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By Hugo Schouppe, 2009-09-03 21:37

Chapter 1 of the handbook answers the question: what is psychology? What does the word mean? Where does it come from? What is the difference between psychology and common sense (folk-psychology)? Is parapsychology also a kind of psychology? …. Three very common mistakes in the explanation of behaviour are discussed: prejudice and stereotype, the fundamental attribution error and self-fulling prophecy. The chapter ends with a very brief history of psychology. Each chapter also contains some assignments. You will find the answers of the 6 assignments in chapter 1 throughout this text.

Psyche and Eros - painting of Sir Anthony van Dyck (1599-1641)

Some people think that the word psychology comes from the Greek myth of Psyche and Eros [full text] [summary] It is a very famous myth, almost as famous as King Oedipus, about a girl that was so beautiful that the goddess Aphrodite (Venus) became so jealous that she sent her son Eros (Cupid) to make Psyche fall in love with a repugnant creature. The picture at the right is the interpretation of Sir Anthony Van Dyck; a Flemish painter who was born in Antwerp [ more paintings]. There are several explanations of the myth. Maybe, Psyche’s parents, the king and queen, represent God and Matter. Psyche herself stands for the soul and her sisters for the flesh and free will. Psyche is the most beautiful, meaning that soul reigns over flesh and free will. Aphrodite represents lust who sends desire (Eros). When Psyche is not allowed to look at Eros, it can mean that one should not give in to desire. Most psychological interpretations consider the story to be the fantasy of a young women.

Psychology is about the study of human behaviour. Observing people, trying to predict their reactions, searching for their motives is what we all do, of course, when interacting with other people. But, we don’t call that psychology. It is common sense of folk psychology as you can find in proverbs. Sometimes these proverbs contain valuable information; sometimes they are quite wrong. For example, the English proverbs “Absence makes the heart grow fonder” and “Out of sight, out of mind” are quite contradictory. Do opposites attract, or do birds of a feather flock together? You can find a few more of these in Robert Epstein’s article in Psychology Today: Folk Wisdom: Was Grandma Right?  Horoscopes are a prediction of someone’s future based on the relative positions of the planets at birth.  While most university students do no endorse strong belief in astrology (90%), less than a quarter report no belief at all. One determinant of acceptance of astrology is the favourableness, or social desirability, of the particular character analysis it offers. Those for whom astrological theory provides a more attractive self-portrait are more likely to express belief in the validity of astrology (Hamilton, 2001; [full text])

The Stanford Prison Experiment of Zimbardo is a very famous experiment in psychology that illustrates the power of prejudices and stereotypes. In August 1971, about 70 young men, mostly college students eager to earn $15 a day for two weeks, volunteered as subjects for an experiment on prison life that had been advertised in the local newspaper. After interviews and a battery of psychological tests, the two dozen judged to be the most normal, average and healthy were selected to participate, assigned randomly either to be guards or prisoners. Those who would be prisoners were booked at a real jail, then blindfolded and driven to campus where they were led into a makeshift prison in the basement. Those assigned to be guards were given uniforms and instructed that they were not to use violence but that their job was to maintain control of the prison. After a few days the experiment has to be stopped because of extreme violence. You can also download the full-text of the original article, describing the experiment. There is also a fictionalized movie about it: Das experiment.

Another nice Greek myth is the one about Pygmalion [full text]. Pygmalion was a sculptor who carved a woman statue out of ivory. The statue was so beautiful that he fell in love with it and  pretended it was an actual woman. He gave it presents and treated it as if it were alive. Because the statue did not respond, Pygmalion prayed to Aphrodite, who brought the statue to life. George Bernard Shaw took the name Pygmalion as the title of his play about an English professor who turns a poor girl from the streets into a fashionable society woman. Shaw’s story was the basis of the later Broadway musical and movie My Fair Lady. Another name for the Pygmalion effect is “self-fulfilling prophecy”; which became very famous in psychology with the classic but controversial experiment of  Rosenthal and Jacobson (1968); see separate post.

Parapsychology is the study of paranormal phenomena. These are phenomena which can’t be explained by normal scientific explanations. Ray Kurzweil on the other hand is a very acknowledged scientist. On his website he make the prediction that computers will become smarter than people.

The famous print by R.C. James presents the image of a dalmatian (see handbook page 13) and is used to show that knowledge can affect our perception. However there are a lot more animals to see in this illustration, ranging from a lion a strange bizarre elephant (van Tonder et al, 2002).