior and, 6,
Gamete, 923 131, 711; bipolar disorder and, 137;
Gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA), bipolar disorders and, 541;
301, 568, 923 depression and, 248; development
Gardner, Howard, 454, 463 and, 254; developmental disabilities
Garfield, Sol, 702 and, 261; dyslexia and, 495; eating
Garfinkel, Barry, 860 disorders and, 308; homosexuality
GAS. See General adaptation syndrome and, 387; imprinting and, 423;
(GAS) intelligence and, 455, 704;
Gatekeepers, 347 introversion and extroversion and,
Gay men. See Homosexuality 613; mental retardation and, 534;
Geert, Paul Van. See Van Geert, Paul personality and, 602; personality
Gender, 923 disorders and, 607; phobias and,
Gender bias, personality disorders and, 631; schizophrenia and, 736, 738;
606 substance abuse and, 851
Gender constancy, 350 Genital stage, 319, 657, 902, 924
Gender differences; achievement need Genotype, 924
and, 626; attention-deficit Gergen, Kenneth, 752
hyperactivity disorder, 107; Gestalt, 924
attraction and, 118; depression and, Gestalt school of psychology, 924
157, 247; dreams and, 288; Gestalt therapy, 924
friendship and, 35; Gilligan, Carol, Gestalt therapy, memory and, 521
886; learning disorders and, 495; Gibson, James J., 257
self and, 751; suicide and, 858 Gifted education programs, 358
Gender dysphoria, 389, 776 Giftedness, 356-363, 924
Gender identity, 25, 923; ideals and, 25 Gilbreth, Frank, 438
Gender-identity disorder, 351 Gilligan, Carol, 905, 949; self, 751;
Gender-identity formation, 349-355 women’s psychology, 886-893
Gender role socialization, 279 Global self-esteem, 756
Gender schema, 924 Goal setting, 924
Gender-schema theory, 351 Goals; motivation and, 552;
Gene, 924 psychotherapy, 698
Gene disorders, mental retardation Goldfried, Marvin, 167
and, 533 Goldstein, Kurt, 257, 435
General adaptation syndrome (GAS), Goodnow, Jacqueline J., 504
817, 829, 836, 924 Gordon, W. J., 228
Generalizability, survey research and, Gormezano, Isadore, 721
873 Gouldner, Alvin, 383
Generalization, 16, 924; case studies Gramling, Sandra, 821
and, 155; conditioning and, 591 Grammar, 465; transformational
Generalized anxiety disorder, 10, 675 generative, 468
Generativity, 321, 924 Grammatical semantics, 465
Grasping reflex, 723
988
Index
Gray matter, 924 Healthy speech, 166

Gray Oral Reading Test (GORT-III), Hebb, Donald, 518, 527, 555
496 Hedonic, 925
Greene, David, 340 Hedonistic theory of motivation, 555
Greenwald, Anthony, 761 Helping, 379-385
Gregory, Richard, 765 Helplessness, 925; depression and, 614
Grieving, 236 Hemispheres, brain, 149
Grismer, B. A., 46 Hemispheric dominance, 221
Group composition, 368 Herbart, Johann Friedrich, 211
Group density, 369 Heredity, 925; intelligence and, 704
Group discussion, 347 Hernnstein, Richard, 704
Group dynamics, 865, 924 Heuristics, 183, 925
Group factors, 452 Hibernation, sleep and, 783
Group therapy, dieting and, 412 Hierarchy of needs; motivation and,
Grouping, laws of, 762 556; Murray, Henry A., 625
Groups, 364-371; affiliation and, 33; Higher-order conditioning, 925
twelve-step, 866 Hilgard, Ernest, 220
Growth, adolescent, 23 Hindbrain, 925
Grundman, Michael, 46 Hippocampus, 145, 526, 925
Guidano, Vittorio, 169 Hippocrates, 5, 508, 674, 832
Guilford, J. P., 453 Histrionic personality disorder, 605
Gustation, 924 Hitzig, Eduard, 147
Gyrus, 924 Hobart, G. A., 785
Hoberman, Harry, 860
Habits, 726, 924 Hobson, J. Allan, 287
Habituation, 372-378, 525, 581, 612, Hock, R. A., 46
614, 924 Holistic language acquisition styles,
Haffner, Debra W., 27 467
Hall, Calvin, 903 Hollingworth, Leta, 362
Hall, G. Stanley, 709 Holmes, Thomas, 825, 835
Hallucinations, 285, 512; aural, 561; Holtgraves, Thomas M., 475
dementia and, 242; multiple Homelessness, schizophrenia and, 736
personality disorder and, 561; Homeostasis, 292, 394, 830, 876, 925;
schizophrenia and, 732 hunger and, 410
Hallucinogens, 924 Homophobia, 390, 925
Halstead-Reitan battery, 572 Homosexuality, 386-392
Hardiness, 615, 686, 839, 925 Hopelessness Scale, 861
Hare-Mustin, Rachel, 891 Hormones, 331, 925; behavior and,
Harlow, Harry, 88, 104, 607 393-401; homosexuality and, 387
Harlow, Margaret, 104 Horner, Matina, 627
Harré, Rom, 752 Horney, Karen, 315, 649, 747, 903, 949;
Harter, Susan, 891 social psychological models, 801-
Hartman, Barbara, 420 806; women’s psychology, 894-899
Hartmann, Heinz, 315, 553 Hospice care, death and, 239
Harvey, E. N., 785 Hospitalization, schizophrenia and,
Hawthorne effect, 925 735
Head injuries, 691 Hostile aggression, 925
Health care system, death and, 239 Hostility, stress and, 822
Health psychology, 665 Hotlines, 861
989
Psychology Basics
Huarte, Juan, 462 Identity, 795, 926; groups and, 370; self
Hubel, David, 87 and, 750
Hull, Clark, 293, 554, 725, 876 Identity crises, 416-422, 926
Human development, identity crises Identity status paradigm, 418
and, 416 Idiographic research, 404
Human factors engineering, 439, 770 Idiographic study, 926
Human nature, personality and, 620 Igumnov, S., 533
Humanistic moratorium, 417 Illocutionary intent, 466
Humanistic psychology, 668, 925; Illusions, 926
personality and, 610; self and, 748 Imagery, 179, 214, 926
Humanistic theories of personality, 617 Imaginal realm, 318
Humanistic therapies, 699 Imaginary, the, 66
Humanistic trait models; Allport, Imaginary audience, 17
Gordon, 402-407 Imitation, 926
Hume, David, 746 Immune response, 926
Humoral theory, 330; madness and, Immune system; Alzheimer’s disease
507 and, 53; explanatory styles and, 480;
Hunger, 408-415 stress and, 831, 837
Hunt, Morton, 47 Immutable characteristics, 926
Huntington’s disease, 243 Implosion therapy, 926
Hydraulic model of motivation, 554 Impression management, 926
Hypnagogic hallucination, 925 Imprinting, 423-429, 927
Hypnagogic imagery, 781 In-group, 927
Hypnagogic reverie, 286 In-group bias, 927
Hypnagogic state, 218 Incentive, 927
Hypnopompic reverie, 286 Incentive theory of motivation, 555
Hypnopompic state, 218 Incest taboo, 67
Hypnosis, 219, 831, 925; fugue and, 63; Incompetency, 927
multiple personality disorder and, Incongruence, 927
562 Indecent exposure, 774
Hypnotic susceptibility, 925 Independent variables, 153, 339, 927
Hypochondriasis, 688, 925 Indirect assistance, 380
Hypomania, 137 Indirect reinforcement, 114
Hypomanic episodes, 540 Individual Education Plan (IEP), 266,
Hypothalamus, 144, 332, 394, 410, 567, 497
926 Individual Family Service Plan (IFSP),
Hypotheses, 337, 926 266, 497
Hypothetical-deductive reasoning, 16 Individual psychology, 430-437, 649,
Hypovolemic thirst, 877 927
Hypoxia, 529 Individuality, 232
Hysteria, 69 Individualized education programs
(IEPs), 361
I/O psychology. See Industrial/ Individuals, groups and, 364
organizational psychology Individuals with Disabilities Education
Iconic memory, 517, 926 Act of 1990, 266, 268, 494
Id, 7, 256, 294, 314, 617, 647-655, 900, Induction, 927
926 Inductive reasoning, 499
Idealized self, 926 Industrial/organizational psychology,
Identification, 926 438-443, 669, 927
990
Index
Infancy, 99-105 928; giftedness and, 356; learning

Infant sexuality, 900 disorders and, 493; mental
Inferiority complex, 430, 555, 649 retardation and, 532
Inflection, 927 Intelligence tests, 14, 87, 227, 439, 465-
Information-processing, 179; aging 476; attention-deficit hyperactivity
and, 43; intelligence and, 454; disorder, 107; giftedness and, 356
motivation and, 552 Intensity, 928
Information processing model, 927 Interactionist theories of language, 470
Information-processing systems, 880 Intercourse; adolescence and, 22;
Informational influence, 33 premarital, 22
Infrasound, 769 Interest inventory, 928
Inhelder, Barbel, 15, 350 Interference, 928
Inhibition; reduction, 38; social Intergroup conflict, 347
learning theory and, 790 Intermittent reinforcement, 928
Initial hierarchies, 725 Internal locus of control, 614, 686
Innate, 927 Internal validity, 928
Innate behavior, 376 International Psychoanalytic
Innate hierarchies, 725 Association, 76, 643
Innate language-acquisition device International Psychoanalytic Societies,
(LAD), 468 643
Innate reflexes, 722 Interneurons, 720, 928
Inner speech, 471 Interpersonal attraction, 113
Insanity, 927 Interpersonal psychology, 650
Insight, 700, 927 Interpersonal psychotherapy (IPT),
Insomnia, 927 251
Instinct theory, 444-449 Interpersonal relations, 434
Instinctive drift, 446 Interpersonal skills, intelligence and,
Instincts, 927; bonding, 100; 454
personality and, 900 Interpretation, 700; sensation and, 762
Institutional Animal Care and Use Interrater reliability, 928
Committees (IACUCs), 90 Interrupted tape studies, 469
Institutional racism, 928 Interval schedules, 205, 928
Instrumental aggression, 928 Intervention, domestic violence and,
Instrumental conditioning, 485, 928; 282
learning and, 484; phobias and, 631 Interviews, 869; diagnostic, 271
Instrumental responses, 727 Intimacy; adolescent, 22; isolation
Insulin shock therapy, 511 versus, 320
Integration, 928; multiple personality Intonation, 467
disorder and, 562 Intrapersonal pathology, 279
Integrity, 321 Intrinsic motivation, 455, 928
Intellectual giftedness, 358 Intrinsic religion, 404
Intellectual operations, 453 Introspection, 184, 845, 928
Intelligence, 450-456, 928; cognitive Introversion, 74, 613, 649
psychology and, 179; creativity and, Intuiting, 74
224-229; forms, 48; language and, Invertebrates, endocrine system, 331
471; mental retardation and, 532; IQ. See Intelligence quotient (IQ)
race and, 704-710; twin studies and, Irradiation, 928
705 Irrational beliefs, 96
Intelligence quotient (IQ), 450, 704, Isolation, intimacy versus, 320
991
Psychology Basics
Jackson, Hughlings, 575 Kline, Paul, 226

Jacobson, Lenore, 557 Kluckhohn, Clyde, 617
Jakobson, Roman, 68 Knowledge; language and, 474;
James, William, 216, 435, 663, 668, 746, reasoning and, 502
754, 847, 950 Kobasa, Suzanne, 839
Janet, Pierre, 435 Koffka, Kurt, 668
Janis, Irving, 823 Kohlberg, Lawrence, 177, 350, 383,
Jensen, Arthur R., 704 547, 888, 951
Jewell, Linda, 441 Köhler, Wolfgang, 345, 668
Job analysis, 441 Kohut, Heinz, 747
Job design, 439 Kojève, Alexandre, 70
Johnson, Robert, 234 Korsakoff syndrome, 929
Johnson, Virginia E., 905, 950 Kovacs, Maria, 161
Jones, Edward, 621 Kraepelin, Emil, 252, 510, 542, 675,
Jones, Randall, 420 692, 736, 743, 951
Jouissance, 68 Kroger, Jane, 416
Jung, Carl, 78, 648, 950; analytical Kübler-Ross, Elisabeth, 238
psychology, 72-77; development, Külpe, Oswald, 214, 663, 846
255; dreams, 287, 290; Murray,
Henry A., and, 624; self, 747 LaBerge, Stephen, 287
Juvenile Parkinsonism, 584 Lacan, Jacques, 951; analytic
psychology, 65-71
Kagan, Jerome, 750 Lang, Peter, 97
Kahneman, Daniel, 183 Langer, Ellen, 816
Kako, Edward, 466 Language, 465-476; cognitive
Kalish, Richard, 239 psychology and, 179; Lacan,
Kallmann, Franz J., 741 Jacques, 65; Skinner, B. F., 714;
Kamen, Leslie, 480 social learning theory and, 789
Kamin, Leon, 709 Language acquisition; critical period,
Kandel, Eric R., 374, 484, 491, 522, 470; developmental disabilities and,
528, 724 266
Kanner, Leo, 121 Lashley, Karl, 518, 525
Kant, Immanuel, 177, 211 Latan, Bibb, 234
Kastenbaum, Robert J., 239 Latency, 929
Keller, Helen, 361 Latency stage, 315, 657, 902
Kelley, Truman, 453 Latent content, 929
Kelly, George A., 617, 950; personal Lateral geniculate nucleus, 929
constructs, 596-601 Laterality, 929
Kendall, Philip, 109 Lateralization, 148
Kety, Seymour, 741 Law, sexual variations and, 776
Kin selection model of homosexuality, Law of closure, 762
387 Law of common fate, 762
Kindling, 138 Law of Effect, 204, 484, 716, 929
Kinesthetic, 929 Law of good continuation, 762
Kinnebrook, David, 884 Law of nearness, 762
Kinsey, Alfred, 390, 871, 950 Law of similarity, 762
Kitayama, Shinobu, 751 Law of the Father, 66
Kleitman, Nathaniel, 785 Lazarus, Arnold, 702
Klerman, Gerald, 251 Lazarus, Richard, 817, 820
992
Index
Leadership, groups and, 367 Life cycle, identity crises and, 420
Leakage, 929 Life instinct, 553
Learned drives, 726 Life space, 344
Learned helplessness, 477-482, 488, Likert, Rensis, 874
686, 929; depression and, 159; Likert scales, 874
dometic violence and, 279; learning Liking, love and, 34
and, 484; stress and, 815, 822 Lima, Pedro A., 692
Learned variability, 491 Limbic system, 145, 569, 929;
Learning, 483-492, 569, 929; animal psychosurgery and, 695
experimentation and, 84; cognition Lindemann, Eric, 237
and, 44; conditioning and, 200, 591; Lindzey, Gardner, 404
gender identity and, 349; Linehan, Marsha M., 608
habituation and sensitization, 372; Linguistic determinism, 472
hormones and, 335; imprinting and, Linguistic lateralization pattern, 470
423; memory and, 517; memory Linguistic relativity, 472, 929
versus, 524; motivation and, 552; Linguistics, 929
performance versus, 789; Liotti, Gianni, 169
psychopathology and, 676; reflexes Lithium, 302
and, 721; S-R theory and, 725 Lithium carbonate, 930
Learning disabilities, imprinting and, Little Hans, 635
427 Lobotomy, 38, 511, 691
Learning disorders, 493-498 Locke, John, 210
Learning theory, 279, 680; antisocial Locomotion, 345
behavior and, 607; language and, Locus of control, 614, 686, 839, 930
468; phobias and, 631; Loewi, Otto, 289
schizophrenia, 739; senses and, 771 Loftus, Elizabeth, 44, 182
Le Bon, Gustave, 230 Logic, 15, 43, 449-506; formal
Legislation, industrial/organizational operations stage and, 174; private,
psychology and, 442 432
Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm, 211 Long-term memory, 42, 180, 516, 880,
Lepper, Mark, 340 930
Lerner, Harriet Goldhor, 897 Long, Howard, 709
Lesbians. See Homosexuality Longitudinal study, 930
Lesions, 929; neuropsychology and, Looking-glass self, 752
571 Loomis, A. L., 785
Leucotomy, 691. See also Lobotomy Loose associations, schizophrenia and,
Levels-of-processing model, 929 734
Lévi-Strauss, Claude, 68 Lorenz, Konrad, 424, 554
Levine, Charles, 417 Loudness, 930
Levitt, Eugene, 159 Lovaas, Ivar, 125
Lewin, Kurt, 435, 556, 951; field Love; attraction and, 113; liking and,
theory, 344-348 34
Lewinsohn, Peter, 159 Low self-esteem, 755
Lewis, Michael, 750 LSD. See Lysergic acid diethylamide
Lewy body disease, 244 (LSD)
Lexical semantics, 465 Lubin, Bernard, 159
Libido, 65, 74, 92, 256, 647, 929 Lucid dreams, 287
Lidz, Theodore, 739 Lucy, John, 472
Lie detection, 325 Lunatic asylums, 508
993
Psychology Basics
Luria, Aleksandr, 153, 575 Masculine protest, 432, 930

Luria, S. E., 705 Maskelyne, Nevil, 883
Luria-Nebraska battery, 572 Maslow, Abraham, 10, 405, 435, 556,
Lyerly, J. G., 694 617, 625, 668, 748, 805, 951
Lynch mobs, 233 Masochism, 775, 895
Lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD), 212, Mass action, 526
219, 740 Mass hypnosis, 231
Masters, William H., 905, 952
McAdams, Dan, 752 Mastery, identity crises and, 420
McCarley, Robert, 287 Masturbation, 774
McClelland, David, 626 Matching phenomenon, 116
McClelland, J. L., 474 Maternal imprinting, 424
McDougall, William, 444 Mathematics disorder, 493
Mach, Ernst, 717 Matheny, Laura, 474
MacKinnon, Donald, 357 Mating behavior, endocrine system
McVeigh, Timothy, 36 and, 334
Madness, historical concepts, 507-515 Maturation, 930
Magnification, 197, 249 Maultsby, Maxie, 166
Magnitude estimation, 930 May, Rollo, 748
Mahler, Margaret, 747 Mead, George Herbert, 752, 756
Mahoney, Michael, 170 Mead, Margaret, 448
Maier, Steven F., 481, 484 Mean, 930
Main effect, 930 Meaning; consciousness and, 213;
Major depressive disorder, 540 language and, 465
Major depressive episode, 930 Measurement, intelligence, 452, 458
Maladaptive behavior, 208 Mechanoreceptor, 930
Male norms, women and, 894 Méconnaissance, 67
Malingering, 683 Medical model, 930; of helping, 382
Malnutrition, eating disorders and, 311 Medical technology, death and, 240
Mania, 512, 930 Meditation, 212, 219, 831, 840
Maniaco-melancholicus, 542 Medulla, 142
Manic-depression, 135, 302, 542 Medulla oblongata, 930
Manic episodes, 539 Meichenbaum, Donald, 10, 166
Manic grandiosity, 135 Melancholy, 248
Manifest content, 930 Melanchthon, Philipp, 662
Mann, Leon, 233 Melatonin, 395, 930; bipolar disorders
Manning, Maurice, 399 and, 137
Manque, 66 Memory, 14, 516-523, 931; amnesia
MAOIs. See Monoamine oxidase and, 60; animal research, 524-531;
inhibitors (MAOIs) cognitive psychology and, 179;
Maratsos, Michael, 474 consciousness and, 216; dementia
Marcia, James, 416, 748 and, 242; dreams and, 286;
Marecek, Jeanne, 891 hormones and, 335; hypnosis and,
Marital counseling, domestic violence 220; identity and, 70; interrupted
and, 282 tasks and, 345; learning versus, 524;
Markus, Hazel, 750 mediation and, 44; reality and, 478;
Marland definition of giftedness, 358 reflexes and, 721; repressed, 563;
Marland, Sidney, 357 Shereshevskii, 153; testing, 882;
Marx, Karl, 799 thought and, 880
994
Index
Meninges, 142 Modeling, 9, 167, 701; groups and,

Mental hospitals, 508 865; symbolic, 788
Mental illness, 674 Models, learning and, 727
Mental processes, 880 Modus ponens, 501
Mental representations, 173 Modus tollens, 501
Mental retardation, 494, 532-538; Money, John, 774
developmental disabilities versus, Monkeys, 104
260 Monoamine oxidase inhibitors
Mental states, 664 (MAOIs), 301, 541, 931
Mentalism, behaviorism versus, 712 Monoamines, 931
Mentoring, gifted students and, 361 Monosynaptic reflexes, 719, 931
Mere exposure, 931; attraction and, Montagu, Ashley, 704
115 Mood, helping and, 380
Mescaline, 212, 219 Mood disorders, 539-545, 931; eating
Mesibov, Gary, 124 disorders and, 308
Mesmer, Franz, 219 Mood-stabilizing drugs, 302
Meta-analysis, 931 Moral development, 546-551; helping
Metacognition, 16 and, 383
Metamemory, 181, 213, 520 Moral Judgement Interview (MJI), 889
Metaphor, 68 Moral model of helping, 382
Metastasis, 931 Moral psychology; Gilligan, Carol, 886
Metonymy, 68 Moratorium, identity crises and, 417
Midbrain, 931 Moratorium status, 418
Midlife crisis, 75, 82, 420, 931 Morgan, C. Lloyd, 847
Mild cognitive impairment, 48 Morgan, Christiana, 625
Miller, Jean Baker, 905 Morphemes, 465, 931
Miller, Neal E., 554, 725-730, 952 Morphogenic research, 404
Miller, Norman, 380 Morphology, 465, 931
Miller, Suzanne, 816 Mortality, 321
Mills, Judson, 383 Mothers, relationships with children,
Mind; body and, 832; brain versus, 575; 901
psychoanalysis and, 639; psychology Motivation, 552-558, 876, 931;
and, 662; psychosomatic disorders biological factors, 876; drives and,
and, 684 292; instincts and, 445; opponent
Mind-body problem, 931 process theory, 375; personality and,
Mineka, Susan, 94, 636 618; testing and, 461
Mineralocorticoids, 931 Motor neurons, 931
Mini-Mental State Examination Mowrer, O. Hobart, 93
(MMSE), 55 Mullen, Brian, 233, 367
Mini-Mental Status Test, 245 Mulley, John C., 535
Minimization, 197, 249 Multimodal behavior therapy, 702
Mirror stage, 65 Multiple intelligences, 454, 463
Misattribution, 931 Multiple personality disorder, 8, 59,
Mischel, Walter, 349, 618, 952; 559-564, 931; schizophrenia versus,
cognitive social learning, 188-193 731
Mixed episodes, 540 Murray, Charles, 704
Mnemonics, 931 Murray, Henry A., 952; personology,
Modality, 316 624-629
995
Psychology Basics
Mutual exclusivity hypothesis of Neurophysiology, learning disorders

language, 469 and, 495
Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, 82, 671 Neuropsychology, 571-576, 932;
Myoclonias, 781 memory and, 518
Neuropsychopharmacology, 932
Nakata, Mizuho, 694 Neuroscience; behavioral, 208;
Nanometer, 931 language and, 470;
Narcissism, 70 neuropsychology, 571
Narcissistic personality disorder, 605 Neurosecretory cells, 331
Narcolepsy, 931 Neurosis, 513, 582, 932; culture and,
Nasal mucosa, 768 801; drives and, 726; women and,
National Alliance for the Mentally Ill 902
(NAMI), 138 Neurotics, 69
National Depression Survey, 159 Neurotransmitters, 301, 373, 394, 527,
National Society for Autistic Children, 567-568, 677, 932; depression and,
126 249; eating disorders and, 308;
Nativism, 931 obsessive-compulsive disorder and,
Natural selection, 932 581; schizophrenia and, 740, 742;
Nature-nurture debate, 254 stress and, 839
Necrophilia, 776 Newborn screening programs, mental
Needs, 932; behavior and, 625; drives retardation and, 537
versus, 293; hunger, 408 Newborns, reflexes and, 722
Negative feedback homeostasis, 394 Newell, Allan, 505
Negative identity, 418 Night terrors, 287
Negative reinforcement, 932. See also Nightmares, 286
Reinforcement Nisbett, Richard, 340, 621
Negative schemas, 10 Nobles, Wade, 708
Negative self-esteem cycle, 755 Nociceptors, 769
Nelson, Katherine, 467 Nocturnal emissions, 23
Neo-Freudian, 932 Nomothetic study, 932
Neologisms, schizophrenia and, 734 Nonassociative learning, 525
Nerve impulse, 932 Nonconformity, identity crises and, 418
Nervous system, 565-570, 932; Nonparticipant observation, 932
habituation and sensitization, 373; Nonrapid eye movement (NREM)
hormones and, 394; memory and, sleep, 780
524; self and, 750 Nonverbal communication, 932
Neural signals, 767 Norepinephrine, 301
Neuringer, Allen, 484, 490 Normal distribution, 932
Neurologic dysfunction, autism and, Normative influence, 33
122 NREM sleep. See Nonrapid eye
Neurological damage, developmental movement (NREM) sleep
disabilities and, 265
Neurological disorders, 584 Obesity, 306
Neurologist, 932 Object little a, 67
Neurons, 141, 565, 932; habituation Object permanence, 175
and sensitization and, 373; learning Obscene telephone calls, 774
and, 491; reflexes and, 719 Observation, industrial/organizational
Neuropeptides, 568 psychology and, 440
Observational learning, 933;
996
Index
psychopathology and, 676; social Pain; hypnosis and, 220; substance

learning theory and, 788 abuse and, 852; suicide and, 859
Observational study, 933 Pallidotomy, 587
Obsessional doubting, 578 Palmer, John, 182
Obsessional neurotics, 69 Panic attacks; anxiety and, 96; phobias
Obsessions, 577, 675, 933 and, 630
Obsessive-compulsive disorder, 577- Panic disorder, 196; anxiety sensitivity
583, 606, 675, 933 and, 613
Obsessive-compulsive personality Papilla, 934
disorder, 605-606 Paradoxical intervention, 934
Occipital lobe, 146, 933 Paradoxical sleep, 782
Oedipus complex, 65, 318, 738, 901, Parallel distributed processing (PDP),
933; Adler, Alfred, 435 934
Offensive aggression, 37 Parallel processing, 883
Oklahoma City bombing, 37 Paranoia, 70, 934; dementia and, 242
Olfaction, 933 Paranoid personality disorder, 603
Oneironmancy, 287 Paranoid schizophrenia, 734
Operant, 933 Paraphilias, 774-779
Operant chamber, 486, 714 Parasympathetic nervous system, 567,
Operant conditioning, 9, 93, 130, 485, 934
933; language acquisition and, 468; Parent-child relationships, inferiority
learning and, 484; memory and, 525 and, 431
Operant response (R), 204 Parental manipulation model of
Operational definition, 933 homosexuality, 387
Opiates, 933 Parenting; gender identity and, 349;
Oral stage, 315, 657, 901, 933 giftedness and, 357; identity crises
Organ pleasure, 900 and, 419
Organic disorder, 933 Parenting styles, homosexuality and,
Organic lamp theories of 386
development, 257 Parietal lobe, 146, 934
Organic theories of schizophrenia, 740 Parkinson, James, 584
Organizational effects, 933 Parkinson’s disease, 243, 584-588
Organizational psychology. See Pathophobia, 630
Industrial/organizational Patterns, 700
psychology Pavlov, Ivan Petrovich, 128, 200, 484,
Ornstein, Robert, 221 524, 554, 721, 952
Orton, Samuel T., 495 Pavlovian conditioning, 93, 200, 483,
Osmosis, 877 589-595, 631, 721, 934
Other, the, 66 Pedophilia, 775; homosexuality versus,
Out-group, 933 390
Outcome expectancies, 789 Peer groups, adolescents and, 319
Overdetermination, 640 Penis envy, 318, 354, 895, 901, 934
Overextension, 933 Pennebaker, James, 822
Overgeneralization, 197, 249 Pennington, Bruce, 495
Overjustification effect, 933 Percent savings, 882
Overmier, J. Bruce, 481, 484 Perception, 179, 512, 934; feelings and,
Overregularization, 466 165; sensation and, 760-766; senses
Overshadowing, 203 and, 767; stress and, 835
Oxford Group, 866 Perceptual constancy, 934
997
Psychology Basics
Perczel, Maria de. See De Perczel, Phasic activity, 611

Maria Phenomenology, 934
Performance, learning versus, 789 Phenylketonuria (PKU), 122, 536
Peripheral nervous system, 567, 934 Pheromones, 334, 397, 424, 935
Permissiveness, 26 Phobias, 133, 630-637, 701, 935;
Person, life space and, 345 agoraphobia, 96; anxiety and, 93;
Person-situation debate, 192 cognitive therapy and, 196;
Persona, 934 emotions and, 326; learning and,
Persona archetype, 74 485; stress and, 815, 820
Personal constructs, 188; Kelly, George Phonemes, 465, 935
A., 596-601 Phonology, 465, 935
Personal equation, 884 Physical attractiveness; affiliation and,
Personal fable, 17 31; attraction and, 116
Personal science, 170 Physical attractiveness stereotype, 116
Personal unconscious, 72, 78, 649; Physical contact, imprinting and, 424
dreams and, 287 Physiological habituation, 612
Personality, 512, 934; adolescent, 17; Physiological patterns, personality and,
amnesia and, 59; analytical 611
psychology, 72; brain and, 624; Physiological psychology, 669
cognitive social learning, 188; Piaget, Jean, 14, 350, 383, 953;
dreams and, 288; Freud, Sigmund, cognitive development, 172-178;
655-661; fugue and, 59; habits and, consciousness, 212; development,
726; helping and, 383; humanistic 257; intelligence, 459; language,
trait model and, 402; identity crises 471; moral development and, 546
and, 417; individual psychology and, Pibloqtoq, 12
430; psychophysiological measures, Pick’s disease, 243
610-616; psychosomatic disorders Piliavin, Jane Allyn, 379
and, 684; self and, 747; social Pineal gland, 144, 935
psychology and, 794; testing, 671; Pinel, Philippe, 509, 953
theory, 617-623, 699 Piotrowski, Zygmunt, 291
Personality changes, dementia and, Pitch, 935
242 Pituitary, 935
Personality disorders, 602-609, 698, Pituitary-adrenal axis, 829
934; neurotic styles and, 804 Pituitary gland, 144, 332
Personality psychology, 669 PKU. See Phenylketonuria (PKU)
Personality testing, 619 Placebo, 935; depression and, 162
Personality traits, 612, 934; Placebo effect, 568, 935
psychoanalysis and, 640 Plaques, Alzheimer’s disease and, 53
Personology, 624-629 Plasticity, 935
Persuasion, perception and, 761 Plato, 214, 288
Pervasive developmental disorders, Play therapy, 935
260, 494 Pleasure, 853
Perversion, 69, 778 Pleasure principle, 294, 553, 647
PET scanning. See Positron emission Pleck, Joseph, 351
tomography (PET) Plomin, Robert, 327
Petersen, Ronald C., 46 Plous, S., 89
Phallic stage, 315, 386, 657, 901, 934 Plutchik, Robert, 324
Phallus, 68 Pneumonia, Alzheimer’s disease and,
Phases, groups and, 365 57
998
Index
Polanyi, Michael, 750 Primary needs, 625

Polls, survey research and, 873 Primary process, 375
Polygraphs, 325 Primary reinforcer, 936
Polysynaptic reflexes, 720 Primary sex characteristics, 23, 936
Pons, 142, 935 Priming, 936
Population, 935 Prisoner’s dilemma, 936
Positive reinforcement, 935. See also Private logic, 432
Reinforcement Probability, 936
Positron emission tomography (PET), Problem solving, 14, 168; intelligence
935 and, 226, 454
Possession; fugue and, 63; madness Problem-solving therapy, 168
and, 507 Productive love, 795
Postformal thought, 19 Productive work, 795
Postmodernism, self and, 752 Progesterone, 936
Postpartum mood episodes, 543 Prognosis, 273
Postsynaptic potential, 935 Programmed instruction, 936
Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), Progressive lateralization hypothesis of
279, 821, 935; nightmares and, 287 learning disorders, 495
Power, inferiority complex and, 432 Progressive muscle relaxation, 936
Power law, 936 Projection, 8
Pragmatics, 466 Projective task, 936
Pragmatism, 936; behaviorism and, 716 Proposition, 936
Pratkanis, Anthony, 761 Proprium, 403
Preconscious, 73, 216 Prosocial behavior, 936; crowds and,
Predatory aggression, 37 234; helping and, 383
Prefrontal cortex, 526 Prosody, 467
Prefrontal leucotomy (lobotomy), 691 Prospective memory, 185
Pregnancy, 26; adolescence and, 28 Protestant work ethic, 798
Prejudice, 936; Allport, Gordon, 405; Prototypes, 936; cognitive, 189
individual psychology and, 433 Proxemics, 936
Premack, David, 206 Proximity, attraction and, 115
Prenatal testing, mental retardation Proximo-distal development, 937
and, 537 Pseudodementia, 243
Preoperational stage, 173, 257, 936 Psilocybin, 219
Preparedness, 94, 936; instincts and, Psyche, 72
447 Psychoactive drugs, 219, 937
Preparedness theory, phobias and, 631 Psychoanalysis, 638-646, 903; women’s
Prescription drug abuse, 300 psychology and, 894
President’s Committee on Mental Psychoanalytic psychology, 647-654;
Retardation (PCMR), 260 Freud, Sigmund, 655-661
Press, 625 Psychoanalytic psychotherapy, 642
Prevention programs, 861 Psychoanalytic theories, 937; domestic
Pribram, Karl, 217 violence, 279; homosexuality, 386;
Primacy effect, 936 obsessive-compulsive disorder, 579;
Primal scene, 66 personality, 617
Primary drives, 726, 876 Psychoanalytic therapy, depression
Primary emotions, 324 and, 158
Primary Mental Abilities test, 463 Psychobiology, 937
Primary motives, 408, 936
999
Psychology Basics
Psychodynamic theories; development, Race; definition, 705; intelligence and,

255; schizophrenia, 738 704-710
Psychodynamic therapies, 79, 699 Racial prejudice, 347
Psychogenic amnesia, 60 Radical behaviorism, 130; Skinner, B.
Psychogenic disorder, 937 F., 711-718
Psychological autopsy, 860 Rahe, Richard, 825, 835
Psychological disorders, 674 Random assignment, 938
Psychological moratorium, 417 Range corollary, 598
Psychologists, 508 Rape, domestic violence and, 278
Psychologists for the Ethical Treatment Rapid cycling, 544
of Animals (PSYETA), 89 Rapid eye movement (REM) sleep,
Psychology; definition, 662-666; fields 143, 218, 286, 780, 938
of specialization, 667-673 Ratio schedules, 205, 938
Psychometrics, 14, 451, 937 Rational behavior therapy, 166
Psychoneuroimmunology, 838 Rational-emotive therapy, 165, 938
Psychopathology, 612, 674-682 Rayner, Rosalie, 129, 592, 635
Psychopharmaceuticals, 511 Reaction formation, 8; neurosis and,
Psychopharmacology, 299 803
Psychophysics, 937 Reaction-time situations, 721
Psychophysiology, 937 Reactivity, 611
Psychoses, 699 Reading disorder, 493
Psychosexual development; Freud, Real, the, 66
Sigmund, 315; homosexuality and, Realistic conflict theory, 938
386 Reality, memory and, 478
Psychosexual stages, 648, 657 Reality principle, 553, 647
Psychosis, 513, 937; schizophrenia and, Reasoning, 179, 449-506; adolescence
732 and, 18; hypothetical-deductive, 16
Psychosocial adjustment, adolescent, 25 Receptive aphasia, 938
Psychosocial crisis, 937 Receptive field, 938
Psychosocial development, 648; Receptors, 767, 938
Erikson, Erik, 316 Recessive gene, 938
Psychosocial moratorium, 319 Reciprocal determinism, 787, 938
Psychosomatic disorders, 683-690, 815, Reciprocity, attraction and, 114
937; emotions and, 327 Recovery times, 373
Psychosurgery, 691-697, 937 Recruiting, 442
Psychotherapy, 937; goals and Reductionism, 938
techniques, 698-703 Reed, Thomas, 764
Psychotic disorders, 69; bipolar II Referential language acquisition styles,
disorder and, 137 467
Psychotropic drugs, 299 Reflective thinking, 19
PTSD. See Post-traumatic stress Reflex arc, 938
disorder (PTSD) Reflex arc system, 373
Puberty, 22 Reflexes, 719-724, 938; learning and,
Punishers, 487, 712 483
Punishment, 130, 206, 937 Regions, life space and, 345
Regression, 8, 938
Quasi-experimental designs, 151, 937 Regulation mechanisms, hunger, 408
Questionnaires, 272, 478, 869, 937; Regulators, 938
dementia and, 245
1000
Index
Rehabilitation, neuropsychology and, Responses, 813; cues and, 725; reflexes

573 and, 719
Rehm, Lynn, 169 Responsibility, helping and, 380
Reicher, Stephen, 233 Resting membrane potential, 939
Reinforcement, 9, 130, 726, 938; Restricted environmental stimulation
attraction and, 113; conditioning therapy (REST), 222
and, 594; learned helplessness and, Retardation, 939
478; social learning theory and, 788. Reticular formation, 142, 939
See also Negative reinforcement; Retina, 939
Positive reinforcement Retrieval, 939
Reinforcement-affect model, 113 Retrograde amnesia, 939
Reinforcers, 204, 487, 712, 938 Reuptake, 300
Reinforcing stimulus, 204, 713 Reversibility, 15
Reiss, Steven, 613 Reward models, attraction and, 113
Relatedness, 795 Rewards, 165, 340, 712; conditioning
Relationships; attraction and, 113; and, 591; helping and, 379; learning
groups and, 366 and, 484; situational variables and,
Relative deprivation, 938 190
Relaxation, 219, 831; phobia treatment Rhodopsin, 939
and, 634 Richardson, Frank, 752
Relaxation response, 840 Riecken, Henry, 34
Relaxation training, 701 Rimm, Sylvia, 225
Reliability, 939 Riots, 233
REM sleep. See Rapid eye movement Ritualistic behavior, 577
(REM) sleep Road rage, 38
Repair and restoration theory of sleep, Rod, 939
783 Rodin, Judith, 480, 816, 824
Repetition compulsion, 68 Rogers, Carl, 9, 405, 435, 556, 610, 617,
Representativeness, 500, 939 668, 702, 748, 805, 953
Repressed memories, multiple Role Construct Repertory Test, 598
personality disorder and, 563 Role-playing and moral development,
Repression, 7, 72, 939; anxiety and, 93; 549
dissociation and, 560; S-R theory Roles, 939; groups and, 865
and, 728 Romanes, George, 847
Reproductive behavior; endocrine Rootedness, 795
system and, 334; hormones and, 395 Rooting reflex, 722
Rescorla, Robert, 724 Rorschach, Hermann, 953
Rescorla-Wagner Model, 203 Rosario, Margaret, 27
Research; animal, 84; cognitive Rosenhan, David L., 11, 513
psychology and, 182; Rosenman, Ray, 837
experimentation versus, 338; Rosenthal, Robert, 557
surveys, 869 Rotter, Julian, 614, 618
Residual schizophrenia, 734 Rubin, Zick, 34, 119
Resistance, 698 Rule-governed behavior, 714, 939
Resistant mother, 103 Rules, information processing and, 43
Respondent conditioning, 589 Runners’ high, 840
Response cost, 939 Rush, Benjamin, 509, 953
Response hierarchies, 725, 939 Ryan, Richard, 455
Response-outcome expectancies, 189
1001
Psychology Basics
S-R theory, 725-730 Secondary drives, 726, 876

S sleep, 286, 781 Secondary emotions, 324
SAD. See Seasonal affective disorder Secondary needs, 625
(SAD) Secondary reinforcement, 940
Sadism, 775 Secondary sex characteristics, 23, 940
Sadomasochism, 775 Seduction phase, 66
Sample, 939 Seduction theory, 904
Sampling, survey research and, 871 Selective abstraction, 197
Sampling error, 939 Selective attention, 762
Sampson, Edward, 752 Selective norepinephrine reuptake
Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, 472 inhibitors (SNRIs), 541
Sartre, Jean-Paul, 214 Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors
SAT. See Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) (SSRIs), 301, 311, 541, 568
Satiety, 939 Self, 754-759, 940; analytical
Satiety boundary, 408 psychology, 72; theories, 890
Sattler, Jerome M., 461 Self-actualization, 9, 940
Saussure, Ferdinand de, 68 Self-analysis, Horney, Karen, 804
Scarr, Sandra, 708 Self-archetype, 74
Schachter, Stanley, 30, 32, 34, 327, 414 Self-characterization sketch, 599
Schedules of reinforcement, 713 Self-concept, 9, 940; self-esteem and,
Schemata, 172, 195, 939; gender, 351 754
Schizoid personality disorder, 603 Self-control, 190
Schizophrenia, 304, 569, 675, 939; Self-control therapy, 169
autism and, 121; background, types, Self-definition, groups and, 365
and symptoms, 731-737; bipolar Self-discovery, analytical psychology
disorders versus, 136; personality and, 82
disorders and, 604; psychosurgery Self-effacing behavior, 894
and, 691; theoretical explanations, Self-efficacy, 788, 940
738-745 Self-efficacy theory, 790
Schizophrenia spectrum of illness, 742 Self-esteem, 430, 754-759, 940; learned
Schizotypal personality disorder, 603, helplessness and, 477
742 Self-image, 940; aggression and, 36
Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT), 191 Self-inflated personality, 796
Schwann cell, 940 Self-instructional training, 166
Schwartz, Hillel, 411 Self-medication theories of substance
Schwartz, Robert, 412 use disorders, 853
Scientific method, 337; case studies Self-monitoring, 198
and, 152; research methods and, Self-perception, 940
871 Self-punishment paranoia, 70
Scott, Walter Dill, 439 Self-regulation, social learning theory
Screening, 271 and, 788
Script, 940 Self-regulatory systems, 189
Sdorow, Lester, 43 Self-report measurement, 869
Seasonal affective disorder (SAD), 137, Self-report questionnaires; emotions,
139, 544, 940 324
Sechenov, Ivan, 721 Self-socialization, 350
Second-signal system of conditioning, Self-talk, 166
591 Self-identity, personality and, 403
Secondary dispositions, 403
1002
Index
Seligman, Martin E. P., 159, 436, 477, Short-term memory, 42, 180, 516, 527,
484, 686, 815, 822 880, 941
Selman, Robert, 18, 177 Sibling rivalry, 431
Selye, Hans, 331, 683, 817, 825, 829, Side effects, drugs, 300
835, 954 Siegall, Marc, 441
Semantic memory, 180, 517, 880, 940 Sighele, Scipio, 230
Semantics, 465 Sight, 767
Sensation, 845, 940; perception and, Sign stimuli, 373
760-766; senses and, 767 Signal recognition, 760
Senses, 767-773 Significance level, 941
Sensing, analytical psychology, 74 Signifier and signified, 67
Sensitization, 372-378, 525 Signs, 270
Sensorimotor stage, 173, 257, 940 Similarity, attraction and, 116
Sensoriperceptual changes, aging and, Simmelhag, V., 206
45 Simon, H. A.
Sensory adaptation, 373, 761 Simon, Herbert, 44, 505
Sensory deprivation, 221 Simon, Théodore, 227, 450, 457, 954
Sensory memory, 517, 940 Simultaneous conditioning, 202
Sensory thresholds, 760 Situational variables, 188, 190, 383
Separation protest, 101 Skin, 768
Serbin, Lisa, 353 Skinner, B. F., 9, 130, 204, 524, 628,
Serial processing, 883, 940 849, 954; development, 256;
Seriation, 174 language, 468; learning, 484;
Serotonin, 301, 541, 568 personality, 610; Piaget, Jean, versus,
Set point, 940 177; radical behaviorism, 711-718
Sex, 940 Skinner box, 941
Sex hormones, 396 Sleep, 218, 780-786; memory and, 519
Sex roles, 25; transcendence, 351 Sleep mentation, 286
Sex typing, 349, 941 Slobin, Dan Isaac, 469
Sexual abuse, 776; eating disorders Smell, 768; imprinting and, 424
and, 308 SNRIs. See Selective norepinephrine
Sexual behavior, 569 reuptake inhibitors (SNRIs)
Sexual instinct, 941 Snyder, Mark, 749
Sexual orientation, 388; adolescence, Social anxiety disorder, 680
27 Social bonding; autism and, 122;
Sexual scripts in adolescence, 26 imprinting and, 424
Sexual variants, 774-779 Social categorization, 941
Sexual violence, 278 Social change, 346
Sexuality, 386; aggression and, 39 Social cognition, 185, 941; moral
Shadow archetype, 74, 78 development and, 550
Shaping, 714, 941; learning and, 486 Social cognitive psychology, self and,
Sherrington, Charles, 723 749
Shneidman, Edwin, 238, 860 Social cognitive theory, 788
Shock therapy. See Electroconvulsive Social comparison, 941
therapy (ECT) Social comparison theory, 30
Shockley, William, 704 Social contexts, learning and, 727
Shore, Cecilia, 467 Social density, 369
Short Portable Mental Status Social exchange theory, 114
Questionnaire, 245 Social facilitation, 865, 941
1003
Psychology Basics
Social identity theory, 231, 941 Speech; autism and, 122

Social inhibition, 865 Speech disorders, 807-812
Social interactions, case studies and, Speech-language pathology, 811
154 Speech registers, 466
Social interest, individual psychology Spencer, Herbert, 847, 954
and, 432 Sperry, Roger, 148
Social isolation, suicide and, 858 Spielberger, Charles, 814, 823
Social learning theory, 279, 941; Spinal cord, 567, 942
Bandura, Albert, 787-793; groups Spinal reflex, 719
and, 864; personality, 610, 618; Spitz, Ren, 88
phobias and, 631 Split-brain studies, 148
Social limits, 317 Splitting, 605
Social loafing, 941 Spongiform encephalopathy, 244
Social order, moral development and, Spontaneous recovery, 942
548 Sports psychology, 942
Social phobias, 630, 941 Sprouting, 942
Social psychological models; Fromm, SQ3R method, 520
Erich, 794-800; Horney, Karen, 801- Sroufe, Alan, 104
806 SSRIs. See Selective serotonin reuptake
Social psychology, 670, 941 inhibitors (SSRIs)
Social Readjustment Rating Scale, 835 Staddon, J. E. R., 206
Social status, race and, 705 Stage theories of language acquisition,
Social support, 941; depression and, 466
250 Stage theory of development, 942
Social support systems, groups and, Stages of dying, 238
370 Stagnation, 321
Socialization, 941; hunger and, 409; Standard deviation, 942
identity crises and, 417; women’s Standardization, 942
psychology and, 888 Standardized Mental Status Tests, 244
Société Française de Psychanalyse Stanford-Binet Intelligence Test, 227,
(SFP), 71 356, 458
Sociobiology, 942; animal Startle response, 372
experimentation and, 84; groups Starvation, anorexia nervosa and, 309
and, 864 State-dependent memory, 520
SOI model. See Structure-of-intellect State emotion, 324
(SOI) model State system, 373
Solms, Mark, 645 State-Trait Anxiety Inventory, 814
Somatic therapy, 681 States of consciousness, 217
Somatization disorders, 942 Static adaptation, 794
Somatoform disorders, 683, 942 Statistical significance, 942
Somnambulism, 942 Status; identity crises, 418; race and,
Soul, self versus, 746 705
Sound, 768 Stereotypes, 942; gender, 350
Spatial density, 369 Sternberg, Robert, 32, 44, 225, 451,
Spearman, Charles, 452 454
Special education, 497; developmental Sternberg, Saul, 883
disabilities and, 266 Steroids, 397
Species-specific behavior, 446 Stimulants, 942
Specific phobias, 630
1004
Index
Stimuli; conditioning and, 589; crises and, 420; personality

reflexes and, 719; senses and, 771 disorders and, 608
Stimulus, 813, 942; drives and, 293; Substance dependance disorders, 851
habituation and sensitization and, Substance P, 569
372; learning cues, 725 Substance use disorders, 851-857
Stimulus control, 131 Substantia nigra, 586
Stimulus error, 845 Subtraction technique of thought
Stimulus generalization, 727, 942 measurement, 881
Stimulus-outcome expectancies, 189 Success, 755; fear of, 627, 897
Stokols, Daniel, 821 Sucking reflex, 375, 722
Stomach, hunger and, 413 Suffix, 943
Storage, 942 Suicidal gestures, 860
Storfer, Miles, 227 Suicide, 858-863; depression and, 157,
Stott, Clifford, 233 247
Strange situation, 101, 942 Suinn, Richard, 170
Straus, Murray, 488 Sullivan, Harry Stack, 315, 650, 739,
Strentz, Thomas, 824 747, 954
Stress, 813-818, 943; amnesia and, 59; Superego, 7, 256, 547, 553, 617, 647,
behavioral and psychological 656, 901, 943
responses, 819-827; depression and, Supernatural beliefs; dreams and, 288;
158, 250; endocrine system and, madness and, 507
331; group support and, 866; Superstition, 205; compulsions versus,
hormones and, 395, 398; phobias 578
and, 631; physiological responses, Support groups, 864-868; dementia,
828-834; psychosomatic disorders 246
and, 683; sleep deprivation and, Surgery, 691-697
783; suicide and, 859; twin studies Surrealism, Lacan, Jacques, and, 70
and, 839 Survey methods, 272
Stress inoculation training, 167 Survey research; questionnaires and
Stress management, 819 interviews, 869-875
Stress-related diseases, 835-842 Sutherland, Grant R., 535
Stressors, 813, 943 Syllogism, 943
Striate cortex, 943 Symbiotic relationship, 943
Stroke, 943 Symbolic, the, 66
Structural psychotherapy, 169 Symbolic modeling, 788
Structuralism, 663, 668, 771, 843-850, Symbols; language and, 465; social
943 learning theory and, 788
Structure-of-intellect (SOI) model, 453 Symonds, Alexandra, 896
Study of Values, 404 Sympathetic nervous system, 567, 943;
Stuttering, 808 stress and, 829
Subclinical, 272 Symptoms, 270
Subject-object distinctions, 67 Synapses, 568, 943
Subject variables, 340 Synchronized electroencephalogram,
Subjective experience, 210 943
Subjective stimulus values, 189 Syntax, 465
Sublimation, 8, 943 System of Multi-Cultural Pluralistic
Subliminal signals, 761 Assessment (SOMPA), 459
Substance abuse; death and, 300; Systematic desensitization, 133, 485,
eating disorders and, 308; identity
1005
Psychology Basics
593, 943; phobias and, 636. See also Therapeutic alliance, 700
Desensitization Therapeutic interviews, 871
Systematic experimental introspection, Therapeutic relationship, analytical
844 psychology, 79
Systematic rational restructuring, 167 Therapy, 944; learning and, 728
Systems theory, 898, 943 Thermoreceptors, 769, 944
Szasz, Thomas, 6 Thinking; analytical psychology, 74;
behaviorism and, 132;
Tachistoscope, 943 psychopathology and, 677
Tajfel, Henri, 231 Thirst, 876-879
Tantrums, 37 Thompson, Richard F., 722
Tardive dyskinesia, 943 Thorndike, Edward L., 203, 296, 463,
Tarnow, Eugen, 232 484, 524, 711, 849, 954
Tart, Charles, 217 Thought; obsessions and, 577;
Taste aversions, 202, 485, 526; instincts schizophrenia and, 732; study and
and, 447 measurement, 880-885
Taste buds, 768 Threat, stress and, 821
TAT. See Thematic Apperception Test Threat simulation theory, 213
(TAT) Threshold, 944
Tau proteins, 53 Thurstone, L. L., 453, 463, 874
Taylor, Frederick Winslow, 438 Thyroxine, 944
Teaching; adolescent students and, 16; Time and motion studies, 439
gifted students and, 357 Time loss, multiple personality
Technological moratorium, 417 disorder and, 561
Tectum, 144 Tinbergen, Nikolaas, 424
Teenage pregnancy, 28 Titchener, Edward, 663, 668, 844, 955
Teenage suicide, 859 Token economies, 208
Tegmentum, 144 Tolman, Edward C., 87, 556
Telegraphic speech, 466 Tonic activity, 611
Temporal lobes, 147, 943 Topography, groups, 366
Tensions, 346 Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking,
Teratogens, mental retardation and, 227
537 Torrance, E. Paul, 227
Terman, Lewis, 356, 451, 458, 954 Touch, 768
Terminal illnesses, stages and, 238 Training, 442
Territoriality, 395 Trait emotion, 324
Test-retest reliability, 943 Trait theory, 402, 944
Testing; intelligence, 450; personality Traits, personality, 602
and, 619 Transcendence, 795
Testosterone, 38, 335, 397, 944 Transcendental meditation, 212
Thalamotomy, 587 Transduction, 767, 944
Thalamus, 144, 567, 944 Transference, 80, 641, 659, 904, 944; S-
Thanatology, 238 R theory and, 729
Thanatos, 647 Transformation; analytical psychology,
Thematic Apperception Test (TAT), 80
625, 671, 944 Transformational generative grammar,
Theoretical models, psychotherapy 468
and, 699 Transgenics, 528
Theory, 944 Transsexualism, 352, 389
1006
Index
Transvestic fetishism, 776 655; psychoanalysis and, 638; sleep

Transvestites, 389, 944 and, 780
Trauma; amnesia and, 62; multiple Unconscious motivation, 8
personality disorder and, 559 Undifferentiated schizophrenia, 734
Treatment and Education of Autistic Unipolar depression, 248, 945
and Related Communication Universal grammar, 468
Handicapped Children (TEACCH), UR. See Unconditioned response (UR)
125 US. See Unconditioned stimulus (US)
Treatment of Depression Collaborative
Research Program, 162 Valence, 323
Trial and error, 486 Validity, 945; logic and, 500
Tricyclic antidepressants, 301, 541, 944 Van Bourgondien, Mary, 124
Triggers, 9 Van Geert, Paul, 474
True negatives, 271 Variables, 339; controlling, 713;
True positives, 271 situational, 383
Trust, personality disorders and, 607 Vascular dementia, 243
Truth, logic and, 500 Verbal behavior, 132, 468
Tryon, Robert, 87 Vernon, Philip E., 404, 453
Tuckman, Bruce, 365 Vicarious experiences, 790
Tulving, Endel, 44 Vicarious learning, 945
Turner, John, 231 Victimization, learned helplessness
Turner, Ralph, 756 and, 479
Tversky, Amos, 183 Violence; crowds and, 233; domestic,
Twelve-step groups, 866 277-284; sexual, 278
Twin studies; intelligence and, 705; Visceral responses, 323
personality and, 610; Visions, dreaming and, 285
psychopathology and, 678; Visual cortex, 945
schizophrenia and, 741; stress and, Visual cues, imprinting and, 424
839; temperament and, 839 Visual dyslexia, 945
Two-dimensional circumplex model of Vogel, Philip, 148
stress, 820 Voice disorders, 809
Two-factor model of phobias, 631 Voluntarism, 843
Two-factor theory, 93, 944 Vomiting, eating disorders and, 309
Type A behavior pattern, 614, 685, 837 Voyeurism, 774, 945
Type A personality, 944 Vygotsky, Lev, 471
Ultrasound, 769 Wagnen, William van, 148

Umwelt, 769 Wagner, Allan, 724
Uncertainty, personal constructs Wagner, Hugh, 37
theory and, 596 Walker, Lawrence J., 890
Unconditional positive regard, 10, 944 Walker, Lenore, 278
Unconditioned response (UR), 202, Wallace, R. K., 220
485, 589, 944 Walster, Elaine Hatfield, 116
Unconditioned stimulus (US), 201, Walters, Richard H., 792
485, 589, 944 Warden, Carl J., 294
Unconscious, 216, 647, 677, 900, 904, Warfare, death and, 239
945; collective, 73, 78; dreams and, Watson, John B., 9, 128, 184, 211, 256,
287; Lacan, Jacques, 68; personal, 330, 524, 592, 628, 635, 663, 729,
72, 78; personality and, 602, 610, 849, 955
1007
Psychology Basics
Watts, James W., 694 Women on Words and Images, 353

Wavelength, 945 Women’s movement, 898
Wechsler, David, 451, 458 Women’s psychology; Freud, Sigmund,
Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale 900-907; Gilligan, Carol, 886-893;
(WAIS), 357 Horney, Karen, 894-899
Wechsler scales, 459 Woodworth, Robert S., 849
Weight, eating disorders and, 306 Word association, 76
Werner, Heinz, 257 Work inhibition, 897
Wertheimer, Max, 345, 668, 762 Working memory, 185
Wetherall, Charles F., 225 Working through, 701, 945
White, Robert, 553 Written expression, disorder of, 493
White matter, 945 Wundt, Wilhelm, 184, 211, 662, 668,
Wicklund, Robert, 749 771, 843, 955
Wiesel, Torsten, 87
Wife abuse, 277 Xenophobia, 630
Wilcutt, E., 496
Wing, John, 157 Yamada, Jeni, 473
Withdrawal reflex, 720 Yerkes, Robert, 439, 458
Withdrawn personality, 796 Yerkes-Dodson law, 822, 945
Within-subject design, 945 Yin, Robert, 151
Wolpe, Joseph, 133, 593, 635, 702
Women; achievement need and, 627; Zajonc, Robert, 31
eating disorders and, 307; identity Zeitgeber, 945
crises and, 419 Zoophilia, 776
1008

Psychology Edition PDF

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Psychology Edition PDF

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Psychology

∞ The paper used in these volumes conforms to the American Na-

The essays in this work originally appeared in Magill’s Encyclopedia of

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

printed in the united states of america

Publisher’s Note. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . vii

Abnormality: Psychological Models . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

Case-Study Methodologies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151

Death and Dying. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 236

Eating Disorders . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 306

Field Theory: Kurt Lewin . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 344

Gender-Identity Formation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 349

Habituation and Sensitization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 372

Identity Crises . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 416

• sensation and perception • stress

Christopher M. Aanstoos Dennis Bull

Richard Adler Joan Bartczak Cannon

Mark B. Alcorn Paul J. Chara, Jr.

Jeffrey B. Allen Judith M. Chertoff

Donna Frick-Horbury David Wason Hollar, Jr.

Lisa Friedenberg Sigmund Hsiao

Sanford Golin Robert Jensen

Diane C. Gooding Eugene R. Johnson

Laurence Grimm William B. King

Lonnie J. Guralnick Debra A. King-Johnson

Regan A. R. Gurung Terry J. Knapp

Ruth T. Hannon Gabrielle Kowalski

Carol A. Heintzelman R. Eric Landrum

James Taylor Henderson Kevin T. Larkin

Lindsey L. Henninger Joseph C. LaVoie

Oliver W. Hill, Jr. Leon Lewis

Robert A. Hock Martha Oehmke Loustaunau

Deborah R. McDonald Nancy A. Piotrowski

David S. McDougal Anthony R. Pratkanis

Janine T. Ogden Sanford S. Singer

Randall E. Osborne Virginia Slaughter

Gerard O’Sullivan Lesley A. Slavin

Vicky Phares Sheldon Solomon

Frank J. Sparzo Elaine F. Walker

Sharon Wallace Stark Mary L. Wandrei

Michael A. Steele Daniel L. Wann

∞ The paper used in these volumes conforms to the American Na-

The essays in this work originally appeared in Magill’s Encyclopedia of

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

printed in the united states of america

Logic and Reasoning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 499

Madness: Historical Concepts. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 507

Nervous System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 565

Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 577

Parkinson’s Disease . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 584

Race and Intelligence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 704

S-R Theory: Neal E. Miller and John Dollard . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 725

Schizophrenia: Theoretical Explanations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 738

Women’s Psychology: Carol Gilligan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 886

Categorized List of Entries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 969

principles of psychology in diverse settings for the purposes of teaching, re-

Medical Models of Abnormality

Psychological Models of Abnormality

test has repressed the appointment. In regression, a person reverts back to

behavioral model. A behavioral model, or social-learning model, stem-

Sociocultural Models of Abnormality

them to the disorder when they encounter certain environmental condi-

Sources for Further Study