Womack Report

September 4, 2008

Learning, September 4 2008

Filed under: Notes,School — Tags: , — Phillip Womack @ 9:47 pm

Back in my psych class.  Financial aid awards apparently got sorted out, finally.  Actually got some Pell Grant money, which shocks me.  They’re trying to split it out over fall and spring, which is awkward insofar as I won’t be here in the spring.  Need to talk to the financial aid people and make sure I get my ducks in a row.  Also need to talk to the Office of Business people, since the system won’t let me apply to graduate on-line.  Probably didn’t get my speech credit from Lonestar.  Or lost some paperwork somewhere.Five major paradigms in Psychology.

  1. Psychophysiological – Based on mechanical/chemical brain function.  Attributes psychology to physical mechanisms.
  2. Psychoanalytical – Freud.  Based on interactions of unconscious and conscious parts of mind.
  3. Behavioral – Rebellion against psychoanalytical perspective.  Based on interaction between behavior and environment, not hidden factors.  Learning is key, because most psychology is learned.
  4. Cognitive – Rational/Creative thinking.  Partially agree with Behaviorists, but more emphasis on the process of thinking and understanding.  What you do is important, but how you think about things influences and interacts with what you do.
  5. Humanistic/Existential – More philosophical than the others.

Behavior can be divided into acquired behaviors and inherited behaviors.

Humans do not actually have instincts.  Instincts, in this case, being fixed action patterns, rather than simple inclinations.  Complex human behavior is always acquired.  Humans do have hundreds of reflexive behaviors, but no instincts.  (Apparently, babies swim in a quasi-instinctual fashion, but it’s uncertain to what extent this is just multiple reflexes acting in concert, and this swimming behavior goes away eventually.)

Some reflexes are lifelong.  Some reflexes dissipate over time.  Some reflexes appear as a person matures.

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