Special fields of psychology

unconscious is composed of two parts; the personal unconscious, which

contains the results of the individual’s entire experience, and the

collective unconscious, the reservoir of the experience of the human race.

In the collective unconscious exist a number of primordial images, or

archetypes, common to all individuals of a given country or historical era.

Archetypes take the form of bits of intuitive knowledge or apprehension and

normally exist only in the collective unconscious of the individual. When

the conscious mind contains no images, however, as in sleep, or when the

consciousness is caught off guard, the archetypes commence to function.

Archetypes are primitive modes of thought and tend to personify natural

processes in terms of such mythological concepts as good and evil spirits,

fairies, and dragons. The mother and the father also serve as prominent

archetypes.

An important concept in Jung’s theory is the existence of two basically

different types of personality, mental attitude, and function. When the

libido and the individual’s general interest are turned outward toward

people and objects of the external world, he or she is said to be

extroverted. When the reverse is true, and libido and interest are centered

on the individual, he or she is said to be introverted. In a completely

normal individual these two tendencies alternate, neither dominating, but

usually the libido is directed mainly in one direction or the other; as a

result, two personality types are recognizable.

Jung rejected Freud’s distinction between the ego and superego and

recognized a portion of the personality, somewhat similar to the superego,

that he called the persona. The persona consists of what a person appears

to be to others, in contrast to what he or she actually is. The persona is

the role the individual chooses to play in life, the total impression he or

she wishes to make on the outside world.

Alfred Adler

Alfred Adler, another of Freud’s pupils, differed from both Freud and Jung

in stressing that the motivating force in human life is the sense of

inferiority, which begins as soon as an infant is able to comprehend the

existence of other people who are better able to care for themselves and

cope with their environment. From the moment the feeling of inferiority is

established, the child strives to overcome it. Because inferiority is

intolerable, the compensatory mechanisms set up by the mind may get out of

hand, resulting in self-centered neurotic attitudes, overcompensations, and

a retreat from the real world and its problems.

Adler laid particular stress on inferiority feelings arising from what he

regarded as the three most important relationships: those between the

individual and work, friends, and loved ones. The avoidance of inferiority

feelings in these relationships leads the individual to adopt a life goal

that is often not realistic and frequently is expressed as an unreasoning

will to power and dominance, leading to every type of antisocial behavior

from bullying and boasting to political tyranny. Adler believed that

analysis can foster a sane and rational “community feeling” that is

constructive rather than destructive.

Otto Rank

Another student of Freud, Otto Rank, introduced a new theory of neurosis,

attributing all neurotic disturbances to the primary trauma of birth. In

his later writings he described individual development as a progression

from complete dependence on the mother and family, to a physical

independence coupled with intellectual dependence on society, and finally

to complete intellectual and psychological emancipation. Rank also laid

great importance on the will, defined as “a positive guiding organization

and integration of self, which utilizes creatively as well as inhibits and

controls the instinctual drives.”

Other Psychoanalytic Schools

Later noteworthy modifications of psychoanalytic theory include those of

the American psychoanalysts Erich Fromm, Karen Horney, and Harry Stack

Sullivan. The theories of Fromm lay particular emphasis on the concept that

society and the individual are not separate and opposing forces, that the

nature of society is determined by its historic background, and that the

needs and desires of individuals are largely formed by their society. As a

result, Fromm believed, the fundamental problem of psychoanalysis and

psychology is not to resolve conflicts between fixed and unchanging

instinctive drives in the individual and the fixed demands and laws of

society, but to bring about harmony and an understanding of the

relationship between the individual and society. Fromm also stressed the

importance to the individual of developing the ability to fully use his or

her mental, emotional, and sensory powers.

Horney worked primarily in the field of therapy and the nature of neuroses,

which she defined as of two types: situation neuroses and character

neuroses. Situation neuroses arise from the anxiety attendant on a single

conflict, such as being faced with a difficult decision. Although they may

paralyze the individual temporarily, making it impossible to think or act

efficiently, such neuroses are not deeply rooted. Character neuroses are

characterized by a basic anxiety and a basic hostility resulting from a

lack of love and affection in childhood.

Sullivan believed that all development can be described exclusively in

terms of interpersonal relations. Character types as well as neurotic

symptoms are explained as results of the struggle against anxiety arising

from the individual’s relations with others and are a security system,

maintained for the purpose of allaying anxiety.

Melanie Klein

An important school of thought is based on the teachings of the British

psychoanalyst Melanie Klein. Because most of Klein’s followers worked with

her in England, this has come to be known as the English school. Its

influence, nevertheless, is very strong throughout the European continent

and in South America. Its principal theories were derived from observations

made in the psychoanalysis of children. Klein posited the existence of

complex unconscious fantasies in children under the age of six months. The

principal source of anxiety arises from the threat to existence posed by

the death instinct. Depending on how concrete representations of the

destructive forces are dealt with in the unconscious fantasy life of the

child, two basic early mental attitudes result that Klein characterized as

a “depressive position” and a “paranoid position.” In the paranoid

position, the ego’s defense consists of projecting the dangerous internal

object onto some external representative, which is treated as a genuine

threat emanating from the external world. In the depressive position, the

threatening object is introjected and treated in fantasy as concretely

retained within the person. Depressive and hypochondriacal symptoms result.

Although considerable doubt exists that such complex unconscious fantasies

operate in the minds of infants, these observations have been of the utmost

importance to the psychology of unconscious fantasies, paranoid delusions,

and theory concerning early object relations.

4. Behaviriourism

The literature of this school of psychology is still awaiting its

bibliographer. Though this interpretation of human actions and

reactions has been strongly criticized by other psychologists, the

leading figures - B.F.Skinner, J.B.Watson and E.C.Tolman - have also

been recognized and respected as great scholars. Skenner`s own summary

About behaviorism, 1974, contained numerous bibliographic references to

this important interpretation of man’s relationship to the world around

him. Strange compilation of references designed to show the errors of

this school of psychology was published by A.A.Roback in 1923 as part

of his critical discussion entitled Behaviorism and Psychology; it is

now only of historical interest.

We have already referred to Robert 1 Watson`s The history of psychology

and behavioral sciences: a bibliographic guide, 1978. in our discussion

of the general background guides to psychology. It suffices to note,

here, that this work, though by one of the leading scholars of the

behaviorist school, is not, and does not pretend to be, a bibliography

of Behaviourism. In some respects the same can be said of

C.Heidenreich`s Dictionary of personality: behavior and adjustment

terms, which appeared in 1968. Both these books have been compiled by

leading members of this behaviorist school and unquestionably

representative of the views of that school. We have mentioned these

works here for that reason, but stress that these are scholarly and

unbiased reference works which do not include or misrepresent

references to other interpretations of human behavior.

5. Gestalt psychology

Gestalt Psychology, school of psychology that deals mainly with the

processes of perception. According to Gestalt psychology, images are

perceived as a pattern or a whole rather than merely as a sum of

distinct component parts. The context of an image plays a key role. For

instance, in the context of a city silhouette the shape of a spire is

perceived as a church steeple. Gestalt psychology tries to formulate

the laws governing such perceptual processes.

Gestalt psychology began as a protest. At the beginning of the 20th

century, associationism dominated psychology. The associationist view

that stimuli are perceived as parts and then built into images excluded

as much as it sought to explain; for instance, it allowed little room

for such human concepts as meaning and value. About 1910, German

researchers Max Wertheimer, Wolfgang Kцhler, and Kurt Koffka rejected

the prevailing order of scientific analysis in psychology. They did

not, however, reject science; rather they sought a scientific approach

more nearly related to the subject matter of psychology. They adopted

that of field theory, newly developed in physics. This model permitted

them to look at perception in terms other than the mechanistic atomism

of the associationists.

Gestalt psychologists found perception to be heavily influenced by the

context or configuration of the perceived elements. The word Gestalt

can be translated from the German approximately as “configuration.” The

parts often derive their nature and purpose from the whole and cannot

be understood apart from it. Moreover, a straightforward summation

process of individual elements cannot account for the whole. Activities

within the total field of the whole govern the perceptual processes.

The approach of Gestalt psychology has been extended to research in

areas as diverse as thinking, memory, and the nature of aesthetics.

Topics in social psychology have also been studied from the

structuralist Gestalt viewpoint, as in Kurt Lewin’s work on group

dynamics. It is in the area of perception, however, that Gestalt

psychology has had its greatest influence.

In addition, several contemporary psychotherapies are termed Gestalt.

These are constructed along lines similar to Gestalt psychology’s

approach to perception. Human beings respond holistically to

experience; according to Gestalt therapists, any separation of mind and

body is artificial. Accurate perception of one’s own needs and of the

world is vital in order to balance one’s experience and achieve “good

Gestalten.” Movement away from awareness breaks the holistic response,

or Gestalt. Gestalt therapists attempt to restore an individual’s

natural, harmonic balance by heightening awareness. The emphasis is on

present experience, rather than on recollections of infancy and early

childhood as in psychoanalysis. Direct confrontation with one’s fears

is encouraged.

6. Cognition psychology

Cognition, act or process of knowing. Cognition includes attention,

perception, memory, reasoning, judgment, imagining, thinking, and speech.

Attempts to explain the way in which cognition works are as old as

philosophy itself; the term, in fact, comes from the writings of Plato and

Aristotle. With the advent of psychology as a discipline separate from

philosophy, cognition has been investigated from several viewpoints.

An entire field—cognitive psychology—has arisen since the 1950s. It studies

cognition mainly from the standpoint of information handling. Parallels are

stressed between the functions of the human brain and the computer concepts

such as the coding, storing, retrieving, and buffering of information. The

actual physiology of cognition is of little interest to cognitive

psychologists, but their theoretical models of cognition have deepened

understanding of memory, psycholinguistics, and the development of

intelligence.

Social psychologists since the mid-1960s have written extensively on the

topic of cognitive consistency—that is, the tendency of a person’s beliefs

and actions to be logically consistent with one another. When cognitive

dissonance, or the lack of such consistency, arises, the person

unconsciously seeks to restore consistency by changing his or her behavior,

beliefs, or perceptions. The manner in which a particular individual

classifies cognitions in order to impose order has been termed cognitive

style.

7. Tests and Measurements

Many fields of psychology use tests and measurement devices. The best-

known psychological tool is intelligence testing. Since the early 1900s

psychologists have been measuring intelligence—or, more accurately, the

ability to succeed in schoolwork. Such tests have proved useful in

classifying students, assigning people to training programs, and

predicting success in many kinds of schooling. Special tests have been

developed to predict success in different occupations and to assess how

much knowledge people have about different kinds of specialties. In

addition, psychologists have constructed tests for measuring aspects of

personality, interests, and attitudes. Thousands of tests have been

devised for measuring different human traits.

A key problem in test construction, however, is the development of a

criterion—that is, some standard to which the test is to be related.

For intelligence tests, for example, the usual criterion has been

success in school, but intelligence tests have frequently been attacked

on the basis of cultural bias (that is, the test results may reflect a

child’s background as much as it does learning ability). For vocational-

interest tests, the standard generally has been persistence in an

occupation. One general difficulty with personality tests is the lack

of agreement among psychologists as to what standards should be used.

Many criteria have been proposed, but most are only indirectly related

to the aspect of personality that is being measured.

Very sophisticated statistical models have been developed for tests,

and a detailed technology underlies most successful testing. Many

psychologists have become adept at constructing testing devices for

special purposes and at devising measurements, once agreement is

reached as to what should be measured.

Types of Tests

Currently, a wide range of testing procedures is used in the U.S. and

elsewhere. Each type of procedure is designed to carry out specific

functions.

Achievement Tests . These tests are designed to assess current performance

in an academic area. Because achievement is viewed as an indicator of

previous learning, it is often used to predict future academic success. An

achievement test administered in a public school setting would typically

include separate measures of vocabulary, language skills and reading

comprehension, arithmetic computation and problem solving, science, and

social studies. Individual achievement is determined by comparison of

results with average scores derived from large representative national or

local samples. Scores may be expressed in terms of “grade-level

equivalents”; for example, an advanced third-grade pupil may be reading on

a level equivalent to that of the average fourth-grade student.

Aptitude Tests. These tests predict future performance in an area in which

the individual is not currently trained. Schools, businesses, and

government agencies often use aptitude tests when assigning individuals to

specific positions. Vocational guidance counseling may involve aptitude

testing to help clarify individual career goals. If a person’s score is

similar to scores of others already working in a given occupation,

likelihood of success in that field is predicted. Some aptitude tests cover

a broad range of skills pertinent to many different occupations. The

General Aptitude Test Battery, for example, not only measures general

reasoning ability but also includes form perception, clerical perception,

motor coordination, and finger and manual dexterity. Other tests may focus

on a single area, such as art, engineering, or modern languages.

Intelligence Tests. In contrast to tests of specific proficiencies or

aptitudes, intelligence tests measure the global capacity of an individual

to cope with the environment. Test scores are generally known as

intelligence quotients, or IQs, although the various tests are constructed

quite differently. The Stanford-Binet is heavily weighted with items

involving verbal abilities; the Wechsler scales consist of two separate

verbal and performance subscales, each with its own IQ. There are also

specialized infant intelligence tests, tests that do not require the use of

language, and tests that are designed for group administration.

The early intelligence scales yielded a mental-age score, expressing the

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