The Shocking Experiment:

How Far Will You Go to Obey an Authority Figure?

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In July of 1961, psychologist Stanley Milgram began a series of about twenty social psychology experiments designed to test the way people comply with authority (Davidson 2022)

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• Milligram wanted to know how many people who were considered normal would continue to inflict pain on another person when told to do so by an authority figure.
• He was inspired by the atrocities committed during World War II by seemingly average German citizens who were following the orders of their leaders.

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First Experiment (Davidson 2022):

one adult played the role of an emotionless authority figure, while an actor played the role of the learner. The experimental subjects, all men, were cast in the role of the teacher and instructed to deliver an electric shock to the learner for each mistake. The shocks started at 15 volts up to 450 volts. The teacher was given a 45-volt shock before the experiment began to experience what the learner would feel. The teacher and learner were placed in separate rooms so that they could hear but not see each other. The teacher would read a work and the learner would have to choose the correct word from a list of four. The authority figure reminded the teacher to shock the learner with a stronger shock each time a mistake was made. The teacher was unaware that the learner was an actor.

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Before the experiment, Milgram polled Yale psychology graduate students and faculty about what percentage of people they predicted would administer the highest level of shock.

65 percent of the 40 men administered the full range of shocks. Not one of the 40 men stopped before reaching 300 volts.

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Milgram designed about twenty variations of this experiment and this is what he learned (Davidson 2022):

🧪🧪Women were slightly more likely than men to complete the shock series.

🥼🥼More people completed the shock series when the authority figure was in the room.

🟦🟦Fewer teachers completed the series when they had to physically place the actor's arm on the shock device.

👀👀About 2/3 of the teachers completed the shock series regardless of their cultural background or gender.

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Milgram concluded that in a structured society, an innate need exists that causes one to obey authority regardless of one's cultural background and gender. He also concluded that when people have little information about a situation, they tend to comply thoughtlessly to the demands of authority.

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Milgram was criticized strongly for the psychological discomfort that he allowed the subjects to feel and was denied tenure at Harvard. 

His later research produced the concept of "six degrees of separation"

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 Reference

 Davidson, M. S. (2022). Psychologist Stanley Milgram Begins Obedience-to-Authority Experiments. Salem Press Encyclopedia.

An Existential Journey From The Shadow to Self-Actualization:

A Creative Approach to Sobriety

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Carl Jung, Sigmund Freud, and Rollo May were all influential psychologists who developed different theories of personality and psychopathology. While their theories had some similarities, they also had significant differences. If these three were to come together to develop a treatment plan for someone suffering from addiction they would likely draw on all of their different perspectives to create a comprehensive and individualized plan. Well I have been studying these guys this term and I believe that a daily schedule would look like this for the patient

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Here is a sample daily schedule therapy plan for someone suffering from an addiction based on the approaches of Carl Jung, Sigmund Freud, and Rollo May

Monday

• Morning: Individual therapy with a Jungian therapist
• Afternoon: Group therapy
• Evening: Cognitive-behavioral therapy

Tuesday:

• Morning: Psychoanalysis with a Freudian therapist
• Afternoon: Mindfulness meditation\
• Evening: Art therapy

Wednesday:

• Morning: Support group meeting
• Afternoon: Relapse prevention workshop
• Evening: Individual therapy

Friday

• Morning: Individual therapy with a Jungian therapist
• Afternoon: Group therapy
• Evening: Cognitive-behavioral therapy

Saturday

• Morning: Mindfulness meditation
• Afternoon: Free time
  
• Evening: Support group meeting

Sunday

• Morning: Yoga
• Afternoon: Free time
• Evening: Individual therapy

Rollo May

Existential Psychology

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• A person's existence and experience is unique, exceptional, and unrepeatable
• Everyone is a universe in itself.
• Importance of a person's free will and choice
• It is necessary to consider every person as a unique entity in the context of their own circumstances, relationships, conditions, influences, and internal forces.

• Existential psychologists tend to be optimistic
• A self-improving person overcomes selfish desires and pride keeps away from the material world and practices meditation to reach a state of pure consciousness
• Focus on the awareness of others, and self-awareness to pursue pure consciousness and happiness.

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Rollo May

• His health problems early in life and his search for inner strength gave him a creative insight into personality psychology
• he believed anxiety was provoked by technological and social changes taking place in the world and he believed that these factors led to anxiety (Shiraev 2016):
• People were caught up in a conflict between the old world of tradition and the new world of change.
• Tradition represented stability and certainty and change was rooted in uncertainty and instability
• Emerging threats to the individual's fundamental family values
• This anxiety led to confusion which increased the sense of powerlessness and insignificance which can lead to anger and even violence

May encourage people to reduce their anxiety by rediscovering the importance of caring for one another.

3 Ways to cope with Fear:

1. Avoidance
2. Confronting
3. Accept it
4. Identifying it

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 References

 Shiraev, E. (2016). Personality Theories. SAGE Publications, Inc. (US). https://bookshelf.vitalsource.com/books/9781506300795

Humanistic

 Principles

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Five Theoretical Principles of the Humanistic Tradition ( Shiraev 2016)"

• It viewed people from a holistic perspective
• People are more than the sum of their habits, reflexes, and mental operations.
• Does not just focus on isolated behaviors
• People are aware of their own psychological processes
• Humanistic Theory shifts the focus from the unconscious to the conscious
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  People's existence is not limited to their immediate surroundings.
• A person has material, social, cultural, and spiritual dimensions
• Free will of the people
• the choice comes with accountability
• people can make mistakes and learn from them
• People can control the outcomes of their behavior
• Human behavior is intentional and deliberate

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• People are not direct products of stimuli and circumstances
• People do not follow the imperatives of the unconscious mind.
• People are generally rational and logical in setting their goals and choosing the methods to achieve them.
• It is inherently optimistic and circumstances can affect all of us but we humans have the power to overcome challenges

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How does Humanistic Theory view when someone fails to achieve their goals despite their good intentions and effort?

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• Humanistic Psychology focuses on the actual experience of a person
• They prefer qualitative research methods to quantitative procedures and stress the importance of  a deep examination (Shiraev 2016):

1. concerns
2. memories
3. plans
4. feeling 
5. actions

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Existentialism:

1. focuses on someone's individual uniqueness, free will, and responsibility.
2. People are not substances with fixed properties
3. People are not subjects interacting with a world of objects

Controversial Assumptions of Existentialism (Shiraev 2016):

1. Human existence is tragic
1. People are free but struggle with society's demands
2. Most people do not know what to do with their freedom.
3. Every moment we are getting closer to death
4. No matter what we do and how hard we try the final results do not match our expectations and we are left sad and disoriented.
2. Life is painful and absurd
1. There is no true meaning in life
2. attempts to find meaning are fruitless
3. existential attitude- when we can't find meaning then this adds to a sense of confusion
4. existential crisis - when someone questions the foundations of life and asks whether their life has any meaning, purpose, or value.
5. Finding no answers causes anxiety and depression in people.
3. Steps can be taken to address the tragic nature and absurdity of our lives

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Where do Anxiety and Depression Originate from:

1. Anxiety and Depression manifest because people need answers and do not find them. There is no certainty in life except for death (Shiraev 2016).

What are their solutions?

• Some celebrate the power of human will and power.
• Some encourage people to revolt against their own existence
• Others encourage people to look beyond their prescribed social roles
• Some choose therapy to address anxieties

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References

Shiraev, E. (2016). Personality Theories. SAGE Publications, Inc. (US). https://bookshelf.vitalsource.com/books/9781506300795

Humanistic

 

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Humanistic Psychology

Focuses on the individual and their unique experiences and emerged in the 1950s and 1960s as a reaction to behaviorism and psychoanalysis which were two dominant schools of thought at the time.

Humanist Psychologists

• Emphasized the importance of free will, responsibility, and self-actualization and believed that people are fundamentally good and have the capacity to grow and develop into their full potential.

They believed that psychology had lost sight of the individual. 

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Criticisms of behaviorism (Shiraev 2015):

Behaviorism is too simplistic and deterministic and reduces human behavior to a set of learned responses that ignore the role of free will and personal responsibility.

Behaviorism is focused on changing behavior rather than helping people to understand and grow.

Behaviorism ignores consciousness and the subjective experience of the person

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Criticisms of psychoanalysis (Shiraev 2015):

Too focused on the unconscious and the past and it neglects the conscious mind and the potential for growth and change.

Psychoanalysis is too pessimistic and deterministic and views people as being controlled by unconscious forces.

Too expensive and time-consuming.

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References





Shiraev, E. (2016). Personality Theories. SAGE Publications, Inc. (US). https://bookshelf.vitalsource.com/books/9781506300795




 

The Revolution in Psychology that Put the Individual Back in the Center

 

Humanistic Psychology:

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• The humanistic tradition in personality psychology emerged during a period of great uncertainty and upheaval. World War II and the Cold War contributed to a widespread feeling of unease and anxiety which led to a growing interest in human psychology and a desire to understand how people can thrive in the face of adversity.
• Humanistic psychologists believe that people are fundamentally good and have the innate capacity to grow and develop. They focus on someone's subjective experience and their potential for self-actualization. They also emphasize the importance of free will and personal responsibility.
• In the second half of the past century, an influx of immigrants from all over the world brought a new wave of educated specialists.

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New and intriguing debates about the role of psychology emerged in the 1950s (Shiraev 2015):

• Some psychologists argued that psychology should use primarily experimental methods of investigation, while others believed that psychology should also embrace other approaches such as studying happiness, self-improvement, and compassion
• Humanistic psychologists believe that psychology should pay significant attention to human suffering and injustice and pursue goals to make society better.
• This view accelerated in the changing political culture of the 1960s as people challenged traditional norms and focused on civil rights and discrimination.

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Humanistic psychology is a broad and diverse tradition that focuses on the experiences and potential of individuals emphasizing the importance of free will, personal responsibility, and self-actualization. (Shiraev 2015)

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References 

Shiraev, E. (2016). Personality Theories. SAGE Publications, Inc. (US). https://bookshelf.vitalsource.com/books/9781506300795

 

The Breaking Bad of Addiction Treatment

 Carl Jung and Sigmund Freud: 

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What if two of the most influential psychoanalytic thinkers of all time, Carl Jung and Sigmund Freud were to work together to treat someone suffering from a crystal meth addiction. What would their approach be? How would they combine their theories and techniques to help someone overcome this devastating addiction?

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• Jung believed that addiction is a symptom of a deeper psychological problem and saw it as a way of coping with unresolved trauma, conflict, or meaninglessness in life. Jung would first strive to understand the underlying psychological factors that are contributing to the problem.
• Jung would use dream analysis, word association, and active imagination to help this person understand their unconscious mind.
• Using therapeutic techniques such as talk therapy and art therapy, Jung would help this person work through any unresolved issues.

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  Freud might see this person's addiction as a way of coping with anxiety and conflict. He would also probably see it as a regression to an earlier stage of psychosexual development. So Freud would probably delve into understanding the patient's early childhood experiences and how they may have shaped this person's personality.
• Freud would probably use free association and some other techniques such as dream analysis and transference to delve into this patient's unconscious mind.
• Freud would then use some therapeutic techniques such as talk therapy and resistance analysis.
• "Transference and resistance are the pillars of psychoanalytic inquiry theoretically as well as clinically" (Frank 2012).

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If they set aside their differences and just agreed to disagree, then they would likely combine their approaches in a number of ways. They could use Jung's dream analysis techniques to understand the patient's unconscious mind, and then possibly use Freud's free association techniques to help the patient work through some unresolved issues.

What if they combined their different perspectives on addiction. Jung might view the patient's addiction as a symptom of a deeper psychological problem, while Freud might view it as a way of coping with anxiety and conflict. I don't see why they couldn't meet on common sacred ground and form an effective treatment plan for this patient.

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I am only a student but this is my dream scenario:

1. Session one
1. Jung and Freud meet with the patient for an initial assessment and ask the patient about their addiction, and early childhood experiences, and gather relevant information.
2. Session two
1. Jung steps up and meets with the patient for a dream analysis session by having the patient recall a recent dream and possibly interpret the dream's meaning.
3. Session three
1. Freud would step up and do a free association session with the patient. Hopefully, Freud would pick up on patterns and themes in the patient's thoughts.
4. Session four
1. Jung and Freud could come together to discuss their findings from the individual sessions and develop a combined treatment plan for the patient consisting of dream analysis, free association, and talk therapy.
5. Ongoing Sessions:
1. Jung and Freud would continue to meet with the patient on a regular basis to help them work through their addiction and underlying psychological issues by using a variety of techniques to help the patient develop some new coping mechanisms and live a more fulfilling life.

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References

Frank, G. (2012). On the concept of resistance: Analysis and reformulation. Psychoanalytic Review, 99(3), 421–435. https://doi-org.ezproxy.snhu.edu/10.1521/prev.2012.99.3.421