Professional Documents
Culture Documents
After Bea's PPT Psych Reports. 4.5 - 4.6
After Bea's PPT Psych Reports. 4.5 - 4.6
After Bea's PPT Psych Reports. 4.5 - 4.6
Konrad Lorenz
Born in Austria, Konrad Lorenz is best
known for his studies of imprinting.
Imprinting implies that, during a
certain short period of development,
a young animal is highly sensitive to
a certain stimulus that then, but not
at other times, provokes a specific
behavior pattern.
NIKOLAAS TINBERGEN
Born in the Netherlands, Nikolaas
Tinbergen,
a
British
zoologist,
conducted a series of experiments to
analyze various aspects of animals'
behavior.
He was also successful in quantifying
behavior and in measuring the power
or strength of various stimuli in
eliciting specific behavior.
CHARACTERISTICS OF HUMAN
COMMUNICATION
A human's communicative
operations are based on two
fundamentally different
symbolization systems:
1. Nonverbal communication rests
on the analogue principle, and
2. Verbal codification rests on the
digital principle.
SUBHUMAN PRIMATE
DEVELOPMENT
TREATMENT OF ABNORMAL
BEHAVIOR
Stephen Suomi demonstrated that
monkey isolates can be rehabilitated
if they are exposed to monkeys that
promote physical contact without
threatening the isolates with
aggression or overly complex play
interactions.
INDIVIDUAL
DIFFERENCES
Recent research has revealed that some rhesus monkey
infants consistently display fearfulness and anxiety in
situations in which similarly reared peers show normal
exploratory behavior and play.
Long-term follow-up study of these monkeys has
revealed some behavioral differences between fearful
and nonfearful female monkeys when they become
adults and have their first infants.
Fearful female monkeys who grow up in socially benign
and stable environments typically become fine mothers,
but fearful female monkeys who have reacted with
depression to frequent social separations during
childhood are at high risk for maternal dysfunction
EXPERIMENTAL
DISORDERS
STRESS SYNDROMES
Several researchers, including Ivan
Petrovich Pavlov in Russia and W.
Horsley Gantt and Howard Scott
Liddell in the United States, studied
the effects of stressful environments
on animals.
LEARNED HELPLESSNESS
The
learned
helplessness
model
of
depression,
developed
by
Martin
Seligman, is a good example of an
experimental disorder. Dogs were exposed
to electric shocks from which they could not
escape. The dogs eventually gave up and
made no attempt to escape new shocks. The
apparent giving up generalized to other
situations, and eventually the dogs always
appeared to be helpless and apathetic.
In
connection
with
learned
helplessness and the expectation of
inescapable punishment, research on
subjects has revealed brain release
of endogenous opiates, destructive
effects on the immune system, and
elevation of the pain threshold.
UNPREDICTABLE STRESS
Rats subjected to chronic unpredictable
stress (crowding, shocks, irregular feeding,
and interrupted sleep time) show decreases
in movement and exploratory behavior; this
finding
illustrates
the
roles
of
unpredictability and lack of environmental
control in producing stress. These behavioral
changes can be reversed by antidepressant
medication. Animals under experimental
stress become tense, restless, hyperirritable,
or inhibited in certain conflict situations.
DOMINANCE
Being more dominant than peers is
associated with elation, and a fall in
position
in
the
hierarchy
is
associated with depression.
TEMPERAMENT
Temperament mediated by genetics plays a role in
behavior.
For example, one group of pointer dogs was bred for
fearfulness and a lack of friendliness toward persons,
and another group was bred for the opposite
characteristics. The phobic dogs were extremely timid
and fearful and showed decreased exploratory capacity,
increased startle response, and cardiac arrhythmias.
Benzodiazepines diminished these fearful, anxious
responses.
Amphetamines
and
cocaine
aggravated
the
responses of genetically nervous dogs to a greater
extent than they did the responses of the stable dogs.
BRAIN STIMULATION
Catecholamine
production
increases
with self-stimulation of the brain area, and
drugs that decrease catecholamines
decrease the process.
The centers for sexual pleasure and opioid
reception are closely related anatomically.
Heroin addicts report that the so-called
rush after intravenous injection of heroin
is akin to an intense sexual orgasm.
PHARMACOLOGICAL
SYNDROMES
With the emergence of biological
psychiatry, many researchers have used
pharmacological means to produce
syndrome analogues in animal subjects.
Two classic examples are the reserpine
(Serpasil) model of depression and the
amphetamine psychosis model of
paranoid schizophrenia.
SENSORY DEPRIVATION
PSYCHOLOGICAL
THEORIES
Anticipating
psychological
explanation, Sigmund Freud wrote:
It is interesting to speculate what
could happen to ego function if the
excitations or stimuli from the
external world were either drastically
diminished or repetitive. Would there
be an alteration in the unconscious
mental processes and an effect upon
the conceptualization of time?
COGNITIVE
Cognitive theories stress that the
organism is an informationprocessing
machine, whose purpose is optimal
adaptation
to
the
perceived
environment.
Lacking
sufficient
information, the machine cannot form
a cognitive map against which current
experience is matched. Disorganization
and maladaptation then result.
PHYSIOLOGICAL
THEORIES
In
psychiatry,
the
increasingly
acknowledged evidence of biological factors
has altered the view of persons as largely
determined by the outcome of relationships
shaping children's earliest years. And,
although
anthropological
cross-cultural
studies have focused on differences as well
as similarities in human beings, some
anthropologists have emphasized that people
cannot be independent of their cultures and
that even the attempt to study cross-cultural
behavior is a culturally bound viewpoint.
PSYCHOANALYTICAL
THEORY
Beginning
with
Sigmund
Freud,
psychoanalysts have applied their insights to
cultural data. In his 1913 work Totem and
Taboo, Freud described the earliest humans as
a group of brothers who killed and devoured
their violent primal father.
This criminal act and the so-called totem
meal
made
the
brothers
feel
guilty.
Consequently, they formulated rules to
prevent similar acts from occurring, and these
rules were the beginning of social organization.
MARGARET MEAD
In her Coming of Age in Samoa, published in 1928,
Mead described a society in the South Pacific in which
adolescent turmoil widely believed at the time to be
universal appeared not to exist. This was the result,
she argued, of the unusual Samoan culture that
nurtured open, nonpossessive sexual relationships
among adolescents, encouraged communal child
rearing,
and
denigrated
aggressiveness
and
competitiveness.
Her Coming of Age in Samoa (published in 1928) gave a
favorable picture of many aspects of life in a primitive
society and was influential in establishing an attitude of
cultural relativism among many scientists and thinkers.
PSYCHOSOCIAL GROWTH
The effects of early life experiences on adult mental
health and the explanations for deviance or
maladaptive behavior are still controversial issues.
Psychodynamic psychiatrists and theorists rely on
historical data about adverse experiences to explain
later behavior; but new work shows that few
experiences are irreversible. Some affection-deprived
children described by John Bowlby were able to grow up
capable of forming attachments if other experiences
later in life were favorable. Similarly, many successful
adults come from deprived or otherwise toxic homes
and appear to be, or are, invulnerable to these
stressors.
CROSS-CULTURAL
DIAGNOSIS
Jane Murphy and Alexander Leighton studied the
incidence of psychiatric disorders cross-culturally.
Certain conclusions emerged:
(1) both the general category of psychological
deviance and at least several major syndromes
appear to be characteristic of all cultures for which
information is available;
(2) some psychiatric disorders appear to be relatively
or largely culture-specific; and
(3) it is extremely difficult, if not impossible, to
compare incidence or prevalence of most disorders
cross-culturally.
MEDICAL
ANTHROPOLOGY
The sick role, whether in relation to
psychological or physical illness,
occurs in all cultures, but carries
many
different
meanings
and
expectations.
CROSS-CULTURAL
PSYCHIATRY
CULTURE
Culture is a vast, complex concept that is
used to encompass the behavior patterns
and lifestyle of a society, a group of persons
sharing a self-sufficient system of action
that is capable of existing longer than the
life span of an individual and whose
adherents are recruited, at least in part, by
the sexual reproduction of the group
members. Culture consists of shared
symbols, artifacts, beliefs, values, and
attitudes.
SCOPE OF CULTURE
Although the manifestations of
culture are sufficiently broad to be
considered almost infinite, the noted
American anthropologist George P.
Murdock described a long list of
features considered to be universally
present in the hundreds of societies
studied by contemporary
anthropologists.
CULTURE AND
PSYCHOPATHOLOGY
Culture is an all-pervasive medium for humans.
It is driven by the human brain's unique ability
to create images and symbols and structure
them into complex wholes that, in turn, can
drive brain function to produce defined
behaviors and modulate instinctually driven
ones. The ability to mediate biologicalfunctions
via symbolic (and image) representation and
manipulation is dramatically expanded in
humans by the function of awareness or
consciousness leading to the notion of the self.
CULTURAL IDENTITY
DSM-IV-TR recommends that in
assessing an individual's cultural
identity, clinicians should note the
individual's
ethnic
or
cultural
reference group.
For immigrants and ethnic minorities,
they should assess the degree of
involvement with both culture of
origin and host culture.
CULTURE-BOUND
SYNDROMES
Extreme diversity is seen among the
peoples of the world concerning the
recognition,
classification,
and
understanding
of
mental
behavior
symptoms.
Western psychiatrists classify mental
diseases according to the DSM-IV-TR and
the tenth edition of the International
Classification of Diseases (ICD-10), which
are thought to reflect scientific categories.