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LONDON, NEW YORK, MELBOURNE,
MUNICH, AND DELHI
CATHERINE COLLIN
A clinical psychologist, our consultant Catherine
Collin is an Associate Professor (Senior Lecturer in
Psychological Therapies) at the University of Plymouth
in England. Catherine’s interests lie in primary care
mental health and cognitive behavior therapy.
NIGEL BENSON
A lecturer in philosophy and psychology, Nigel Benson
has written several bestselling books on the subject of
psychology, including Psychology for Beginners and
Introducing Psychiatry.
JOANNAH GINSBURG
A clinical psychologist and journalist, Joannah
Ginsburg works in community treatment centers in
New York City, Boston, Philadelphia, and Dallas, and
regularly contributes to psychology publications. She
is joint author of This Book has Issues: Adventures in
Popular Psychology.
VOULA GRAND
As a business psychologist, Voula Grand consults for
international corporations on leadership and executive
performance. Her first novel is Honor’s Shadow. She is
currently writing the sequel, Honor’s Ghost.
MERRIN LAZYAN
A writer, editor, and classical singer, Merrin Lazyan
studied psychology at Harvard University and has
worked on several fiction and nonfiction books,
spanning a broad range of topics.
MARCUS WEEKS
A writer and musician, Marcus Weeks studied
philosophy and worked as a teacher before embarking
on a career as an author. He has contributed to many
books on the arts and popular sciences.
CONTRIBUTORS
10 INTRODUCTION
PHILOSOPHICAL
ROOTS
PSYCHOLOGY IN THE MAKING
18 The four temperaments
of personality
Galen
20 There is a reasoning
soul in this machine
Descartes
22 Dormez! Abbé Faria
24 Concepts become forces
when they resist one
another
Johann Friedrich Herbart
26 Be that self which one
truly is Søren Kierkegaard
28 Personality is composed
of nature and nurture
Francis Galton
30 The laws of hysteria
are universal
Jean-Martin Charcot
31 A peculiar destruction of
the internal connections
of the psyche
Emil Kraepelin
32 The beginnings of the
mental life date from
the beginnings of life
Wilhelm Wundt
BEHAVIORISM
RESPONDING TO OUR
ENVIRONMENT
60 The sight of tasty food
makes a hungry man’s
mouth water Ivan Pavlov
62 Profitless acts are
stamped out
Edward Thorndike
66 Anyone, regardless of
their nature, can be
trained to be anything
John B. Watson
72 That great God-given
maze which is our human
world Edward Tolman
74 Once a rat has visited our
grain sack we can plan on
its return Edwin Guthrie
75 Nothing is more natural
than for the cat to “love”
the rat Zing-Yang Kuo
76 Learning is just not
possible Karl Lashley
77 Imprinting cannot be
forgotten! Konrad Lorenz
78 Behavior is shaped by
positive and negative
reinforcement B.F. Skinner
86 Stop imagining the scene
and relax
Joseph Wolpe
38 We know the meaning
of “consciousness” so
long as no one asks us
to define it
William James
46 Adolescence is
a new birth
G. Stanley Hall
48 24 hours after learning
something, we forget
two-thirds of it
Hermann Ebbinghaus
50 The intelligence of
an individual is not
a fixed quantity
Alfred Binet
54 The unconscious sees the
men behind the curtains
Pierre Janet
CONTENTS
PSYCHOTHERAPY
THE UNCONSCIOUS
DETERMIINES BEHAVIOR
92 The unconscious is the
true psychical reality
Sigmund Freud
100 The neurotic carries a
feeling of inferiority with
him constantly
Alfred Adler
102 The collective unconscious
is made up of archetypes
Carl Jung
108 The struggle between the
life and death instincts
persists throughout life
Melanie Klein
110 The tyranny of the
“shoulds” Karen Horney
111 The superego becomes
clear only when it
confronts the ego with
hostility Anna Freud
112 Truth can be tolerated
only if you discover it
yourself Fritz Perls
118 It is notoriously
inadequate to take an
adopted child into one’s
home and love him
Donald Winnicott
122 The unconscious is the
discourse of the Other
Jacques Lacan
124 Man’s main task is to
give birth to himself
Erich Fromm
COGNITIVE
PSYCHOLOGY
THE CALCULATING BRAIN
160 Instinct is a dynamic
pattern Wolfgang Köhler
162 Interruption of a task
greatly improves its
chances of being
remembered
Bluma Zeigarnik
163 When a baby hears
footsteps, an assembly
is excited
Donald Hebb
164 Knowing is a process
not a product
Jerome Bruner
166 A man with conviction
is a hard man to change
Leon Festinger
168 The magical number 7,
plus or minus 2
George Armitage Miller
174 There’s more to the
surface than meets
the eye
Aaron Beck
178 We can listen to only one
voice at once
Donald Broadbent
186 Time’s arrow is bent
into a loop
Endel Tulving
192 Perception is externally
guided hallucination
Roger N. Shepard
130 The good life is a process
not a state of being
Carl Rogers
138 What a man can be,
he must be
Abraham Maslow
140 Suffering ceases to be
suffering at the moment
it finds a meaning
Viktor Frankl
141 One does not become fully
human painlessly
Rollo May
142 Rational beliefs create
healthy emotional
consequences
Albert Ellis
146 The family is the
“factory” where people
are made
Virginia Satir
148 Turn on, tune in, drop out
Timothy Leary
149 Insight may cause
blindness
Paul Watzlawick
150 Madness need not be all
breakdown. It may also be
break-through
R.D. Laing
152 Our history does not
determine our destiny
Boris Cyrulnik
154 Only good people get
depressed Dorothy Rowe
155 Fathers are subject to
a rule of silence
Guy Corneau
SOCIAL
PSYCHOLOGY
BEING IN A WORLD
OF OTHERS
218 You cannot understand
a system until you try
to change it
Kurt Lewin
224 How strong is the
urge toward social
conformity?
Solomon Asch
228 Life is a dramatically
enacted thing
Erving Goffman
230 The more you see it,
the more you like it
Robert Zajonc
236 Who likes competent
women?
Janet Taylor Spence
237 Flashbulb memories
are fired by events
of high emotionality
Roger Brown
238 The goal is not to advance
knowledge, but to be
in the know Serge Moscovici
240 We are, by nature, social
beings William Glasser
242 We believe people get
what they deserve
Melvin Lerner
244 People who do crazy
things are not
necessarily crazy
Elliot Aronson
246 People do what they
are told to do
Stanley Milgram
254 What happens when
you put good people
in an evil place?
Philip Zimbardo
256 Trauma must be
understood in terms
of the relationship
between the individual
and society
Ignacio Martín-Baró
193 We are constantly on
the lookout for causal
connections
Daniel Kahneman
194 Events and emotion are
stored in memory together
Gordon H. Bower
196 Emotions are a runaway
train Paul Ekman
198 Ecstasy is a step into
an alternative reality
Mihály Csíkszentmihályi
200 Happy people are
extremely social
Martin Seligman
202 What we believe with
all our hearts is not
necessarily the truth
Elizabeth Loftus
208 The seven sins of memory
Daniel Schacter
210 One is not one’s thoughts
Jon Kabat-Zinn
211 The fear is that biology
will debunk all that we
hold sacred
Steven Pinker
212 Compulsive behavior
rituals are attempts to
control intrusive thoughts
Paul Salkovskis
DEVELOPMENTAL
PHILOSOPHY
FROM INFANT TO ADULT
262 The goal of education is to
create men and women
who are capable of doing
new things Jean Piaget
270 We become ourselves
through others
Lev Vygotsky
271 A child is not beholden to
any particular parent
Bruno Bettelheim
272 Anything that grows
has a ground plan
Erik Erikson
274 Early emotional bonds are
an integral part of human
nature John Bowlby
278 Contact comfort
is overwhelmingly
important Harry Harlow
279 We prepare children for
a life about whose course
we know nothing
Françoise Dolto
280 A sensitive mother
creates a secure
attachment Mary Ainsworth
282 Who teaches a child to
hate and fear a member
of another race?
Kenneth Clark
284 Girls get better
grades than boys
Eleanor E. Maccoby
286 Most human behavior
is learned through
modeling
Albert Bandura
292 Morality develops in
six stages
Lawrence Kohlberg
294 The language organ
grows like any other
body organ
Noam Chomsky
298 Autism is an extreme
form of the male brain
Simon Baron-Cohen
PSYCHOLOGY OF
DIFFERENCE
PERSONALITY AND
INTELLIGENCE
304 Name as many uses
as you can think of
for a toothpick
J.P. Guilford
306 Did Robinson Crusoe lack
personality traits before
the advent of Friday?
Gordon Allport
314 General intelligence
consists of both fluid and
crystallized intelligence
Raymond Cattell
316 There is an association
between insanity and
genius Hans J. Eysenck
322 Three key motivations
drive performance
David C. McClelland
324 Emotion is an essentially
unconscious process
Nico Frijda
326 Behavior without
environmental cues
would be absurdly chaotic
Walter Mischel
328 We cannot distinguish
the sane from the insane
in psychiatric hospitals
David Rosenhan
330 The three faces of Eve
Thigpen & Cleckley
332 DIRECTORY
340 GLOSSARY
344 INDEX
351 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
10
Among all the sciences,
psychology is perhaps the
most mysterious to the
general public, and the most prone
to misconceptions. Even though its
language and ideas have infiltrated
everyday culture, most people have
only a hazy idea of what the subject
is about, and what psychologists
actually do. For some, psychology
conjures up images of people in
white coats, either staffing an
institution for mental disorders or
conducting laboratory experiments
on rats. Others may imagine a man
with a middle-European accent
psychoanalyzing a patient on a
couch or, if film scripts are to be
believed, plotting to exercise some
form of mind control.
Although these stereotypes
are an exaggeration, some truth
lies beneath them. It is perhaps
the huge range of subjects that fall
under the umbrella of psychology
(and the bewildering array of terms
beginning with the prefix “psych-”)
that creates confusion over what
psychology entails; psychologists
themselves are unlikely to agree
on a single definition of the word.
“Psychology” comes from the
ancient Greek psyche, meaning
“soul” or “mind,” and logia, a
“study” or “account,” which seems
to sum up the broad scope of the
subject, but today the word most
accurately describes “the science
of mind and behavior.”
The new science
Psychology can also be seen as a
bridge between philosophy and
physiology. Where physiology
describes and explains the physical
make-up of the brain and nervous
system, psychology examines the
mental processes that take place
within them and how these are
manifested in our thoughts, speech,
and behavior. Where philosophy is
concerned with thoughts and ideas,
psychology studies how we come
to have them and what they tell us
about the workings of our minds.
All the sciences evolved from
philosophy, by applying scientific
methods to philosophical questions,
but the intangible nature of
subjects such as consciousness,
perception, and memory meant that
psychology was slow in making
the transition from philosophical
speculation to scientific practice.
In some universities, particularly in
the US, psychology departments
started out as branches of the
philosophy department, while in
others, notably those in Germany,
they were established in the science
faculties. But it was not until the
late 19th century that psychology
became established as a scientific
discipline in its own right.
The founding of the world’s
first laboratory of experimental
psychology by Wilhelm Wundt
at the University of Leipzig in
1879 marked the recognition of
psychology as a truly scientific
subject, and as one that was
breaking new ground in previously
unexplored areas of research.
In the course of the 20th century,
psychology blossomed; all of its
major branches and movements
evolved. As with all sciences, its
history is built upon the theories
and discoveries of successive
generations, with many of the older
theories remaining relevant to
contemporary psychologists. Some
areas of research have been the
subject of study from psychology’s
INTRODUCTION
Psychology has a long past,
but only a short history.
Hermann Ebbinghaus
11
earliest days, undergoing different
interpretations by the various
schools of thought, while others
have fallen in and out of favor,
but each time they have exerted
a significant influence on
subsequent thinking, and have
occasionally spawned completely
new fields for exploration.
The simplest way to approach
the vast subject of psychology for
the first time is to take a look at
some of its main movements, as
we do in this book. These occurred
in roughly chronological order, from
its roots in philosophy, through
behaviorism, psychotherapy, and
the study of cognitive, social, and
developmental psychology, to the
psychology of difference.
Two approaches
Even in its earliest days, psychology
meant different things to different
people. In the US, its roots lay in
philosophy, so the approach taken
was speculative and theoretical,
dealing with concepts such as
consciousness and the self. In
Europe, the study was rooted in the
sciences, so the emphasis was on
examining mental processes such
as sensory perception and memory
under controlled laboratory
conditions. However, even the
research of these more scientifically
oriented psychologists was limited
by the introspective nature of their
methods: pioneers such as Hermann
Ebbinghaus became the subject of
their own investigations, effectively
restricting the range of topics to
those that could be observed in
themselves. Although they used
scientific methods and their
theories laid the foundations for
the new science, many in the next
generation of psychologists found
their processes too subjective, and
began to look for a more objective
methodology.
In the 1890s, the Russian
physiologist Ivan Pavlov conducted
experiments that were to prove
critical to the development of
psychology in both Europe and
the US. He proved that animals
could be conditioned to produce
a response, an idea that developed
into a new movement known as
behaviorism. The behaviorists felt
that it was impossible to study
mental processes objectively, but
found it relatively easy to observe
and measure behavior: a
manifestation of those processes.
They began to design experiments
that could be conducted under
controlled conditions, at first on
animals, to gain an insight into
human psychology, and later on
humans.
The behaviorists’ studies
concentrated almost exclusively
on how behavior is shaped by
interaction with the environment;
this “stimulus–response” theory
became well known through the
work of John Watson. New learning
theories began to spring up in
Europe and the US, and attracted
the interest of the general public.
However, at much the same time
as behaviorism began to emerge in
the US, a young neurologist
in Vienna started to develop a
theory of mind that was to overturn
contemporary thinking and inspire
a very different approach. Based
on observation of patients and case
histories rather than laboratory
experiments, Sigmund Freud’s
psychoanalytic theory marked ❯❯
INTRODUCTION
The first fact for us then, as
psychologists, is that thinking
of some sort goes on.
William James
12
a return to the study of subjective
experience. He was interested in
memories, childhood development,
and interpersonal relationships,
and emphasized the importance
of the unconscious in determining
behavior. Although his ideas were
revolutionary at the time, they
were quickly and widely adopted,
and the notion of a “talking cure”
continues within the various forms
of psychotherapy today.
New fields of study
In the mid-20th century, both
behaviorism and psychoanalysis
fell out of favor, with a return to the
scientific study of mental
processes. This marked the
beginning of cognitive psychology,
a movement with its roots in the
holistic approach of the Gestalt
psychologists, who were interested
in studying perception. Their work
began to emerge in the US in the
years following World War II; by the
late 1950s, cognitive psychology
had become the predominant
approach. The rapidly growing
fields of communications and
computer science provided
psychologists with a useful
analogy; they used the model of
information processing to develop
theories to explain our methods of
attention, perception, memory and
forgetting, language and language
acquisition, problem-solving and
decision-making, and motivation.
Even psychotherapy, which
mushroomed in myriad forms
from the original “talking cure,”
was influenced by the cognitive
approach. Cognitive therapy and
cognitive-behavioral therapy
emerged as alternatives to
psychoanalysis, leading to
movements such as humanist
psychology, which focused on the
qualities unique to human life.
These therapists turned their
attention from healing the sick to
guiding healthy people toward
living more meaningful lives.
While psychology in its early
stages had concentrated largely
on the mind and behavior of
individuals, there was now an
increasing interest in the way we
interact with our environment and
other people; this became the field
of social psychology. Like cognitive
psychology, it owed much to the
Gestalt psychologists, especially
Kurt Lewin, who had fled from Nazi
Germany to the US in the 1930s.
Social psychology gathered pace
during the latter half of the 20th
century, when research revealed
intriguing new facts about our
attitudes and prejudices, our
tendencies toward obedience and
conformity, and our reasons for
aggression or altruism, all of which
were increasingly relevant in the
modern world of urban life and
ever-improving communications.
Freud’s continuing influence
was felt mainly through the new
field of developmental psychology.
Initially concerned only with
childhood development, study in
this area expanded to include
change throughout life, from
infancy to old age. Researchers
charted methods of social, cultural,
and moral learning, and the ways in
which we form attachments. The
contribution of developmental
psychology to education and
training has been significant but,
less obviously, it has influenced
INTRODUCTION
If the 19th century was
the age of the editorial chair,
ours is the century of the
psychiatrist’s couch.
Marshall McLuhan
13
thinking about the relationship
between childhood development
and attitudes to race and gender.
Almost every psychological
school has touched upon the subject
of human uniqueness, but in the
late 20th century this area was
recognized as a field in its own
right in the psychology of difference.
As well as attempting to identify
and measure personality traits and
the various factors that make up
intelligence, psychologists in this
growing field examine definitions
and measures of normality and
abnormality, and look at how much
our individual differences are a
product of our environment or the
result of genetic inheritance.
An influential science
The many branches of psychology
that exist today cover the whole
spectrum of mental life and human
and animal behavior. The overall
scope has extended to overlap with
many other disciplines, including
medicine, physiology, neuroscience,
computer science, education,
sociology, anthropology, and even
politics, economics, and the law.
Psychology has become perhaps
the most diverse of sciences.
Psychology continues to
influence and be influenced by the
other sciences, especially in areas
such as neuroscience and genetics.
In particular, the nature versus
nurture argument that dates back
to Francis Galton’s ideas of the
1920s continues to this day;
recently, evolutionary psychology
has contributed to the debate by
exploring psychological traits as
innate and biological phenomena,
which are subject to the laws of
genetics and natural selection.
Psychology is a huge subject,
and its findings concern every one
of us. In one form or another it
informs many decisions made in
government, business and industry,
advertising, and the mass media.
It affects us as groups and as
individuals, contributing as much
to public debate about the ways our
societies are or might be structured
as it does to diagnosing and
treating mental disorders.
The ideas and theories of
psychologists have become part of
our everyday culture, to the extent
that many of their findings about
behavior and mental processes are
now viewed simply as “common
sense.” However, while some of the
ideas explored in psychology
confirm our instinctive feelings,
just as many make us think again;
psychologists have often shocked
and outraged the public when their
findings have shaken conventional,
long-standing beliefs.
In its short history, psychology
has given us many ideas that have
changed our ways of thinking,
and that have also helped us to
understand ourselves, other people,
and the world we live in. It has
questioned deeply held beliefs,
unearthed unsettling truths, and
provided startling insights and
solutions to complex questions.
Its increasing popularity as a
university course is a sign not
only of psychology’s relevance in
the modern world, but also of the
enjoyment and stimulation that can
be had from exploring the richness
and diversity of a subject that
continues to examine the mysterious
world of the human mind.
INTRODUCTION
The purpose of psychology
is to give us a completely
different idea of the
things we know best.
Paul Valéry
PHILOSO
ROOTSPSYCHOLOGY
IN THE MAKING