The crazy cat lady returns

I thought thse were good articles (Sigmund Freud and the Art of Dog Training Part 1) and (Part 2), particularly since it contrasts behaviorism and Freud, and how behaviorism has limitations with respect to training animals. It is by this guy who is a dog trainer who realized his training techniques were Freudian-based after a discussion with one of his psychotherapist clients. The author states that Konrad Lorenz's views on dogs have been invalidated, while behaviorism as applied to dog training has lost some support due to some aspects of the theory not holding up in actual training.

So Freud wasn't so crazy.....

I posted this article last quarter in our Cognition class, but I realize not everybody was in that class. Regardless, I found this article particularly appropriate given our current focus on Freud. Basically, the author attempts to dispel some of the myths about Freud (i.e. he was unscientific, crazy, etc). Here are some of the main points of the article:

1. Freud was a neurologist and studied nerve cells
2. Freud did not "invent" the idea of the unconscious...the unconscious (or similar versions) had already been proposed by other notables, including Wilhelm Wundt, Fustav Fechner, Leibniz, etc). Thus, Freud was very much a product of his time.
3. Neuroscientists today would not deny the existence of the unconscious and implicit memory
4. One of Freud's goals was to "ground the psychological in the biological" or to have biological evidence for his theories
5. Freud believed memories were not fixed, but reconstructed (this is something that memory researchers such as Loftus have "discovered" in their research)
6. Freud proposed that memory is represented in the brain at a cellular, synaptic level (this was a precursor to long-term potentiation)

some random thoughts

I think Freud's argument about religion makes a lot of sense that only religion can answer the question of the purpose of life. And I totally agree that life brings us too many pains, disappointments and impossible tasks. I told my friend once that if there is a future life I would rather be a tree or a stone, because life is so hard. She laughed and said "But you can eat so many delicious food!" Yes I agree with her that it is one benefit of being a human. Now I can argue with her that because of the suffering her pleasure principle is moderated to a level that can be achieved more easily.

I'm not religious but sometimes I feel Buddhism's viewpoints about human life are attractive. It says that we need to do good things and endure suffers in order to live better in the future life. The reason why we are suffering now in the human world is because we did not accumulate enough beneficence in the preexistence life. But I don't want to believe in (not sure what verb is appropriate to put here) any religion, maybe because I have not yet experienced the "ocean feeling."

People chase for happiness and avoid unhappiness, that is somehow correlated with Skinner's theory. I think the idea of death instinct is outside of Skinner's box? I'm not exactly sure what instinct is...Is it stored in the id??

And as as today's society are more civilized than before, I guess, does it mean our liberty and happiness are more restricited?

Religion and Freud

I am completely fascinated with Freud's thoughts on religion. I think it makes so much sense that religion fulfills people's desire for a paternal/maternal figure as protector. Seriously, this idea sounds so commonsense, so practical, that it is a wonder this idea is not more widely accepted.

On pp. 48 and 49, Freud talks about how religious figures (i.e. Francis of Assis) protect themselves from disappointment and hurt by loving mankind in general rather than a specific person(s). Furthermore, they transform the sexual drive into an impulsive with an inhibited aim. What results is a general affectionate feeling towards people, or as St. Francisco experienced it, an inner feeling of happiness. Thus, this is a somewhat primitive way of dealing with our innate drives, as the individual sets it up so that they never actually have to be confronted with disappointment, and are, in a sense, avoiding.

Freud refers to substance use as a "useless waste of a large quota of energy which might have been employed for the improvement of the human lot" (p.25). Would Freud say the same about religion?

Random note:
p. 49 - "...not all men are worthy of love." Is Freud really saying what I think he is saying?

Importance of the Environment

So far in this class, I think I received a consistent message that the environment (or the society as we have been discussing) is important in a human development.

Vygotsky- we talked about how the culture and the society influences the organization of thought.
Bandura- people develop self-efficacy through 1) by simply talking about it, 2) vicarious modeling, and 3) personal experience. Here the person needs someone to have discussion with, and the people to model from. Therefore, the environment matters here too.
Skinner- definitely the environment works. People are reinforced, and the reinforcements differ in every human being depending on what and how they experience in life.

I don't know about Freud and there after, but until now, I think the context (rather than environment, because environments seems to be too broad and distal) that the person is situated in matters a lot, and that many of the theories agree to it even though they did not articulate it in their theories.

My question is, is there any study that looked at context in those theoretical perspectives? I bet there are, but I kind of felt that when anyone talked about environmetnal influence, Bronfenbrenner was brought up, and the minute Bronfenbrenner is mentioned, people would say like "that theory can be used for ANYTHING". So as a person who thinks context really matters, I would like to see other theories emphasizing the context in other theoretical background other than Bronfenbrenner!

random reflections on Freud thus far

Perhaps because I am agnostic, I actually find Freud's arguments in regards to religion rather compelling. The argument that religion somehow lessens suffering, or rather, puts our suffering in a context we can accept seems logical.



However, I'm struggling with some of his other arguments:

• This constant connection back to internal drives - and that society is in direct contrast with them... Sometimes I'm compelled, but other times frustrated by Freud's examples of our "primitive drives". Does everything connect to sex? Is that his basic premise? That all our internal desires (which we subvert) are connected to sex? I do not deny sex is great, but I have a hard time buying that even if society was not present I would make my choices solely based upon it. Does he believe in other internal drives?
• The existence of the id - Freud argues that psychoanalytic research has proved it's existence - but how? How can you test to show the "id" is there? How can you know that an individual is not just responding based on reinforcement (back to Skinner)?
  
• The existence of past experiences in the mind and or of earlier phases of one's self - now we can obviously recall our experiences to some extent, but I take issue with the suppressed memories he eludes to - as how can we be sure what the therapist "finds" is from the person's past? How do we know that he/she is not creating the memory in the present based on interaction (reinforcement?) from the therapist?


• The link from young children's anal interest to some form of neuroticism.... first, I struggle in general with the idea of young children's "anal obsession" - we (society/adults) are the ones asking (forcing?) them to control their bodily functions, and yet somehow we are supposed to believe it becomes a focus of the child's pleasure and then if he/she does not properly progress through this experience somehow they are impacted to be overly "anal" throughout life.

If Skinner is right

I think if it is easy to prove that Skinner is wrong, he and his theory won't stand out as one of the most important contributions for understanding human behaviors. I'm still not quite clear about why the same thing, like money, may be stronger reinforcer for some people but not the others. Is it just because for those money is not a strong reinforcer, they have been built s-r relationship or "linked" with other reinforcer already?

I watched Black Swan last night and I like this film. On my way home I started thinking about all the psyche movies that I like, but I cannot recall one movie based on behaviorism. Is there any? If Skinner is right, I just cannot think about the life with no psyche movie.

behavior without reinforcement?

I think that this class impact me a lot. After class, I found that when I behave
something, I automatically match my all of behaviors or thoughts with reinforcement. I
didn't strongly agree with skinner's world in the class and I wanted prove it when I blog but I failed. I couldn't find my behavior without reinforcement :( It was frustrating but it was amazing too. I thought that that's why skinner is one of big theorists and skinner was right... haha

Even in the relationship with my boyfriend, it was not just a relationship with only "love", but there were both positive reinforement and negative reinforcement in our behaviors. I believe that he will also have both of them even though I cannot know what is his reinforcement.
Also, I found another example. I've sent $10 every month for children in Africa for 5 years. I
believed that it is a kind of altruistic behavior. But after this class, I thought about this example again and I realized that it was not only altruistic behavior! There were surely reinforcements. They often sent me a lovely letter and I showed it to my friends or parents to get good words. Also, even though it was sometimes burden for me, I could not quit it because I didn't want to have bad feelings (I realized that it was the choice to avoid negative reinforcement.).

Is there behavior without reinforcement? I really wanted to find a good example of behavior without reinforcement to argue with Skinner and Glassman but I realized that it is almost impossible. haha.. It's really amazing and I even became to like Skinner's theory.. Also, this question brought me another question that if a reinforcement is internalized and I behave something without thinking the reinforcement, is it still considered as reinforcement?

Civilization and Its Discontents

Here is a link to a PDF of Civilization and Its Discontents. Read as much as you can by Thursday. Read, but read so you understand and think and savor the ideas.

http://www.archive.org/details/CivilizationAndItsDiscontents

What can blogging mean

I ran across this wonderful essay about blogging and thought I would share it will you all, especially those from last quarter's class.

Michael

http://www.salon.com/life/internet_culture/index.html?story=/mwt/feature/2011/01/21/i_blog_for_my_kids_open2011

oh the Skinner world...

After the class, all I could think of is, "oh how I do NOT like Skinner..."
I don't like Skinner world, the world full of reinforcements and the belief that the human behavior can fully be explained by reinforcements. But because I can't prove it, I'm more frustrated (and as Jennifer said, I don't want to believe in what Skinner said.).

Anyway, I really like how this class is going especially the fact that we are deciding the next week's reading as we go on. At the mention of Freud and psych, I thought again, if one has a chance to choose among many different options, then wouldn't that ability to choose lie in the person's mind, by his/her preferences? I know Skinner and Glassman will think even making that choice is reinforced. But in that case, nothing is not reinforced! I mean, when we are growing up, being socialized, we may be much more dependent on reinforcements, but now, we are fully-grown adults (hopefully), who can choose even if there's not enough reward or lack of chance of avoiding negative reinforcements. (but as i'm writing this, i can hear the words, "there should be some reinforcements... so I will stop here!)


Yet, I liked the part where Glassman made the distinction between conditioning and learning. And I also still remember the Bandura's article, that there is something else going on between the stimuli and the response (maybe I should go back to that article and read it again.) Much expectation for Freud next week!

?

I was expecting to come home (after driving in the snow for two hours) and see all these blog tposts because everybody wanted to prove to me that Skinner was wrong, that you didn't need positive reinforcement - or because I told Jennifer that she was right, over and over and over again (which was hard). Or because I offered Letitia cold, hard, cash money right on the barrel. Or because I told all these great stories about drinking wine in front of fire places and stuff.

BUT NOOOOOOoooooooooo!!!

I get on and not even a palrty comment. It is all about reinforcement, that's it.

Buyt doesn't this mean people are bringing baked goods next week?

Study Reveals College Kids Learn Nothing

I found this article and thought it was interesting. It relates more to our discussion last quarter about the value of grades, etc.


Study reveals college kids learn nothing.

What you are taught to do vs. what you want to do

I just wrote a comment to Sarah's post below in which I stated, "When what you are taught to do is put up against what you want to do, what you are taught to do will win every time." This in many ways is the essence of what Skinner is talking about. It really doesn't matter in life what you want to do - the idea that you have free will is an illusion. We always wind up doing those things that we are taught to do, even if we don't see personal meaning, or even our own self-interest in the act. But what we are taught to do is complex, and becomes more complex as we go from Skinner to Bandura. We are taught by society, and again not what society says it wants to teach us, but what it does teach us through the reinforcements that we receive in response to our freely emitted activities.

Sarah uses the example of the child on the mat during circle time. The child does not behave, does not take turns, does not do any of the things the teacher desires. This frustrates the teacher who tried to get the child to cognitively understand why it is better to do these things, to behave in circle time. This is an attempt to get at the internal motivation that Sarah talks about. We say though the child can only do this if he is self-regulated - but in essence that is saying the child has the cognitive architectures that are allowing him to assimilate these ideas. But this is suggesting two things, first that this is an internal function, and second that the child's activities are basically linear in nature - "If I do A I will achieve B." I think Skinner would say that neither of these is true.

The child instead is reacting based on reinforcement received when engaging in similar activities. One of the big issues here is what exactly is reinforcement for the child, because don't we have to personalize reinforcement to some degree. Perhaps any type of attention or reaction is a form of reinforcement to a child who wants to be noticed. So the talk the teacher gives the acting out child becomes a positive reinforcement for a child to act out and get attention.

Can we be "internally" motivated?

I find that class thus far has put me in somewhat of a ethical paradox - almost of crisis of my known reality. I come, in my practical work with young children, from a view that I would have previously described as pretty "anti-behaviorist" and very "pro-social constructivism." But now I find myself questioning the very meaning of these terms, and how they translate into practice...

There are so many questions floating in my head it is difficult to narrow down a logical train of thought, but I'll attempt to start with just one... Can we truly be "internally" motivated? Ultimately this question leads me to want to define what it means to be internally motivated - and even here the road is bumpy and treacherous.

In my own work with children, I've felt most comfortable using conversation to promote optimal choices. An example - why should Billy sit and listen in group time? Not for some sticker or a "green light" or some other, what I would have called "exterior" nonsense, but because he understands and sees the benefit of listening - what I would lable the "true" reason that listening in this context is important. It allows him to hear what is happening in the day, to hear the ideas of his classmates to see what he would like to do with his time, so that he can be respectful of others words, just as they are respect of his contributions (we want others to listent to us). So, when Billy is not listening, these are the things I would mention, recognizing it is a process, and hoping overtime Billy would see the benefits of listening - the give and take of talking in a group setting.

But what is Billy's real motivator? Is it my smile or positive tone when he does listen and contribute in the appropriate ways? Is it the feedback from his peers, wanting to include him because Billy shows pro-social behavior? Is is because he has developed an internal desire to be respectful? Is it because he realizes the only way to have others hear him is to listen himself? Is it the structure of grouptime itself? Does it change overtime?

I want to believe we are cultivating respect and the internal drive to do what is "right" for its own sake, developing the basis of some sort of ethic... But I struggle with this, are we ultimately just doing what we do, what we might even call "moral" acts, because we want the same done unto us - and in that way, I would argue we are not really internally motivated. To me, internal motivation means that we can "rise above" whatever the benefit (or lack there of) may be to us.

So I tried to think of an altruistic act that would have little to no impact on the do-er. Let's take putting money in the salvation army bucket - now, as it is typically change and you have no receipt, we can probably knock off "tax benefit" - but when I step back to think about it there are quite a few motivators still lurking: the smile, nod, and thank you from the person ringing the bell, the lack of guilt - some of us (myself included) feel that when we walk buy and do not contribute, or maybe just the warm glow inside (linking back to family and "feeling loved" we have learned from our own previous experiences that Michael mentioned in class) - ooh, or maybe its so that later in casual conversations we can mention it to friends (as a sublte, "see, I am so giving"). So are we doing it because we innately do not want to have others suffer? And if so, is that truly internal? Even if we do contribute because we have developed an ethic of giving to those less fortunate, is it ultimately to ease our own guilt for having so much?

I want to believe there is more... but I do not know how to reconcile it.

Weekly blogging

I have to admit, that at the beginning of the last quarter, when Glassman suggested blogging for the class, I was very much confused. What? Blogging?

But I have to aslo admit, that to blog you have to make a stand in the topic you want to discuss- you can't hide behind the references or the theories you would like to explain. It's what YOU think, and it make it hard to start a blog post.

Anyway, now that I pretty much enjoy blogging, I would like my assginment to be weekly blogging about anything (from the class readings to anything that my mind branches out!). Just like the after class note I sent you Glassman, I'd like to put my thoughts into writings in regular basis.:)

The evolution of technology

Hello all,

Decided I would start the posting. What I hope we are going to use this blog for is determining the responsibilities to the class. This is often referred to as grading assignments - but really I am obviously not looking to grade and I don't want to assign anything. I am thinking more and more that a Malthusian, competition oriented approach to graduate, or even undergraduate work isn't really all that productive. This whole idea of individual competition is simply brutal, and it reminds me of that post I read to you guys at the beginning of class last week. What does an A mean anyway. And yet think about what motivations for the work that you do are.

Leontieve who was a student of Vygotsky broke activity down into three parts. There is operations, the things that we do as a matter of fact, without really conscious thought about it. Many of us drive as operations, we are not really thinking about the goal when we turn on the left hand signal or press the breaks when we see a red light in front of us. At the second level of activity is what Leotiev called the action. The action is goal oriented, but it is the goal at hand. It is what you do to achieve a specific goal, like driving to get to school, or writing a paper in order to get an A. The third level of activity is motivation - that is the underlying, socio-historical reason that you do something. This idea actually comes from Vygotsky who was using one of the most unique and important ideas fromthe 20th century - the idea of motivation in acting that comes from the great theatrical director Stanislavsky. This is what sort of sits as the background for everything that you do, the actual reason that you are doing something, that guides your overall action.

So why do we actually do things? My operations in writing the blog post is in just typing the letters, I type fast enough now that I don't even think about the individual letters but simply the form of the word as it appears in my mind. My action is to meet the goal of developing a blog post that you will in some way respond to. I am hoping you will write something that in some way says something about your own activities in this class. But what are my motivations. These are the most difficult to discern, but also the most important. Why do we actually do the things we do. If we don't have these do we actually really understand our operations and our actions, or at least their meanings?

I would like to explore you activities in this class in the same way and when you decide upon what you do (and it can of course be multiple things) you understand it not as a simple action but as an activity, most important you understand your motivation behind what you are doing. The way to do this according to Vygotsky is to actually score your activity, what you do, like you would a play. You want to do something and then go back and score the motivations behind what led you to the point to do this thing.

Michael