The Case of Little Hans

During the year of 1909, Sigmund Freud encounters a patient with hippophobia, the fear of horses. The patient is only 5 years old, which Freud refered to as Little Hans. Through slowly investigating on Little Hans's thought and experiences, Freud slowly unfolded the case of this phobia that Little Hans have on the white horse. In Freud's investigation, Little Hans, at that time in the phallic stage, developed the Oedipus complex, the case of when the boy wish to marry his own mother, and by doing that, he first needs to kill his own father who's standing in his way. Also with the birth of the newborn sister of his, he develop envious attitude toward his own sister, wished that she was dead, because it made he felt as if he is nowhere in his mother's eye. Due to the environment, saying that wishing dad dead isn't an appropiate thing to do, the internal conflict developed inside Little Hans. When Hans realize that he couldn't win his father, he repressed his thought of wishing him dead, which became part of his phobia. Since that the horse was bigger than him, with the whiteness of its body and the black covering on the eye, it represent his father, becoming the cause of the phobia that haunt him, that the "white horse will bite him". His experience of seeing the horse falled down because of the loads on its carriage represents two things, which is the main causes of his phobia. One is that his father fall down and die, and two is that his mother will give birth to another child, either delivered the baby out or died giving birth. When Freud mentioned this to Little Hans, combined with Little Hans's try to be normal, the phobia disappeared.

What I think about this case study? I think it's a fun one. It's the first case study this year as well. It helps with understanding the stage of phallic more, what the child did and thought. What I think of Sigmund Freud? He's sounded like a detective to me when we as the whole class go over the case study.

Sigmund Freud and the twentieth century

During the twentieth century, the world's 16th most influential person, Sigmund Freud, was living in Austria, going through all the event, including the event of the highest statistic of death in the world history, WWI. Throughout the first World War, Freud witness how much people are driven to kill others and development of science ard used to kill people, which lead him to the theory that people have a death drive equal to that they have the sexual drive.

Big Issue

Today, in the IB Psychology class, we got to do a survey about these following things:

1. Rationality - Irrationality

2. Stability vs. Change

3. Nature and Nurture

At the beginning, Mr. Antony asked the class which side they think they're in. For me, I said "Irrationality - Change - Nature". Then Mr. Antony gave us the survey. After doing the survey, we got the result of what we really are.

First, for the rationality and irrationality, rational being 25 and irrational being 0, I got the result of 11, which is nearly the middle but on the "irrational" side. Next, for the change and stability, change being 0 and stability being 25, I got the result of 3, which is at the far corner on the "change" side. Finally, the nature and nurture, nature being 25 and nurture being 0, I got the result of 14 which is also near to the middle but on the "nature" side.

The result turns out to be all the same as what I thought, which is strange really. Maybe it's a fluke, but maybe it's just the way I am. ^^

The Best of the Century

As the century goes by, the field of psychology grew really fast and wide, from a field of science available for only the aristocrats of one culture only, to the field of wide-range science for a population of all cultures. The improvements in psychotherapy slowly move this new science to life. Some changes included the workshop for all people, multicultural therapy, improvement in the field of addiction studies, the growing of biological psychology, and the approach of behavior psychology.

From the article, The Best of the Century, twenty breakthroughs in the field of psychology throughout the century are mentioned, all interesting and fascinating.

One of the breakthroughs are stated by Stanley Milgram that "nearly everyone has the potential to follow the authority up to the point of murdering." With the experiment he had tried by telling his college students to go up to people in the subway train and ask them for their seat. At first, none of his students agreed to do so because they thought no one will ever going to give up their seats, therefore it's futile to do so. Some students though agreed to give it a try on 20 subway passengers. Then the turning point came that about half of them did really gave up their seats. I think this is an important one because when people follow the authority in good things, it's not a bad part, but if people really do follow the authority and the authority in this place is bad, then it can lead to a massacre, like what Hitler did in WWII, where people just killed people, the Jewish, without even knowing it.

Another breakthrough is stated by Ellen Langer that "thinking may help people to live a longer, healthier, more productive life." She stated the the harm of mindlessness is that it shortens one's life span. She tested on the experiment on the people in the nursing home to encourage them to be more mindful by giving them each a plant in which they are responsible. From the experiment, the people who tends to be more mindful have their plants live longer than the ones who doesn't. I think this is important because if thinking make people to live a longer and better lives, then people should think more, rather than do things mindlessly, and sometime, mindlessness can be dangerous as well. When people are mindless, they mostly do thing without thinking and some can be very harmful.

Another breakthrough is stated by Harry F. Harlow that "love and care of the mother have effect in emotional and intellectual development." From his experiment with monkeys, he came up with the result that love and care for the mother have effect on emotional and intellectual development of the baby. I think this is important because nowaday, there're many news of mothers abandon the children. From this statement, those abandoned children who didn't have love and care from their mothers can have bad emotional and intellectual development, which if many can be harmful to the country in the future as well.

The fourth breakthrough I chose is stated by Philip G. Zimbardo that "societal role also determine much of our behavior." Through his experiment of putting college students in the prison in the role of prisoners' guards, the college students became so violent and so cruel that he had to stop the experiment. I think this is important because the societal role are determine by one's behavior, which mean one behavior sometime determine another behavior. Also, from what Stanley Milgram stated, people tend to follow authority up to the point of murdering, which mean that maybe the reason why this experiment works is because the students think the guards must be like this.

Finally, the last breakthrough I choose is by Hans Selye, stated that being busy all the time is the way to cope with stress. He said that people often mistaken the meaning of stress. I think this is important because people often tend to relax when they got stressed, which sometime gains more stressful because people are free, and don't know what to do. I believe that oftentime stress leads to disease as well, so people should really know the real meaning of stress in order to cope with it correctly.

Pg. 6 - Hans Selye - "Busy all the time can cope with stress."

Why do we do the thing that we do?

The main question and the key question of world wide psychologist is "Why do we do the things we do?" From what I know, it depends on many aspects, such as the environment, the motivation and thought, and the past experience of the people.

First, the environment inflences people to do different things. When people live in different environment, they tend to do different things due to the culture, the religion, the history and many other aspect of the environment they live in. Different culture lead to different action and reaction of people's behavior, because of the meaning of the action. For example, hugging in some of the Western countries means a kind of greeting, therefore hugging is not seen as anything bad and can be seen fairly commonly. On the other hand, in Thailand, hugging mean showing of love. If you hug a person from the opposite sex on the street, you will be the center of attention to many people, often not in a very good way. Different religion also determined different behavior due to different in beliefs and teachings. Some easy examples will be why Buddhists give things to the monk, why Christians go to church every Sunday, and why Islams need to go to Mecca once in their lives. History also sometimes a factor that make people do the things they do. History is the building blocks of culture. Throughout the history, many events defines many things people do. For example, I believe that the Islamic terrorism that happens nowaday is due to the war in the past, the Afghans War.

Similar to how environment shape up the people's ways of acting, the thoughts of the person also determine why they do the things they do. Motivation, ways of thought, personal set of ethics, these things came from how people think and want. The workers who recieves more wages tend to want to work more; a student who will get a reward for good grade tends to study harder are some of the common examples. Another example is one of the experiment about patient who took a medicine which the doctor says will cure the disease, which really the medicine doesn't have any effect, but the patient did gradually get better due to the thought that he or she will get cured. The way people thinks have effects on the action they did, too.

Another reason the I think makes people to do the things they do is because of the past experience. Why people some people do bad things and other do good things is because their past build them differently. Why do some people steal while some do charity; it's because of the way people are raised and taken care of. Good family, good experience lead people to do good things while bad family, bad experiences make them to do things that can be really horrible. An example is a person who often tend to hurt his wife violently has the childhood as a child with father and mother arguing violently. Therefore, I do think that the past of a person also determine why he or she act the certain way.

Well, for me, I think these are the main reasons why we act the way we act.

PS. Guess I just wrote too long again. Sorry. ^^

Why IB Psychology HL?

Okay, now I'm going to answer the question, which can really be included in the introduction, but better seperate it because of organization, "Why am I in for IB Psychology HL?"

First of all, I decide to divide the question into two main part: "Why am I in for Psychology?" and "Why am I doing IB HL?"

Okay, why Psychology? An easy one to answer.

"Because it's Psychology!!"

The answer sound simple, but full of meaning. I take Psychology because it is Psychology!! Okay, it sound a bit strange but I will explain it. First, what is Psychology for me? According to English and Math, Psychology = Psycho + Logy = Mind + Study of = The study of the mind. (English for the words, math for the equation). According to Science, Psychology is the study of how the brain pass on message, from neurons to neuron, that determine how people react to the environment. Summarizing, Psychology is the study of "why people do as they do, feel as they feel and act as they act?" That's why I choose to take Psychology!! I am always interested in why people are as they are, always interested in psychology itself. I believe that the subject I found to be interesting are often a priority for me for many things, little more than the ones I found less interested. I really look forward to this class ever since I know this class really existed!!

Now the next question: "Why is it IB Higher Level?" The answer is:

"Because of the IB Diploma!!"

The IB Diploma is the course over a period of 2 year, which composed of 6 subjects from each of the departments: English, Modern Language, Social Science, Mathematics, Sciences, and Elective, 3 Standard Level and 3 Higher Level. I am current trying for the diploma, so I need to choose one from each of the subjects to satisfy the diploma. After choosing the class I want to take, I need to choose whether it should be SL or HL. Now, looking at the Social Science subjects, there are:

1. Business and Management

2. Economics

3. History

4. Geography

5. Psychology

The ones I am interested in are Business, History and Psychology. So I have narrow down my choices. Now, back to the whole diploma, which say I need 3 HL and 3 SL. Why HL is quite simple. From my schedule, it take science and art to be my HL. That left me with modern language, English and Math. The modern language I choose doesn't have HL, so it must be SL. I don't have enough motivation for English, so I take SL. For Math, easily saying is that I am not good enough that the department won't let me in for the hard HL, so that's SL. That make me to choose the Social Science as HL. History is out of the choice, since there's no such thing as History HL, not now. That left me with Business and Psychology. After the scheduling, Business HL is full and is closed, so that's why Psychology HL.

That conclude why I choose to take Psychology HL!

Introduction

Well, before I go into something serious, which is my homework, I decide that I should do some introduction of myself first, before doing the work. Don't really know why, it's just my code of manner. Okay, let's get started.

Okay, my name is Penpisha, Ploy for short. I'm Thai, living in Thailand. I'm an RIS student, Grade 11 and right now, trying for the IB Diploma Program. I won't really explain it much, since I don't know much about it myself. All I know is that: 1. It's a course of 6 subjects for 2 years; 2. It's harder than normal class; and 3. It look good on the transcript. That's all. Short simple for me, and the diploma is really my kind. I like to challenge myself.

About this blog? I think it will serve for only one purpose, which this post is excluded. It's for IB Psychology HL, which I'm currently taking. Not counting this introductory post, I don't think I'll post anything other than that; not of other class, not of a bad day, not of a good day, nothing other than Psychology. Reason? Because this is IB Psychology HL with Mr. Peter Antony in RIS!!!

Okay, enough of the introduction, I think. Hope you enjoy!!