Saturday, September 7, 2019
Public Relation Core Values Essay Example for Free
Public Relation Core Values Essay Public Relations Society of America (PRSA) has extremely important core ethical values that include advocacy, honesty, expertise, independence, loyalty, and fairness. All of which will help further a public relations practitioner in their career. Every practitioner handles every job differently, in a way thats going to benefit both the company they are working for as well as the public. Honesty should be the most important core value for every practitioner. Not only should it be the most important core value in the work field, it should also be the most important core value in everyones life as well. On the other hand, practitioners tend to ignore their core values while working. One of the biggest values they tend to ignore or overlook is fairness. Mark Twain once said, Honesty is the best policy; when there is money in it. This quote should be every public relations practitioner motto because being honest will always lead you to conducting better business with clients. Clients want honest individuals working for them because the company expects the practitioner to represent the company in a way thats going to gain the publics trust. When the public has your trust, they are going to shop at your company rather than one who puts out false advertisement and has a poor look in the publics eyes. Not only does the quotes speak for itself, but honesty is simply the best way to conduct business. Some practitioners try their hardest to provide equally fair service to every client. Fairness is a core value that all practitioners respect but is hard to do at times. When dealing with clients, employers, peers,vendors, competitors, and most important the public, its hard to keep everyone happy. Lets say a practitioner is dealing directly with a company for the release of a new product. The company producing the item may not want competitors knowing about it so they can keep the technological edge on its competitors but also at the same time they want the public to hear about whats new. Since they manage what information the public hears, its essential what they say. No matter what they say or dont say, someones always going to want more. With that being said, someones not going to be happy. Life in general isnt always fair, so when faced with a situation that can cause grey areas with others, do what you ethically think is the right thing.
Friday, September 6, 2019
Meditations Essay Example for Free
Meditations Essay Rene Descartesââ¬â¢ Meditations paved way to the enquiry of the epistemological nature of knowledge ââ¬â a paradigm shift from an ontological priority to an epistemological priority of philosophizing. In this regard, Descartes believed that the fundamental source of knowledge is reason. As such, knowing material objects can only come upon an entity which is not external to us ââ¬â that is the mind. The certainty of our understanding then rests on the clarity and distinctness of ideas constituting formal reality and not upon the immediate perception of an object. With this, he attempted to prove the existence of the Cogito, of God and dualism of the mind and the body, the methodic doubt as his primary grounding to prove the truthfulness of his claims. Let us now then analyze the seemingly problematic suppositions Descartes posits. One is dualism of the mind and body. It is because it is hard to conceive how two different things interact with each other. One indicator of such is when the mind chooses to do a specific action and the body seems to willingly do the action the mind chose. Another is when we perceive objects in the external world, our mind grasp and process the forming of these images based on our sense perception. Nevertheless, the primary question one can posit on the whole philosophy of Descartes is the appropriateness of granting existence to the conceptual entities in the mind. Existence, for Descartes, is proven through the recognition of the mind based on intuitions which manifest clarity and distinctness (or inner awareness where the mind and body are inseparable yet different from each other). By clarity, he claimed that it is the presence of an idea/object, and by distinctness, it is the relationship of clear ideas/objects and how its relationship distinguishes what belongs to an idea/object. Furthermore, he also claimed that substances are the building blocks of reality, categorized into two: the mind and the body. As such, he further maintained that these substances have primary attributes: the mind which is thought and the body, the extension. Ideas, for Descartes, are the modes of thought that link the mind and the world because they have formal and objective reality. By the former, he meant the kind of reality things have in this world and by the latter, the reality of objects represented by ideas. Hence, an idea can have formal reality because it is the mode of thought itself and it can also have an objective reality because it represents something outside of itself. In his work, one can deduce that he is certain only in his existence. As such, making him a thinking substance. He asserted that he comes to know this fact through clear and distinct perception, and logically it would follow that all his other clear and distinct perceptions are true in reference to formal and objective reality. In order to confirm the truthfulness of these clear and distinct perceptions, he proved the existence of a benign God which relies on the Mediatorââ¬â¢s cognition of clear and distinct ideas. Even if we exempt the possibility of granting existence to fictitious entities for we may have clear and distinct perception of them, the possibility of granting existence to other conceptual entities in our mind is still questionable. First, I believe that we can only have clear and distinct perception of the conceptual entities through our senses ââ¬â that is they exist in the physical realm. By that, I mean that we can have conception and understanding (on the context on how can we know them) primarily because they have manifestations in the physical world as also with regards to certain logical principles. For example, my understanding or even my idea of a tree originates from my perception of that tree in reality. Second, even if I can have clear and distinct perception of a God, it does not mean that a god/God indeed exist which cause my idea of God as what Descartes claimed. Arguably, there may be some other entity or there may be the possibility this world is just made up of matter and energy. Hence, there is no higher being which exists. It can be deduced then the appropriateness of granting existence to conceptual entities in the mind only comes if we could know their truth in the physical realm. As such, Descartes claimed of the mind being non-erroneous in granting existence to things/objects in this world is held in question.
Thursday, September 5, 2019
Defining And Analysing Emotional Labor Philosophy Essay
Defining And Analysing Emotional Labor Philosophy Essay Emotional labor is the control of a persons behavior to display the appropriate emotions. This means that if a person wants to conform to social norms it will have to show certain emotions. The concept of emotional labor affects every aspect of life. This paper will examine emotional labor in service industries. Definition Arlie Hochschild defined for the first time the term of emotional labor as the work done with feelings as paid employment. Hochschild pointed out that people control their emotions at work and in the private life. Whenever someone changes something in order to conform to an ideal, something that every human being does, it is emotional labor. Another definition comes from Chu and it says that emotional labor is the control of a persons behavior to display the appropriate emotions. For example, if you are a customer service representative, the 80th person asking the same question must be answered as thoroughly as you served the first person. Otherwise, you are not doing your job of providing customer service because that 80th person has no idea that youve answered the same question 50 times. They just need an answer. The jobs requiring emotional labor are either face-to-face or have voice contact. It has been proved that people can feel if the person at the other end of the line is smiling. Attitudes and behaviors at work An individuals belief about job, working place or working team is shaped by emotions. Emotions affect behaviors at work. Research shows that individuals that are within your inner circle are better able to recognize and understand your emotions. The connection between emotions and emotional labor can be explained by the Affective Events Theory. Howard Weiss and Russell Cropanzano are the researchers that have studied the effect of six major emotions categories in the workplace. These are anger, fear, joy, love, sadness and surprise. Their theory states that specific events that take place in the workplace cause people to feel different emotions. These emotions can be good for the job, for instance by inspiring actions that can benefit others, but it could also be bad, by inspiring actions that could impede others. For example, imagine that a coworker unexpectedly delivers your coffee at work. As a result you may feel happy and surprised. If that coworker is your boss you would probably feel proud. Studies have found that positive emotions at the workplace may inspire you to do things that you hadnt planned to do before. Such things could be volunteering to help a colleague with a project. On the other side if you were unfairly treated by your boss you could experience negative emotions that could make you withdraw from work or act mean towards a colleague. Over time, these tiny moments of emotion on the job can influence a persons job satisfaction. Hochschilds types of emotional acting There are three types of emotional acting: surface acting, deep acting and genuine acting. Surface acting is expressing an emotion without actually feeling that emotion. This is the most concerned type of emotional acting in the workplace because it has the most side effects. Surface acting most often involves putting all the negative emotions, such as anger, annoyance, sadness, etc. behind and substitute them with positive emotions, such as happiness, excitement, care, etc. because the customers expect it. For example the hairdresser of a crying child cutting its hair off may smile and act sympathetic without actually feeling so. Deep acting takes surface acting one step forward. This time, instead of faking an emotion because someone expects it, an employee will try to experience the emotions they are displaying. In the case of the hairdresser cutting the hair off a crying child, the hairdresser may empathize with the child by thinking what its like to be in the childs shoes. In this case the hairdresser might understand that the child is scared being in an unfamiliar environment and the hairdresser may genuinely feel sad for the child. Genuine acting happens when individuals are asked to display emotions that are aligned with their own. If a job requires genuine acting less emotional labor is required because the actions represent the individuals true feelings. In conclusion, when it comes to acting the genuine your actions are the less emotional labor a job requires and the more your actions in the surface acting part are the more emotional labor a job requires. The feeling rules In order to understand emotional labor we have to see what determines the correct emotional response to a situation. In Hochschilds book is being described a set of feeling rules, which Ashfort and Humphrey also called the display rules, rules that people use in order to identify what is the appropriate behavior. These feeling rules describe what the correct response for a work situation is and they can either be part of the job training or just manners. Most big companies usually have a set of policies that teach the employees how to conduct with customers. This case is about the written feeling rules. A good example for written feeling rules is McDonalds that encourages sincerity and enthusiasm but also a sense of humor in their service personnel. But most of the feeling rules are unwritten as in the case of manners. The feeling rules are also connected with the cultural background. For example if two managers from different cultures meet they both act correctly for their cultures point of view but they could very easily offend the other one accidentally. In the Australian work place people would generally be polite and show respect regardless of how the interlocutor reacts. The most evident moment when emotional labor occurs is when something goes wrong and the customers are unhappy and dissatisfied for a number of reasons. In most situations the employee should remain calm and polite even if the customer irritates or upsets the employee, as the case of most situations. This is the form of self control and the feeling rules are very important in these situations because the employees know they must be polite. Ashforth and Humphrey define ten dimension that include trustworthiness, courtesy, approachability and understanding, a set of feeling rules by which employees operate, whilst the customers expect good service. The expectation of each dimension changes with the customers moods. But it is also possible that the customer has expectations that are unreal and cannot be satisfied. In this situation even if the employee works according to the feeling rules, the customer would not be satisfied. Some service industries such as flight attendants, medical professionals or call center operators are the subject of higher expectations. These service industries are the ones that spend a lot of time interacting with people. This interaction includes the customers expectation to good service. For example good service from a flight attendant includes politeness, a caring attitude and happiness. The feeling rules would have to change according to the age of the passengers. For instance, a flight attendant will have to behave differently to a child, a teenager, their grandparents, etc. People decide according to the feeling rules how to correct emotional response to a situation. But if something goes wrong in this system there are harmful consequences for the individual. The aims of emotional labor The main aim of emotional labor is a positive affective display in service interactions, such as smiling, politeness, friendliness, which are positively associated with important customer outcomes, such as intention to return, intention to recommend a store to others and the image of overall service quality. Dealing with emotional labor All service industries are connected to interaction with customers. These jobs require the employee to be nice and polite to the customer no matter how the customer treats him. This may lead in time to negative effects. Sandi Mann discusses in his book that having to manage your emotions in such way may lead to work stress. This stress may cause hypertension, heart diseases, even exacerbate cancer. This is because people usually tend to surface act. Surface acting can cause detachment from own emotions and individuals may suffer, as a result, burnout that may lead to dissatisfaction with the quality of work completed and doubt the effectiveness, this leading the sufferer to leave the job. So imagine the case of a stewardess. If care and friendliness is completely lost due to emotional stress, burnout or so on, the key element of the job will be gone and the customers expectations will not be met. As consequence, customers will not come back and they will probably not recommend the airline anymore. These serious side effects are most concern of human resource management. Human resources can prevent this emotional cycle by using different methods in different situations. There is necessary to develop strategies in order to avoid problems with the employees. There are two types of strategies: organizational and individual strategies. Organizational strategies Some of the strategies that the management can use within a whole organization in order to reduce stress and therefore to avoid surface acting are as follows. First of all, the management can organize meetings with the employees to discuss the extent of stress and to find out if stress is widely spread in their company. Additionally, by debriefing the employees a company can prove for stress-causing factors and so, conduct a survey and inspect the workplace for stress causing factors. Another important aspect is to improve communication by hiring trained professionals or supervisors for the employees to talk to when they experience negative events so that they can receive advice to identify surface acting and receive good feeling rules by which to operate. Also in order to help the employees a company can use hotlines where the employees can call if they have problems. A company can also improve job and organizational design in order to prevent stress-causing factors. For instance, a company can offer babysitters, cooking courses so that all the employees could come together and have some fun. Individual strategies There are also strategies for individuals, especially because employees tend to stress themselves out. To avoid this, they can do some physical exercises, in order to be active and to reduce stress symptoms. Also, hobbies are very good to find relaxation and amusement. Additionally meditation is a good tool to gain inner peace and harmony, two basic elements for protection against stress. To conclude, an assertiveness training gives the employee the chance to develop self-confidence and self-awareness so that the employees are able to establish themselves and to become accepted in the working group. In order to apply everything stated in this paper we decided to take the example of emotional labor and Santa Clause. Christmas exemplifies consumerism in western society and it is a period of traditional ritual activities. All over the world Christmas themed services tend to encourage fantasy that lead to enjoyment of the customer. The center of the store has the purpose to enhance the buying experience and increase the probability of purchase. The provision of a warm, emotional delivery by an employee, as observed by Sutton and Rafaeli, promotes sales when customers expect to receive such individual friendliness. Therefore in order for the customers to feel good, the presence of Santa Clause in the store becomes a seasonal public relations addition for the image of a shopping center. Santa is a specialist public relations agent whose image relates to good looks, good sounds and good character. For children and adults, a visit to Santa is part of the Christmas ritual. A Santa interacts with individuals and in his work he has to deliver a personal performance of generosity and happiness. In order to be a Santa Clause people usually have to attend a Santa School. In this school the actors will learn some rules about how to be a Santa. One of the most important rules a Santa has to know is that he is not allowed to talk about politics, religion and life. In the Santa School the personality, experience and values of the actor are being mediated. This is because a Santa usually gets visited by all sorts of persons. Each visit is unique and the Santa needs to know how to handle it. He also requires independence of thought and action in order to be able to address to all possible variations of topics and ages of the visitors. In addition, a Santa also learns that he is not allowed to make promises and must know the attributes of all current popular toys so that he can look authentic. When Santa actors are comfortable with their roles, the case of volunteering being a Santa, it takes very little effort to shape feelings as they are similar with their own feeling. But nowadays there are a lot of people that must do this job in order to get paid. So the people that havent asked to do this job. And to those people the emotional labor required is huge. They always have to put a smiley face and be nice, because most of the visitors are children and they can get hurt very fast. So applying a part of the things that weve pointed out in our paper would probably motivate the Santa employee and makes this job easier. Conclusion Emotional labor is the control of ones behavior to display appropriate emotions. Feeling rules help to execute it. Surface acting happens when an individual has to fake emotions leading to health issues, such as frustration, burn-out, depression or emotional exhaustion. Deep acting happens when an individual actually feels that emotion. Human Resources Management can prevent these problems by using different strategies such as employing trained professionals or supervisors. It must be pointed out that Human Resource Management has to make emotional labor to a source of job satisfaction and to enable the employees to act deeper. All in all we believe that everyone in the sphere of action should deeply think about their own behavior and reactions in order develop self-awareness, and further to develop social awareness, so that individuals can become aware of others needs and wants. To sum it up it is a big problem for the management to deal with emotional labor because for one working in a company and doing the same thing every day it will end up feeling like a routine that leads to surface acting.
Wednesday, September 4, 2019
Film Adaptation of Sophoclesââ¬â¢ Oedipus Rex Essay -- blind by ignorance,
ââ¬Å"You are your own enemyâ⬠(Guthrie, Oedipus Rex, 22:43). In the film adaptation of Sophoclesââ¬â¢ ââ¬Å"Oedipus Rexâ⬠(1957), Sir Tyrone Guthrie portrays the characters as truth seekers that are ignorant when trying to find King Laiusââ¬â¢ murderer. On the other hand, Sigmund Freudââ¬â¢s hypothesis of Sophoclesââ¬â¢ work introduces us to ââ¬Å"The Oedipus Complexâ⬠(1899) which states that as weââ¬â¢re young we grow infatuated with our opposite sex parent and feel resentment towards our same-sex parent. These two pieces have adapted mirror like meanings of Sophoclesââ¬â¢ tragic play. Sir Tyrone Guthrie and Sigmund Freud explore this through the use of ethos, irony, social distance, and the visualization of state of mind in order to show the manifestation Oedipus undergoes living with his ââ¬Å"mix of killing and unimagined shameâ⬠(Guthrie, Oedipus Rex, 21:19). Though the answer is in front of Oedipus, he wears a mask that protects him from the answers he does not want to believe is true. To begin with, Oedipus is his own tragedy since his actions and decisions are the reasons why he was not able to thoroughly see his mistakes. Sir Tyrone Guthrie places Oedipus in the middle of the town to begin the interrogation of finding the murderer of King Laius so the city can be unwind of its plague. Sir Tyrone Guthrie does this on purpose so the audience and the servants around him can see the foolish mistakes their great King achieves. Tiresias, the blind prophet who can see the past, present, and future, speaks to Oedipus, since Tiresias has the ability to only see the truth. Even though the audience can see that Oedipus is not taking any consideration of the prophetââ¬â¢s words when Tiresias directly yells to him that Oedipus is the ââ¬Å"murderer [he] [seeks],â⬠the ignorant side of Oe... ...now where he was ââ¬Å"â⬠¦in calamity,â⬠seeking the truth to stop the plague was in his good intentions but his unconscious mask would not let him see the answers (Sophocles, Oedipus the King, 425). It is the reason why ââ¬Å"most young people outgrow the compulsionâ⬠for their parent ââ¬Å"and thereafter repress itâ⬠which is why Oedipus was unknowingly his own disaster (Jacobus 476). Works Cited Freud, Sigmund. "The Oedipus Complex." A World of Ideas: Essential Readings for College Writers. By Lee A. Jacobus. 8th ed. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2010. 475-85. Print. Oedipus Rex. Dir. Tyrone Guthrie. By Sophocles and William B. Yeats. Perf. Douglas Campbell and Eleanor Stuart. YouTube. YouTube, 01 Feb. 2013. Web. 07 Feb. 2014. . Sophocles. Oedipus the King. Trans. David Grene. 1st ed. Chicago & London: University of Chicago, 2010. Print.
Tuesday, September 3, 2019
George Bizek :: essays research papers
à à à à à Georges Bizet, who is best known for his opera, Carmen, has remained somewhat of a mystery as far as his musical education, social life, and personal life. He is not like so many other composers and musicians of the Romantic Period who led a highly publicized life like Hector Berlioz, Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky, or Johannes Brahms. He spent his short life devoted to music and he did not quite make it into the limelight like these other Romantic composers. The most believable explanation for his obscurity would be the lack of scandal in his life. He had a happy childhood, was well awarded with musical scholarships, and a happy marriage. à à à à à Georges Bizet grew up in a musical house. His father was a singing teacher and his mother was a well-known pianist who had attended the Paris Conservatory. His parents encouraged him in music. His father was confident that his son would become a great musician. His father was actually too supportive of his musical education. He had been known to hide young Georges' other school books so he would not be distracted from his musical studies. He received his first music lesson from his mother when he was just four years old. She was teaching him to read music at the same time she was teaching him his alphabet. à à à à à Bizet was enrolled in the Paris Conservatory when he was nine years old. This was a special exception arranged by his uncle who taught at the Conservatory, since Bizet was still a year younger than the minimum age requirement. Here he studied piano, organ, singing, harp, strings, woodwinds, and composition. His instructors were the composers Charles Gounod, who is known for his opera Faust, and who is considered the greatest musical influence in Bizet's life. And Jacque Halevy, who wrote the opera LaJuive, is also considered an important musical influence. He had a unique, unstructured teaching style. Halevy would listen to and correct his students but he would never require them to do any specific types of composition. This was to affect Bizet throughout his life as he would be known to start and abandon work after work. This was blamed directly on Halevy's lack of discipline. At age fifteen, Halevy tried to convince Bizet to go and compete for the Prix de Rome. Bizet refused sighting his immaturity and need for additional background. à à à à à During his time as a student he wrote Symphony in C Major (1855), which was not performed during Bizet's lifetime, but from it's first performance in 1935 it has become an established symphony in a standard repertoire. George Bizek :: essays research papers à à à à à Georges Bizet, who is best known for his opera, Carmen, has remained somewhat of a mystery as far as his musical education, social life, and personal life. He is not like so many other composers and musicians of the Romantic Period who led a highly publicized life like Hector Berlioz, Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky, or Johannes Brahms. He spent his short life devoted to music and he did not quite make it into the limelight like these other Romantic composers. The most believable explanation for his obscurity would be the lack of scandal in his life. He had a happy childhood, was well awarded with musical scholarships, and a happy marriage. à à à à à Georges Bizet grew up in a musical house. His father was a singing teacher and his mother was a well-known pianist who had attended the Paris Conservatory. His parents encouraged him in music. His father was confident that his son would become a great musician. His father was actually too supportive of his musical education. He had been known to hide young Georges' other school books so he would not be distracted from his musical studies. He received his first music lesson from his mother when he was just four years old. She was teaching him to read music at the same time she was teaching him his alphabet. à à à à à Bizet was enrolled in the Paris Conservatory when he was nine years old. This was a special exception arranged by his uncle who taught at the Conservatory, since Bizet was still a year younger than the minimum age requirement. Here he studied piano, organ, singing, harp, strings, woodwinds, and composition. His instructors were the composers Charles Gounod, who is known for his opera Faust, and who is considered the greatest musical influence in Bizet's life. And Jacque Halevy, who wrote the opera LaJuive, is also considered an important musical influence. He had a unique, unstructured teaching style. Halevy would listen to and correct his students but he would never require them to do any specific types of composition. This was to affect Bizet throughout his life as he would be known to start and abandon work after work. This was blamed directly on Halevy's lack of discipline. At age fifteen, Halevy tried to convince Bizet to go and compete for the Prix de Rome. Bizet refused sighting his immaturity and need for additional background. à à à à à During his time as a student he wrote Symphony in C Major (1855), which was not performed during Bizet's lifetime, but from it's first performance in 1935 it has become an established symphony in a standard repertoire.
Monday, September 2, 2019
Flowers for Algernon :: essays research papers
Medical operations are carried out everyday, but for some, an operation can change a person's life. One experiment was done on a mentally retarded person to try to raise his intelligence. The experiment worked, but after months, the patient regressed dramatically. In the book, Flowers for Algernon,this intelligence operation was preformed, and the patient was Charlie Gordon. After the operation, Charlie was very bright, but experienced psychological traumas, loneliness, disillusionment, and social inadequacies. After his operation, he remembered every aspect of his childhood, whether it was good or bad. Charlie had dreams of how his mother was ashamed of him. Charlie's sister also ignored him. To her, Charlie was dumb and could not do anything. Charlie had dreams of his sister yelling at him and making fun of him. He also had memories of the night his parents took him to the Warren Home. He was terrified and his dad would never answer his questions. Charlie remembered his childhood and through his memories, he felt guilty for hurting his family. In the bakery he used to have friends. Friends that would talk to him and care about him. Charlie then realized that he had no friends but merely knew people that made fun of him. The bakery employees just liked him because they could blame their mistakes on Charlie. Then, they could not do this after the operation, so they all turned against Charlie. Charlie felt like an lab specimen. Charlie had lost his friends and knew now he was just a like a lab rat. veryday Charlie lost a piece of himself. He would become mad at people very quickly and then yell at them. People stayed away from him because he was becoming unpredictable. Charlie lost his job because he was to smart to work in a bakery. He could not interact with people he worked with and the people he met. The "Charlie" inside of himself emerged and started to regain control of his mind. All in all, Charlie suffered from the pain of not knowing how to d eal with his peers and decisions.
Sunday, September 1, 2019
Developed radical behaviourism Essay
Skinner (1904-1990) developed radical behaviourism. Skinner concerned himself only with scientific methods and only observable behaviour. Skinner believed that all behaviour is learnt from environmental consequences or operant conditioning. Skinner went on to assert that behaviour is more or less likely depending on the consequences as a result of that behaviour (reward/punishment). Skinner highlighted his theories with experiments on animals, mainly rats. Skinner devised an experiment in which a rat was put into a box where the pressing of a lever would release food for the rat to eat. The stimulus of hunger, led to the behaviour of pressing the bar, lead to the reward of food. The pressing of a bar for food is not normal rat behaviour so the rat had to be taught to do so. This showed that the rat pressed the bar for food, meaning that the rat had to operate on its environment to gain either reward or punishment. If the reward comes every time for the behaviour then the behaviour is permanently learnt, or ââ¬Ëstamped inââ¬â¢. (Skinner, 1953) Ivan Pavlov developed classical conditioning. The main difference between classical conditioning and operant conditioning is that classical conditioning concerns itself with behaviour that an animal already has. Pavlov conditioned a dog that already salivated at the sight of food to also salivate at the sound of a bell. This was achieved by Pavlov ringing a bell when ever the dog was about to be given food. This meant that the dog became conditioned to salivate at the sound of the bell (stimulus) to receive its food (reward). Pavlov and more so Skinner regard all behaviour as a product of the environment, as highlighted in these two experiments. Behaviourism had a key influence on psychology as a science. The use of scientific experiments led to psychologists focusing observable, objective measures of behaviour. This approach to psychology has a very practical use. The treatment of phobias takes its influence from behaviourist research, A phobic person can be conditioned to overcome their fear. The idea that people learn from their environment lead to educational policy being influenced as poor grades could be a result of poor educational environment. Behaviourism has received criticism for its denial of free will and the belief that people are simply the product of their environment. The behaviourist perspective that all behaviour is learnt from the environment was challenged when it was shown that people also learn through observing others and through insight. (Bandura, 1986) One shortcoming of the behaviourist perspective is that emotional and mental processes of the individual were not taken into account as they were not seen as an appropriate area of study as they could not be directly observed and objectified. (Pennington, 2002) Humanism emerged in the U.S.A. in the 1960s. The main proponents of this approach were Abraham Maslow and Carl Rogers. Humanists believed that psychodynamics and behaviourism neglected key aspects as to what it is to be human, for example, only relying on scientific and observable methods neglected what it is to be human, humanists believed. Humanists also argued that the psychodynamics relied too much on the unconscious and childhood rather than the conscious mind and the here and now. The humanist approach is known as Phenomenological as it focuses on the human experience. Humanists believe that each person is unique and the focus of the approach is on the subjective feelings and emotions of individuals. This is referred to as ideographic, meaning that it focuses on the uniqueness of the individual rather than common laws or the similarity of personality. Humanists propose that humans do have free will and are not the sole product of their environment or childhood experiences. Humanists argue that people and personality should be viewed as a whole and that the breaking down of various aspects of personality results in the loss of the whole. Rogers (1902-1987) believed that all people have a tendency to self actualise, or attempt to reach their full potential. This can be anything from playing a sport to writing an essay. People self actualise in different ways and through different achievements. Rogers (1980) assumed that we need love from other people; he called this unconditional positive regard. This unconditional positive regard is seen in the unconditional love of a mother to a child. Rogers argued that this love is essential to well adjusted adults. He went on to state that many adult problems can be as a result of not receiving this positive regard. Using his theories Rogers developed client centred therapy, Rogers would treat his clients with unconditional positive regard so that he could restore their lack of it. Rogers believed that many adult problems arose when peopleââ¬â¢s concept of themselves were incongruent with their actual experiences. For example, someone may think that a football player played well in a game setting up two goals, but the player them self might not agree thinking that they should have scored at least once. Rogers believed that a balance between this self view and the view of the world led to satisfaction and incongruence leads to conflict. (Rogers, 1951) Humanism promotes the idea that humans have free will to choose how they act and behave, the idea of personal responsibility and the idea that humans do not just passively respond to environmental stimuli. The approach also recognises a person as having their own needs as an individual. The humanist approach adds validity to the subjective experience and feelings of the here and now.à Humanism rejects the scientific approach as this does not allow for thoughts and feelings to be taken into account. This has meant that little objective evidence is available. Humanists believe that the lack of objective material is not relevant as long as people benefit from the humanist approach to therapy, and lead better lives. (Pennington, 2002) Having looked at the three main approaches to psychology it can be seen that all three have differing views and approaches to the psychology field. Behaviourism is the more scientific approach that enabled the study of the mind to stand up against other sciences. Freud and psychodynamics was the first force of psychology that has got Freud the nickname ââ¬Ëgodfather of psychologyââ¬â¢. Rogers drew on both behaviourism and psychodynamics to come up with theories of the ââ¬Ëwholeââ¬â¢ self. The study of the mind can not be categorised into just one field of study. To truly understand the psychology of the human psyche one must use all three approaches and even add their own interpretation to this ever expanding field of study. Can we ever truly understand our own mind? The search goes on.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)