J.B. Watson
Attempted to show conditioning in human beings, in 1923 he trained a child to be terrified of furry objects by clanging a metal bar behind the child every time it held a furry toy. This would not be ethical nowadays.
Analysis of the Behaviourist approach
Against
- It sometimes can oversimplify people and look at them like animals
- Can and has lead to inhumane experiments
- Could lead to brainwashing and indoctrination or children and adults.
For
- Shows how important the environment is when studying human behaviour.
- Has lead to improvements in housing and education.
- Shows that sometimes people are not completely responsible for their actions and cannot be blamed.
- It encourages crime prevention and positive crime reduction or youth diversion schemes.
The Psychoanalytic approach
Formed mainly be Sigmund Freud (1856-1939). Most of his studies where based on the mentally ill. He did not study people in a scientific way, and he never experimented with animals. He came up with the term ‘free association’. For this experiment, he gave his patients words, and they had to tell him the images, memories and ideas that it created for them. He called this ‘psychoanalysis’, the sorting out of the mind.
Freud’s main theory was that a-lot of human behaviour came from negative childhood events, which the child’s memory had repressed. However, these came out in later life as mental problems. Freud divided the mind into 2 sections, the conscious and the unconscious. The conscious mind was the thoughts and ideas and memories that are aware of. The unconscious mind is the stuff that we have forgotten or repressed. Freud believed that mental problems where the result of the unconscious mind stirring up the conscious mind. He believed that he could cure mental illness, if he could reveal the hidden memories of the unconscious mind, to the conscious mind of the patient.
The Psychoanalytic approach differs to the behaviourist, because Freud believed that it was possible to understand human behaviour, but also to understand the mind itself. Freud also came up with many other ideas and theories. Such as:
Instinct
- Eros - The urge for sex, the life force
- Thanatos - The death wish
- Libido - The urge for bodily pleasure
Infantile sexuality
- Oral sex, e.g. thumb sucking
- Anal Stage, e.g. retention
- Phallic Stage - awareness of penis
- Oedipus Complex - The secret wish of the male child to kill his father and have sex with his mother.
- Castration Complex - Irrational fear of castration
- Penis envy - The desire of young girls to be boys
Freud believed all these existed in the under fives and that, in repressed form, they could cause mental problems later in life.
Structure of the mind
- Id - The sexual energy hidden in the unconscious mind
- Ego - The self we know
- Super ego - The conscience, guarding the ego from the Id
Mental Illness
Freud saw this as a power struggle between the three parts of the mind. The super ego tried to fight the Id in ways that were destructive to mental health, they included -
- Repression - Pushing the desires forcibly back into the unconscious mind
- Sublimation - Changing bad desires into something more socially acceptable
- Fixation - Obsessively stuck at one of the stages of infantile sexual development.
Analysis of the Psychoanalytic approach
For
- Freud stirred dup a-lot of interest in psychology.
- Many of his theories are accepted, even though they are impossible to prove.
- Psychologists started studying sex, instead of pretending it didn’t exist
- It had a huge effect on the Arts, the media (e.g. advertising) and also the way we think about other people.
- His ideas have become very important to criminal psychology
Against
- Psychoanalysis can be damaging to the patient and their families.
- Most of Freud’s theories are linked with sex and so he is said to have been obsessed with the topic
- Other psychologists think that Freud was unscientific
- There isn’t much solid proof that these theories can help cure mental illness.
- His theories are sexist; they focus mainly on men and undervalue or ignore women. This is called being Phallocentric.
Task 3 and 4
Within the public services, psychology is used on a daily basis. It benefits the organisations and the individuals that work for them. These are the main importances:
- Improving leadership
- Dealing with conflict
- Creating a positive working environment
- Dealing with stress
- Improving communication
- Work force motivation
- Developing self esteem
- Professional development
- Personal development
- Customer satisfaction
The Army and the Police
All jobs have some degree of stress factor. Work-related stress accounts for over a third of all new incidences of ill health. Each case of work-related stress, depression or anxiety related ill health leads to an average of 30.2 working days lost. A total of 13.8 million working days were lost to work-related stress, depression and anxiety in 2006/07.
Reducing stress in all employees can positively effect the following:
- Employee commitment to work;
- Staff performance and productivity;
- Staff turnover or intention to leave;
- Staff recruitment and retention;
- Customer satisfaction; and
- Organisational image and reputation.
In 2006 these figures where relased from the homeoffice about the Police Force –
- 250,000 days were lost in 2004/05 from stress-related illness.
- The cost is put at between £20 million and £60 million a year.
- Out of a total of 160,000 police officers, and average day stress-related illness was estimated at 1,086 officers. This would account for the size of police forces in Wiltshire or Warwickshire.
- An average of two days off a year were due to stress. However, a psychologist said that this was likely to be higher, as illness could be linked to stress.
- Worst affected police forces were Leicestershire, Northern Ireland, Dorset, North Yorkshire and Greater Manchester.
- The cost was around £40 million a year.
These where identified as the main causes for the stress
- Lack of control
- Overwork
- Insufficient resources
- Long working hours
- Confrontation and challenge
- Impact of workload on family life
- Negative perception of the police force perpetuated by the media
- Dealing with traumatic incidents
- Resolving conflicts
- Possibility of physical danger
- Unsocial shift work
- Perceived bureaucratic obstacles: paper work, interdepartmental politics
So, when stress is reduced, all employees’ work will be more efficient. Other factors have been tackled to help reduce stress in the police force. Such as
Workplace temperature (workplace regulation act 1992)
During working hours, the temperature in all workplaces inside buildings shall be reasonable. The temperature in workrooms should normally be at least 16 degrees Celsius unless much of the work involves severe physical effort in which case the temperature should be at least 13 degrees Celsius. Police stations always make sure their working temperature is correct and comfortbale for their employees and visitng members of the public.
Lighting
the majority of a Police officers work takes place indoors, at their police station. Many hours will be spent using computers and looking at notes. This means that their employers must ensure that they are exposed to the correct lighting to prevent straining and damaging their eyes.
Space
lack of space can be a huge cause of stress if you feel you don’t have enough privacy. Psychologists where employed to advise on a comfortable layout for police stations that would maximise efficiancy.
Shift work
sparks and Cooper (1999) discovered that the longer hours people work, they less effectice and use they become. Also the divorce rate was higher amongst night workers. Forthis reason, police duties are done in shifts, and nights are done in rotation so that everyone takes a turn, and does not work too many nights in a row.
Army – Prospect of going to war
The prospect of going to war is a major source of stress in the Army. Being away from their loved ones and familiar places can become a major anxiety even before they leave. The psychoanalytical appracoh is used to deal with type of worry. The soldiers are told to dicuss their problems and fears with eachother and not keep things hidden