Research Proposal

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Research Proposal

• 1. go over notes
• 2. topics?

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2 26 09

• Ch 9 Psychoanalytic Approaches Historical
• 1. Freud and some of his theory
• 2. Influenced by Freudian theory
• Homophobia
• Terror management
• Self-control struggles

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Ch 9 Psychoanalytic Approaches Historical

• Freud
• Founder of psychoanalytic school
• Spent most of life in Vienna
• Career
• Started as a neurologist
• To support family, went into private practice

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Ch 9 Psychoanalytic Approaches Historical

• Freuds early career
• Studied hypnosis with Charcot in France
• Came to specialize in nervous disorders
• Became convinced unconscious causes
• First book the Interpretation of Dreams 1900
• Unconscious mental life
• Reflected in dreams
• Analysis of dreams to probe the unconscious
• Do you think dreams hide U secrets?

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Ch 9 Psychoanalytic Approaches Historical

• By 1902
• Small group, including Alfred Adler
• By 1908
• Much larger group
• Vienna Psychoanalytic Society
• In 1909
• First and only scholarly visit to US
• In 1910
• International Psychoanalytic Association formed

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Ch 9 Psychoanalytic Approaches Historical

• Later in life
• Germany invaded Austria 1938
• Began persecuting Jews
• Freud was a Jew
• Nazis burned his books
• Freud, wife, 6 children
• Feared for safety
• Moved to London
• Freud died a year later

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Ch 9 Psychoanalytic Approaches Historical

• How Freud died
• Smoking 20 cigars a day
• Developed jaw
• and throat cancer
• Unsuccessful surgeries
• Died at 82

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Ch 9 Psychoanalytic Approaches Historical

• Psychic energy
• Limited capacity motivational energy
• Used for everything
• Gets channeled in particular ways
• Either healthy
• Or unhealthy
• Treatment
• Remove problematic fixations
• Energy freed up functionally

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Ch 9 Psychoanalytic Approaches Historical

• What are well-springs of psychic energy?
• For Freud, biological instincts
• Influenced by Darwins biological theory
• Initial framework
• Survival instinct (like Darwins natural
  selection)
• Sexual instinct (like Darwins sexual selection)

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Ch 9 Psychoanalytic Approaches Historical

• What are well-springs of psychic energy?
• Later framework
• Survival sex one thing libido,
  life-affirming energy
• Thanatos
• Influenced by war-like nature of Germans during
  WW1 WW2
• Came to believe in a death instinct

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Ch 9 Psychoanalytic Approaches Historical

• Libido
• Although always seen as sexual
• A broader conception by Freud
• Anything
• Need-satisfying
• Life-sustaining
• Pleasure-oriented
• Thanatos
• Similarly broad
• Instinct, needs to destroy, harm, aggress

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Ch 9 Psychoanalytic Approaches Historical

• Early Freud
• Focused mostly on libido
• Perhaps because of stage in life (e.g., children)
• Later Freud
• Focused more on thanatos
• Perhaps because
• WW2
• Impending death

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Ch 9 Psychoanalytic Approaches Historical

• Libido thanatos
• Seem opposite, but can combine
• Eating sustaining oneself, killing another
• Sadism in sexual realms
• Other examples - pleasure destruction?

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Ch 9 Psychoanalytic Approaches Historical

• Freuds architecture of mind
• (1) id
• Most primitive part
• Source of desires, motivation, urges
• Operates by pleasure principle
• Wants immediate gratification
• Of all wishes
• Primary process thinking
• Associative, without logic
• E.g., in dreams, when id dominates

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Ch 9 Psychoanalytic Approaches Historical

• Freuds architecture of mind
• (2) ego
• Most advanced part of mind
• Operates by reality principle
• Behavior in manner
• Consistent with society
• Satisfy wishes in socially acceptable terms
• Secondary process thinking
• Logical, rational

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Ch 9 Psychoanalytic Approaches Historical

• Freuds architecture of mind
• (3) superego
• Internalized societal values
• Unconscious policeman
• dont, cant, wrong
• Can be unrealistic in moral standards
• Can cause guilt
• Primarily unconscious
• Influenced by Freud

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Ch 9 Psychoanalytic Approaches

• Influenced by Freud
• 1. Homophobia
• 2. Terror Management
• 3. Baumeister Id Versus Ego

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Fear of Homosexuals

• Many (men especially) are homophobic
• 90 of gay report being victims
• Verbal abuse, threats
• 56 men in homophobic range of scale
• I would feel nervous around homosexuals

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Fear of Homosexuals

• What is homophobia?
• Not just negative attitudes
• irrational fear, hatred, intolerance
• dread of being in close quarters with
  homosexuals

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Fear of Homosexuals

• What is the motivation?
• Strong anxiety implies real threat
• What is the real threat here?
• Thoughts?

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Fear of Homosexuals

• Adams et al. (1996) homophobia - repressed
  homosexual desire
• All male subjects
• All avowed heterosexuals
• Homophobia scale
• I would feel nervous being around homosexuals
• Low homophobics vs. high homophobics

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Fear of Homosexuals

• Adams et al. (1996)
• Watch porno movies
• Heterosexual
• Homosexual female
• Homosexual male
• Undressing, foreplay, oral sex, intercourse

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Fear of Homosexuals

• Adams et al. (1996)
• How to determine unconscious sexual arousal?
• Can we ask people?
• No, unconscious

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Fear of Homosexuals

• Adams et al. (1996)
• penile plethysmography
• String gauge attached to penis
• Measures penile tumescence
• Larger circumference sexual arousal
• H high homophobics
• tumescence response to male gay porno

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Fear of Homosexuals

• Heterosexual porno

Low homophobia
High homophobia
Tumescence response
Time
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Fear of Homosexuals

• Homosexual female porno

High homophobia
Tumescence response
Low homophobia
Time
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Fear of Homosexuals

• Homosexual male porno

Tumescence response
High homophobia
Low homophobia
Time
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Fear of homosexuals

• What about subjective arousal?
• Pretty closely tracks penile size
• Rs .53-.66 between
• Subjective arousal (this turns me on)
• Penile size
• The one case where penile gt subjective
• Homophobics viewing homosexual porno

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Fear of homosexuals

• Adams et al. (1996)
• Id
• Unacceptable desires
• Forbidden sexual desire
• Such desires unacceptable to person
• Leads to repression
• Which causes anxiety
• Especially when might leak out
• Therefore, avoid homosexuals
• What do you think of study - convinced?

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Terror Management

• 1. Humans are animals
• Fallible bodies that die
• 2. Humans are conscious
• We know we die
• No other creature does
• 3. Thinking about dying is not fun
• Therefore, we dont
• We repress, distract self

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Terror Management(from Solomon et al., 2000)

• It is awesome to be alive and know it, and
  dreadful to recognize that death is ones
  inevitable fate as an ambulatory assemblage of
  blood, tissue, and guts, inherently no more
  significant or enduring than a barnacle, a
  beetle, or a bell pepper.
• Response need for permanence, transcendence
• 1. Religion soul lives on
• 2. Culture sense of meaning, value
• 3. Self-esteem sense of self-importance
• All as crutches or defenses against terror of
  mortality

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Terror Management(from Solomon et al., 2000)

• Different groups, cultures
• Threaten notion of Truth
• Conflict a way of saying my truth is the right
  truth
• From this perspective, the ongoing ethnic strife
  pervading human history is in large part the
  result of humans inability to tolerate those
  with different death-denying visions of reality.
• Do you think so?

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Solomon et al. (2000)

• The World Leaders Project is an initiative aimed
  at understanding human behavior in order to
  promote world peace. The two men wrote a letter
  to every world leader on the planet requesting a
  meeting with the leaders, to discuss the
  psychology of the human attraction towards
  violence.

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Solomon et al. (2000)

• Guyana leader meeting
• TM guys Did you know that politics is just fear
  of death?
• GL Gosh no, thanks for wisdom. From now on, I
  hug my enemies

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Terror Management

• How does one show that certain behaviors
  (prejudice, belief in truth, culture) are
  motivated escape from death?

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Terror Management

• How does one show that certain behaviors
  (prejudice, belief in truth, culture) are
  motivated escape from death?
• Manipulate thoughts of death
• THEN
• Assess prejudice, investment in culture, etc.

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Terror Management(from Solomon et al., 2000)

• Americans took longer, and felt more
  uncomfortable (relative to a control group),
  solving a problem that required them to use the
  American flag to sift sand out of black dyeand
  bang a nail into the wall with a crucifix
• Other DVs - prejudice, aggression against
  outgroups, many more

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Mortality Salience

• What is Freud-like
• Unacceptable thoughts
• Repression ego defense
• E.g., belief in cultural world view
• Health becoming aware of defense
• What is not Freud-like
• Not sexual
• Rather fears of death
• Many do think Freud too sex-focused
• Adler, Horney, Jung

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Freuds energy model

• Freud Id
• Operates by pleasure principle
• Do what feels good dont do what feels bad
• Lust, hate, sloth, short-term satisfaction
• Lots of energy
• Energy comes from instincts, drives

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Freuds energy model

• Freud Ego
• Operates by reality principle constraints
• Do what makes sense for long haul
• Channel id appropriately
• Size is small
• Baumeister like a high level administrator with
  a very tight budget
• Id Ego Battles are common

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Baumeister, Tice Ego Control

• Id versus ego battles
• (1) overriding bad habits (e.g., smoking)
• (2) making choices (e.g., fajitas or combo 5)
• (3) initiating action (e.g., starting paper)
• (4) optimal performance (e.g., concentrating on
  test)
• (5) affect regulation (e.g., trying to calm down
  when agitated)
• (6) thought suppression (e.g., fighting off
  negative thoughts during test)
• (7) impulse control (e.g., dieting)

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Baumeister, Tice Ego Control

• Battles the Ego has lost
• Substance abuse, addiction
• Crime
• Domestic violence
• Teen pregnancy
• Debt, bankruptcy
• Sexually transmitted diseases
• Smoking
• Obesity
• Under-achievement (e.g., bad grades)

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Baumeister, Tice Ego Control

• What is Freud-like
• Id to feel good
• Ego do what is right for long term, society
• What is not Freud-like
• Not just sex and aggression (e.g., chocolate
  cake)
• Desires not necessarily unconscious
• Anxiety from conflict, not repression