Entry 3 : Best of the Century

Psychology is a field that has developed over the century in which many psychologists have paid their contributions in developing many theories and approaches on this topic. These contributions greatly influenced and shaped modern psychological theories and practices and gradually improved psychology over the years. In the 19th century, psychological treatment was expensive and time consuming. In addition, they were not very effective. Fortunately, psychology has been modified in the past centuries. Nowadays, treatment is available almost everywhere, even in books and online. Individual and group therapies and seminars are held frequently. Psychological treatment is no longer afforded only by the rich, but by everyone. Behavior therapies are now present, and are a combination of several different main theories and practices combined to enhance successful results. Practices are being modified and adjusted to suit various clients of different ethnic backgrounds, which helps facilitate treatment. Psychotherapist and psycho pharmacologists interchangeably refer their patients to each other to better diagnose them. The drastic alteration of psycho-therapy greatly impacts our modern understanding of the nature of people and caused various new theories and practices to emerge.
Many psychologists have contributed to the long history of psychology, among which is Jean Piaget. Piaget said that children do not understand the concept of “conservation.” Conservation is the idea that matter does not change quantity despite its container. According to her experiment, when milk is poured into a large bowl, the child claims that there is less milk. This experiment was the first to prove that human intelligence had to be developed as the human grows. Personally, I think this discovery has a great contribution towards psychology because it enables the therapist to diagnose patients of different ages differently. With this knowledge, we could also anticipate growth of intelligence in humans.
Ellen Langer proposed her experiment on the effect of thinking on the lifespan of life. Her experiment proved that a group of senior citizens who were more engaged in daily activities live longer than the ones who were indifferent to daily life. I feel that this study could stimulate elders to be more active in everyday life and could prove to be a method in lifespan extension.
Matina Homer conducted an experiment that distinguished the sex roles in modern society. An experiment was conducted on two honor students, a male and a female. The results concluded that females feel inferior to males in a competitive situation. This study proves that despite the common belief that both genders are equal, there is still a feeling of female inferiority when both genders are confronted. By understanding this, we could eliminate this feeling of inferiority from females by reinforcing that females and males are both equally competitive genders.
Howard Gardner claimed that intelligence is not merely based on how “bright” someone is, but there are many types of intelligence, thus resulting in his theory of “multiple intelligence”. The theory of multiple intelligence states that the word “intelligence” should include many areas, such as musical intelligence, self-knowledge, and bodily kinesthetic intelligence. Gardner argues that judging people by their “intelligence” is unfair. I agree that this is true and it is very unjust to judge people from their “intelligence.” However, even though there are many different aspects of “intelligence” as suggested by Howard, they are still not practical and common enough to be used as an official test. Therefore, I think it is best to use the normal system of Intelligence Quotient (IQ).
Hans Seyle was the first to apply the concept of stress from physics to human beings by identifying that humans react to environmental threats in various ways and that illness, mood, and performance is influenced by stress. He also stated that it is important to identify what stresses us and what makes us happy. Since stress is one of the major problems that people have, understanding this would help everyone have a productive and happy life. I think it is utterly important to identify our strengths and weaknesses as well.
I think Albert Ellis believes in the cognitive perspective. His study on rational-emotive-therapy (RET) states that our behavior and emotions are influenced by our thoughts, which is what the cognitive perspective specifically states. Ellis’s works focuses on changing his patients’ behavior by changing his patient’s irrational thoughts into rational thoughts. As a result, his patients will alter their emotions and behavior as well. RET had proved to be a very successful, effective, and efficient.