Exploring Human Psychology: Key Theories and Concepts
Consciousness and the Unconscious
Conscious knowledge involves internal and external perceptions. The unconscious holds mental contents outside awareness. The preconscious contains content that can become conscious.
Psychoanalytic Theory
Instinct theory: Instincts aim for satisfaction, failure leads to anxiety. Id: Inherited instincts seeking satisfaction. Ego: Replaces the pleasure principle with self-preservation. Super-ego: Counteracts the id. Psychoanalysis: Initially a neurosis treatment, it evolved into studying personality development and disorders, using free association to release trauma.
Behaviorism
20th-century psychology, led by John B. Watson, focused on observable behavior. Stimulus-response patterns are key. Conditioning is the association of stimulus and response.
Types of Conditioning
- Classical Conditioning: Ivan Pavlov’s theory of reflex responses to stimuli.
- Operant Conditioning: B.F. Skinner’s theory of behavior modification through reinforcement and punishment.
Cognitive Psychology
Studies mental processes in knowledge, represented by Jean Piaget. Cognitive dissonance is the contradiction between thought and perception (L. Festinger). Cognitivism proposes innate mental structures.
Humanistic Psychology
Emerged in the USA, emphasizing the whole person and existential issues. Maslow’s pyramid: Physiological, Safety, Belonging, Esteem, Self-actualization.
Philosophical Perspectives on Mind and Body
Platonic Dualism
Plato distinguished body and soul, the body being the soul’s prison.
Aristotelian Solution
Soul and body are united in substance (hilemorfismo).
Cartesian Dualism
Humans consist of mental and corporeal substances, united through the pineal gland.
Materialism
Enlightenment thinkers viewed the soul as fantasy, reducing humans to material elements.
Positivism
Auguste Comte’s focus on experimental methods, rejecting metaphysics.
Current Visions
- Identity Theory: Mental states are neurophysiological brain states.
- Neurophysiological Dualism: Mind and brain are separate but interacting entities (John Eccles).
- Functionalism: Mental processes are physical states generated by the brain.
- Emergentism: Matter produces emergent results (Mario Bunge).
Human Reason and Emotion
Humans are recognized as reasoning beings. Socratic intellectualism: Knowledge leads to goodness. Stoicism: Control of passions. Rationalism: Emphasizes reason (René Descartes). Hume: Actions stem from feelings. Nietzsche’s Vitalism: Apollonian (rational) vs. Dionysian (vital).
Emotional Intelligence
Ability to recognize and manage own and others’ feelings.
Existentialism
Martin Heidegger and Jean-Paul Sartre: Existence precedes essence.
Fatalism and Determinism
Fatalism: Events are predetermined. Determinism: Events are conditioned by various factors (theological, economic, physical, biological, genetic, environmental, psychic, social, character).
Human Freedom
Humans are masters of their own destiny.