PsychNut » People In Psych

Great Minds, Great Ideas

Dr. Ken Tangen — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 01:20:21 +0000

Theories come out of people’s lives. You can’t separate the theory from the person. To understand the theories of psychology, you have to look closely at the those who generated those theories, and the people who infludenced them. The more you know about the person behind the theory, the better you’ll understand the theory.

Similarly, your theory will come from your background. You may never formalize your theory but since you have ideas and make assumptions about why people act the way they do, I believe everyone has an internal theory.

If you decide to formalize your theory, you’ll need to take a closer look at youself. Your theory will be better, the more you know your beliefs, your assumptions, and yourself.

Don’t worry. Other people have thought about the major issues you’ll want to address. You don’t have to start from nothing. You can, and should, steal from others (giving complete credit where due, of course). In generating a theory, it’s not stealing to agree with great thinkers who have gone before. It’s building on the shoulders of giants. Highly recommended.

Aaron Beck

Sat, 31 Oct 2009 18:29:32 +0000

Aaron Beck (1921-) combined Rogers and Freud to create Cognitive Therapy.

From Rogers, he takes the importance of developing a relationship with the client, and Roger’s emphasis on how you see the world (phenomenology). From Freud, Beck takes the importance of treating severe conditions, the value of a good medical education (Beck got his MD from Yale), and the great impact that internal processing has on external behavior.

But instead of Freudian conflicts, the heart of Beck’s approach is the impact of beliefs on behavior. What we believe impacts what we do. Just as our perceptual processes can be distorted, our thinking can be biased.

If we have an internal representation of ourselves as hopeless or unlovable, that cognitive bias will impact our behavior. We can make ourselves miserable by over-generalizing a bad day as all life being bad. We might magnify a small issue into a big issue, make everything all about us, or jump to conclusions before we have any evidence. All of these are problems of thinking. Beck’s approach, then, is to fix behavior by fixing the thinking and its underlying assumptions.

These assumptions are called schemas. They are assumptions about how the world operates. We generate rules about ourselves, other people, and the world in general. We decide whether we are good, whether others can be trusted, and whether the world is neutral, on our side or against us.

Some of these schemas are very general but many are specific to our experience and unique to us. We might have a general rule of life (be kind to others) and a very specific rule of how to act at home (never ask for advice from your mother unless you want to be criticized).

Schema and values are interchangeable. Values that are at the center of who we are. Think of them as super-schema or super-rules. A schema influences some behavior but values influence a lot of behaviors. If these core values are healthy, they are beneficial to us. But if our core beliefs are based on distortions of reality, we will systematically make errors of reasoning throughout our lives.

If our belief is that we are incapable of making good decisions, this cognitive bias will result in our being indecisive. Similarly, if we believe we are incompetent, we might expect failure and try to get other people to run our lives for us. If we believe we can’t make it through life without help, we might over-value our relationships. Alternatively, if we believe we must make it on our own, we might underestimate the value of intimacy.

The good news is that our personality is not fixed. For Beck, we are what we think. We construct our view of the world from our past experiences and internal processes. If our past twists our thinking, our challenge is to untwist it. Since our thinking causes a lot of our misery, we can make our lives better by examining our assumptions, testing reality and straightening out our thinking.

Despite his emphasis of cognition, Beck is surprisingly behavior oriented. In therapy, clients are taught to specify their behaviors, track them, and modify them. For Beck, thinking and doing are closely tied. Systematic cognitive distortions don’t really matter if they don’t show up in behavior. And teaching people to identify their dichotomous thinking (it has to be this or that; nothing in between) is of little value unless it produces a change of behavior. For Beck, it’s a thinking-doing combo.

Here is an intro to Beck’s logical thinking approach.

Lewis Terman

Sat, 31 Oct 2009 03:18:58 +0000

Born on a farm in central Indiana (12th of 14 kids), Lewis M. Terman (1877-1956) began his education in a 1-room school and ended with a Ph.D. from Clark University. Suffering from tuberculosis, he took became a school principal in San Bernadino, California (for its warm climate) and taught at a local teacher’s college (which later became UCLA).

In 1910, Terman accepted a position at Stanford, where he stayed until 1942. It was at Stanford that Terman learned of Binet and Simon’s intelligence test. Finding the scoring uneven, Terman revised and Americanized the test. In the 1916 revision, known as Stanford-Binet, Terman coined the term “intelligence ratio,” and suggested it be multiplied by 100 for the “IQ.”

Terman embarked on a longitudinal study of 1470 gifted children (average IQ was 151; average age was 11). Contrary to the popular that gifted children end up losers (“early ripe, early rot”), he found that most became college graduates, and many obtained advanced degrees.

To popularize the view of gifted-is-good, Terman helped establish a TV game show (Quiz Kids) to show how good looking, well mannered and friendly intelligent children were. Fortunately, the revelation that the show was rigged didn’t occur until after Terman’s death.

Solon

Sat, 31 Oct 2009 03:17:24 +0000

About the time King Nebuchadnezzar II built the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, Solon (630-560BC) introduced democracy to Athens. Using a four-tier hierarchical structure based on wealth, each class of citizen had certain privileges and responsibilities.

Considered exceptionally wise (one of the Seven Wise Men of Athens), Solon introduced democratic principles to Athens. His version of democracy was not government by the people; it was more like nonbinding consultation between the rich and the people they rule.

Still, it was an improvement; indeed, Solon’s constitutional reform was a major and controversial step toward representative government. An aristocrat by birth, Solon expanded the government by excluding poor aristocrats and adding wealthy non-aristocrats. His approach was to use annual income to determine class status, instead of privilege by birth, which was the standard way of selecting leaders.

In 594 BC, the economy of Athens was in ruins and its people near revolt. The economy relied heavily on agricultural exports but failed crops and excessive exports of grain meant there wasn’t enough food for the Athenians. Farmers were forced into slavery to pay for their debts, and the poor wanted land reform and a redistribution of wealth. The rich wanted more power, and the aristocracy were splintered and unwilling to change.

Given enough power to reconstruct the economy, Solon could have established a tyrannical dictatorship. Instead, he gave everyone a new start. Solon freed the slaves, canceled all debts, limited exports to olive oil, and encouraged an occupational shift from agriculture to trade. Weights and measures were standardized, and loans couldn’t be secured with personal freedom as collateral. Solon also minted Athen’s first coin.

In order to determine class status, Solon instituted a forerunner of income tax. Citizens was required to specify their annual income and were then assigned to one of four social classes of the basis of their wealth. The basis of comparison was the medimni, which is approximately equivalent to a cubic foot of grain or 36 liters of wine. The wealthy (500 medimni or higher), the professional soldier with war-ready horse (300 medimni), the working class with a team of oxen (200 medimni), and the poor (less than 200 medimni). Office holders for the Council of 400 were selected from the top three groups but all 4 strata were able to attend the general assembly.

Although he didn’t do away with the social class distinctions, he imposed constitutional reforms that radically changed the way government operated. Thirty years after Dracon introduced strict written laws to Athens, Solon reformed the society to be more responsive to the peoples’ needs. He kept Draco’s distinction between premeditated and accidental murder, but eliminated the more “draconian” aspects of the law.

Solon’s laws were displayed on wooden tablets that revolved. Although his reforms didn’t go far enough to please the poor and went too far to please the aristocracy, Solon changed the basic structure of Athenian society and laid the foundation for the reforms of Cleisthenes.

Solon came to prominence through his poetry, which he used to inspire, instruct and convince Athenians to action. During the war with Megara, Solon wrote a poem that inspired Athens to rejoin the battle and win the war. It was this poem that made him famous. Having gained fame and influence through poetry, Solon used his literary skill during the reformation of Athens to convince others to accept his proposals. According to Plato, it was Solon who brought the myth of Atlantis to Greece, no doubt through a poem.

Plato

Sat, 31 Oct 2009 03:16:17 +0000

A student of Socrates, Plato (427-347 BC) introduced a dualistic view of the world. Ideas are separate from matter and exist in their own world; matter is an imperfect copy of that reality.

Although Socrates never founded a school, Plato’s Academy offered courses in astronomy, mathematics, philosophy and political science. Differentiating between perfect ideas and imperfect matter, Plato introduced a dualistic view of the world. Ideas are separate from matter and exist in their own world. What we see are imperfect representations of those perfect forms. For Plato, knowledge is reminiscent (existing in the soul before birth), and the psyche is the source of thinking and moral actions.

Plato held that ideas are reality but that matter is an imperfect copy of that reality. For Plato the Form (the general abstraction of the principle) was more important than material example. The Form of circularity is good and pure but a drawn circle is only an approximation of that ideal. Obviously, art would not be highly valued by Plato because it was an imperfect copy of an imperfect copy of reality.

Plato was a dualist, in the sense that he separated ideas (which were good) from matter (which was at worse evil and at best imperfect). In his 35 dialogues, Plato describes the search for wisdom. Ultimately, he concludes that the essence of people (the psyche) are made of three parts: the rational, the will and the appetites. Education raised people from lowly appetites to the use of will and ultimately to the highest human achievement – philosophy. Naturally, Plato suggests that society should be composed of three classes: the philosopher-kings, the military and the merchants.

Although Plato allowed that some knowledge may exist in the soul prior to birth (which he called reminiscence), his emphasis was on learned, infallible knowledge. For Plato, bad behavior was due to the lack of knowledge. He rejected the empiricism of direct observation because is a derived experience and was merely opinion. In contrast, knowledge brings justice, light, and reason.

Plotinus

Sat, 31 Oct 2009 03:15:33 +0000

Plotinus (205-270) was the founder of Neoplatonism. He didn’t just revive Plato’s ideas; he revamped them and combined them with those of Pythagorus. The result is a dualism that contends that the soul and body are completely separate.

Little is known of the childhood and origins of Plotinus. He was said to have been born in Egypt but the exact location is unknown. At 28, he went to Alexandria to study philosophy. In 245, Plotinus moved to Rome. In that same year, Norway was building the last of its sewn boats (sewing was soon to be replaced by iron nails), China invaded what is now South Korea, and both St Nicholas and the Roman Emperor Diocletian were born.

Plotinus coined an illumination metaphor that survived for hundred of years and was used by Descartes. He said the mind is like an eye: it can see truth but only when it is illuminated by God (nous). But God was not the man-God of Christianity or the special revelation of secret knowledge the Gnostics sought. For Plotinus, nous was the essence of eternal, spiritual intelligence and can only be detected by the soul. Everything flows from the central, eternal unity of nous and forms a hierarchy of truth. The soul (psyche), which is derived from nous, emanates to the real world (physis). In this integrated system, then, God is an intellectual unifying construct and is a part of all nature. And truth comes from the spiritual (nous) to the mental (psyche) to the physical (physis).

Plotinus was opposed to Gnosticism because it seemed irrational and presumptuous. He undoubtedly would have held a similar opinion of Christianity or other religions. For Plotinus, the essence of religion was the mystical union one achieves with universal truth. Anything un-Greek just wouldn’t do.

Although not a Christian, Plotinus influenced their view of the soul. Prior to Plotinus, Christians has accepted a more integrated view of body-soul, comparable to that of Jewish traditions. After Plotinus, the soul was thought of as separate from the body. Interestingly, Plotinus would not have conceived of reuniting the soul and body after death but Christian thought clearly teaches such a reunification.

For more on this topic, here’s a video on the Mind-Body Problem.

Pythagoras

Sat, 31 Oct 2009 03:14:32 +0000

Pythagoras (582-500 BC) is best known for the Pythagorean theorem but he viewed mathematics as a religious-philosophical system. He believed in harmony of the universe, orderliness of thought, and transmigration of souls.

Nearly fifty years after Solon and Thales, Pythagoras was born on the island of Sámos, close to the coast of Turkey. The city, which is now called Pythagorion in his honor, was known for its man-made harbor in the shape of frying pan and a tunnel that brought in fresh mountain water. A strong, if not bitter, rival of Miletus, the island of Sámos was a major center for commerce, sculpture and philosophy.

Like Thales, much of what is known about Pythagoras is a combination of fact and fancy. There are apocryphal accounts of his travels to Egypt, the invention of musical scales, miraculous cures and secret writings. More reliable are the accounts that his mother was from Sámos, his father was a tradesman from Tyre, and that he was born sometime between 582-560 BC. In about 530 BC, Pythagoras moved to Crotona, Italy and founded his school of religious-philosophical thought.

Although the Pythagorean Theorem is named in his honor, it is difficult to separate individual accomplishment from its larger context. The Pythagoreans studied prime numbers, the squaring of numbers, and mathematics as part of a religious, political and philosophical approach to life. They believed in the harmony of the universe, the ultimate principle of proportion, and the orderliness of thought. According to this view, the best way to understand the mysteries of life is through obedience, self-examination, and simplicity of food and dress. They believed that planets, including the earth, were not flat but were spheres rotating around a common fire. The Pythagoreans also believed in the transmigration of souls, so it was not unusual that Pythagoras said he could remember all of his previous lives, including having been a warrior in the Trojan War.

Believing that the ultimate explanation of everything could be found in numbers, the Pythagoreans observed the world around them and looked for patterns. At first, numbers were symbols used to describe reality. Eventually, numbers took on a life of their own and this numerology was used to explain everything. Life was a combination of opposites: odd-even, left-right, good-bad, dark-light, masculine-feminine.

Each number had its own properties and power. One was a point, 2 a line, 3 a surface, and 4 a solid. Five was the number of planets, and 6 was a perfect number for it is equal to the sum of its aliquot parts (could be divided by 1, 2 and 3). Seven was a prime number and regulated life (baby until 7, child until 14, married at 21, dead at 70). Eight was harmony for there are eight tones in an octave and 8 objects in the sky (5 planets, sun, moon and earth). Nine was the square of 3 and 10 was the sum of life (the sum of 1, 2, 3 and 4).

For more on the subject, check out these videos:
Ancient Trait Theory
02 If You Know Nothing About Psych: Confucius & Pythagoras

Thales

Sat, 31 Oct 2009 03:13:36 +0000

Although his accomplishment may be apocryphal, Thales (645-625 BC) is credited with stating mathematics first theorems, founding physics by searching for a physis (primary element), and predicting the eclipse of the sun of May 28, 585 BC.

Although Aristotle called him the first philosopher, Thales of Miletus is better known as the first scientist. He was one of the Seven Wise Men of Greece and noted for his knowledge of mathematics, astronomy and physics.

Located approximately 25 miles south of Aydin, Turkey, Miletus was a large, prosperous city with 4 harbors. The city sat on the end of peninsula and was a prominent center of Ionian culture and commerce. Miletus later became the home of Homer and where Hippodamus introduced the idea of a planned city grid. In close proximity, the city sported a 5000 seat theater (which the Romans later expanded to 15000 seats) and natural springs (which Emperor Marcus Aurelius built into a bath complex for his wife Faustina). Today, the city is a landlocked site of ruins but still a popular tourist attraction.

Only slightly younger than Solon, Thales came to notoriety for correctly predicting an eclipse of the sun. Although he probably only predicted a solar event would occur sometime during the year of 585 BC, his accomplishment reached mythological proportions because the eclipse of May 28, 585 BC was nearly total. In addition, it occurred during a battle which Greece eventually won.

It’s not clear whether his prediction was based on astronomy and geometry or by dumb luck, but Thales became a prominent figure of his day, and, as was the custom many apocryphal accounts of amazing accomplishments were attributed to him. For example, Thales is said to have cornered the market in olive oil because of his ability to accurately predict the weather. He also was credited with falling into a well because he was too intent on looking at the stars, measuring the pyramids of Egypt by their shadow, introduced geometry, calculated the sun’s course, believed that the earth was flat, divided the year into 365 days, and discovered the seasons of the year.

It is difficult to differentiate man from myth. Although 300 fragments of Solon’s poems have survived, none of Thales writings have survived. He apparently founded no major school, yet his reputation as a thinker and scientist is substantial. Aristotle called him the first philosopher but his philosophy had more to do with what today would be called science (the nature of the universe and its origins). The mathematical principles attributed to him may well have imported by Thales from Egypt, not personally discovered independently. But these principles, sometimes called Thales’ Theorems (e.g., opposite angles are equal, circle is bisected by its diameter, etc.), form the basis of modern geometry.

In many ways, the primary contribution of Thales was his approach questioning, not the answers themselves. He wanted to find the basic elements from which the complex universe had been derived. Perhaps it was the proximity of Miletus to the sea or the influence of Egyptian thought, but Thales maintained that the cosmos could be reduced to water. Everything comes from water and eventually returns to that fundamental state.

Surprisingly, Thales did not rely on mythical explanations or refer to the powers of pantheistic gods. It was a materialistic explanation that tried to explain the world with simple, natural phenomena.

Zeno

Sat, 31 Oct 2009 03:11:57 +0000

It’s important to keep your Zeno’s clear. There’s Zeno of Elea and Zeno of Citium. Zeno of Elea (Italy) is the one who came up with those paradoxes Aristotle loved. Remember the one about it’s being impossible to reach a goal? In order to reach a goal, one must first travel half the distance. But there are an infinite number of halves, so reaching a goal must be impossible. For Zeno of Elea, reality is reasoning, not the illusion the senses provide.

The other Zeno was Zeno of Citium (333-262 BC). Founded about 1400 BC, Citium was a seaport on southwest coast of Cyprus and was owned at one time or another by Tyre, Assyria, Greece and Persia. The city was deserted during Middle Ages because of the damage to its harbor by earthquakes and silt.

When Zeno of Citium was 23, he moved to Athens and studied Cynic and Platonic philosophy. Then in about 300 BC, Zeno began his own school in Athens. He emphasized self-control, duty and equality. Like Plato, Zeno proclaimed 4 essential virtues: wisdom, courage, justice and temperance (moderation).

The universe was created and set in motion by an ultimate spirit of reason (Logos). It is orderly, consistent and benevolent. The fate of the cosmos and its inhabitants has been predetermined. There are no accidents, so fighting against one’s fate is futile. Consequently, it is the duty and ultimate virtue of every living thing is to become one with the universe and accept what happens in contentment.

Zeno emphasized the importance of rational choices. His tri-part philosophy (logic, physics and ethics) was ultimately a system of ethics, with logic and physics as ways of acquiring the knowledge necessary to make ethical decisions. He called people to duty, not rebellion. Consequently, his views were not opposed by Greek or Roman rulers, and his popularity flourished.

Zeno’s message was one of hope. After Alexander the Great and Aristotle died (323 and 322 BC, respectively), Athens was no longer the political and cultural center of the world. The Greek city-states had provided stability, localized rule and responsive government. Now their power was disappearing and the future was unclear. It was in this context that Zeno’s gospel of courage in the face of suffering was received.

Zeno taught his students from a painted porch (stoa poikile) at his school, so his philosophy became known at stoicism. It was immediately popular and continued to held in high regard for hundreds of years. Both Seneca (3BC-AD65) and Emperor Marcus Aurelius (AD 121-180) were Stoics.

The Stoics believed that destiny is set. The universe determines everything; it is our duty to patiently accept our fate in long-suffering. Happiness is freedom from desire, freedom from fear and freedom from evil. Although the body can be caged, the will cannot be conquered.

Moses Maimonides

Sat, 31 Oct 2009 03:10:48 +0000

Moses Maimonides (1135-1204) was a great Spanish philosopher, an authority on Jewish oral laws, and a major intellectual figure of the Middle Ages. What Saint Augustine was to Christianity, Maimonides was to Judaism. So extensive was his influence that he has been called the Second Moses.

He was born in Cordoba, Spain, which is about 75 miles northeast and upstream of Seville. Although it had been under Islamic rule since 780, Cordoba was a cosmopolitan city of Muslims, Jews and Christians. For 250 years, it was one of the largest cities in Europe and was well known for its leather works, jewelry and silk brocades.

Although some of the splendor had waned by the time Maimonides was born, Cordoba was a major center in south-central Spain. Like much of the Islamic world, the city shaken from its comfortable existence by the revolt of a radical fundamentalist Muslim group, the Almohads. Over a period of 25 years, the Almohads (Affirming The Unity of God) captured Marrakech (1147), Cordoba (1148) and Seville (1172).

Combining tribal rule and centralized government, the Almohads consolidated their power. Interpreted religious purity as the exclusion of other faiths, they outlawed all other religions and made their practice punishable by death. Faced with converting to Islam or leaving Cordoba, the Maimonides family chose a third option: to act Muslim in public and practice Judaism in private. Consequently, from the ages 13-24, Moses and his brother David received a public Islamic education from their schools and a private Jewish education from their father.

Although successful for over a decade, the deception grew increasingly difficult to maintain. In 1159, the Maimonides family moved to Fez, Morocco, where they were unknown and continued their dual existence. But in 1165, after Moses’ teacher (Rabbi Judah ibn Shoshan) was executed for practicing Judaism, the family moved to Cairo, Egypt.

Although re-conversion from Islam was not allowed, Jews in Cairo could practice their religion openly. David (the younger brother) supported the family as a merchant of jewelry and precious gems. Moses gave his life to scholarly pursuits and was active in the Jewish community. Three years later, at the age of 33, Moses completed his 14-volume commentary on the Mishneh. This major work was an analysis of the oral traditions and legal literature of Judaism. It had taken him 10 years to write but the Mishneh Torah is one of most important works of Jewish scholarship ever produced.

Moses’ great success was tempered by the loss of both his father and brother. His father died en route to Cairo or shortly after their arrival. David drowned in the Indian Ocean on a buying trip, taking the family fortune with him. Moses was devastated and consumed with grief for nearly a year. But through no choice of his own, he became the head of the family and responsible for the support of the family, including David’s wife and two children.

Moses turned to the practice of medicine and achieved international acclaim when he was appointed as physician to the sultan of Egypt in 1185. But even with his new responsibilities, Maimonides continued to write. In 1191, he completed his Guide For The Perplexed, an integration of Jewish faith and Aristotelian philosophy. It took 15 years to complete and includes discussions on free will, rationalism, and how to reconcile the nature of God and the presence of evil in the world.

Maimonides was a prolific writer whose works covered medicine, philosophy, science and religion. His works influenced both Christians (including Thomas Aquinas) and Jews. He is best known for his Mishneh Torah and his Guide For The Perplexed, but his Thirteen Articles of Faith is a creed still used by many Orthodox Jews today. So famous was he that his formal name (Rabbi Moses ben Maimon) was simplified to Rambam (an acrostic formed from his initials).