How Psychology Has Remain A Progressive Science

The influential Paul Ekman is known best for his contributions to the field of psychology, in regards to the study and research of evolution of emotions and facial expressions across time and cultures. Ekman was born on February 15, 1934, in Washington D.C, where he would be the second child to his jewish family (Hunter). His parents were an attorney and pediatrician who lived in New Jersey for most of his life, but Ekman continued to move to other locations in the United States throughout his lifetime, including California, New York, Chicago and more (Contributions). In his teenage years, his mother began to succumb to her severe mental illness, sparking his interest in beginning a career in the scientific community in order

The often asked question is the relationship between the theories of psychology and its application to human life for instance, individual life, mental life and subjectivity. Presently, efforts by writers to separate the three categories have seen light. Psychology itself cannot exist without a society which supports all its facts. Moreover, psychological object cannot be taken as independent, given, discovered but that which is discovered and comes before knowledge. Psychology can hence be seen in two perspectives: as a discipline and as a subject of human. A conclusion can be made that psychology exists in a domain that is constructed. This is contrary to science domain where truth

The history of psychology is in infancy at the present time. Many philosophers can be credited to the development of this science. Starting in the early 18th and 19th centuries philosophers such as Rene’ Descartes and John Locke opened the world of what we know as psychology today. The British empiricists also contributed to psychology. Some of these men include David Hume and David Hartley.

His findings helped psychologist gain knowledge in how facial expressions play an important part in human interactions. His work helps doctors identify when patients are being deceitful and prevent them from harming themselves in the future. Today, Ekman continues to be an influential leader in the field of psychology. He has developed training programs to help people decipher people’s emotions, help people enhance their relationships with others and help people develop a sense of empathy for others. In addition to his work Ekman is an active consultant on emotional expression to judges, lawyers, government agencies such as the FBI and CIA.

Dr. Emile Krapelin, a German physician, was one of the first to separate mental disorders into different categories. “Dementia praecox” was the term Krapelin used for those patients who had some of the same symptoms that we now use to describe schizophrenia. Many people had described the basic concept of “madness” for hundreds, even thousands of years, however, Krapelin was the first to distinguish Schizophrenia as a distinguished mental disorder in the year 1887. He also was the first to distinguish between mental disorders such as Schizophrenia and depression. “Dementia praecox” was believed to be a “disease of the brain” meaning literally “early dementia.”

Ekman studied how what people felt and what they thought could be revealed just by the facial expressions people made. He wanted to see how people can look at faces and figure out what they were thinking. He studied many of the different expressions that people could make and what each of those expressions mean. He also studied the involuntary muscle movements and how they were triggered automatically when people feel certain emotions. He figured out how to read these emotions to figure out what people are thinking basically taking what humans do naturally a step farther. He became very proficient at the art of “mind reading”.

In 1809, physician John Haslam published an account of what he considered “A form of insanity”. Haslam described many symptoms that are relevant to modern day schizophrenia including delusions of grandeur and hallucinations. During the latter part of the nineteenth century, a German psychiatrist named Emil Kraepelin expanded on Haslam’s views and gave a more accurate description of schizophrenia as we know it today. Kraeplin started off by combining terms including different types of insanity under one term: Catatonia, and delusions of grandeur and persecution: paranoia. Kraepelin also separated dementia praecox from manic depressive illness, or bipolar disorder (Barlow,

Emil Kraeplin, a German physician was one of the first to categorize mental disorders and he used the term dementia praecox for individuals who had symptoms that we now associate with schizophrenia. Since then our understanding of this mental illness has evolved even though the causes of this illness to this day remain hard to comprehend. (Weiner, 1997)

The start of psychology as a discipline was a journey filled with uncertainty and codependence. After ongoing maturation its place was revealed independently within colleges and universities throughout America.

Although schizophrenia is considered to be one of the newer mental disorders to be recognized, there have been several researchers that have made major declarations as to the cause and depth of this disorder. The first researcher to provide a look into what is now called schizophrenia is Emil Kraepelin (Jablensky, 2012). Prior to Kraepelin’s research, psychologists had begun to describe symptoms that were unlike any of the known mental disorders of the time. Kraepelin saw that many of these symptoms were similar among each other but there were also slight differences in the cases. Kraepelin decided to group all symptoms that were describing similar events under one term, dementia praecox. Throughout his research Kraepelin struggled with finding one root cause that was similar across all patients, so he determined that the essence of this disorder was a notable decline in

During the early 20th century mental disorders became recognized and theories began to be developed to explain reasons for behaviors and feelings. Psychodynamics and behaviorism emerged as the explanation on the cause of mental illness. Before that time mental illness was viewed as demonic possessions and supernatural forces (Jutras page 87). The founder of psychodynamic theory was Sigmund Freud. Watson was the founder of behaviorism. This led to the creation of the DSM or Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Disorders. This manual gives you the names and symptoms of mental health disorders. This system has been used since 1952, and DSM volume 5 is used today (Jutras page 87). With the rhetorical framework and system in place, this led to the development of modern pharmacological approaches

Authored by Keith E. Stanovich, How to Think Straight About Psychology is a known work of the psychology world which was published in 1986. Beginning courses in psychology use his text frequently. Stanovich primary purpose for writing the text is to bring attention to his observation that the public’s understanding of psychology is different from psychology as a modern science. Psychology as a modern science explains the underlying functions that shape human attitudes and behavior. To the people who misunderstand this, the field of psychology is not a real science, but a pseudo-science instead. How to Think Straight About Psychology describes people’s several false impressions of psychology and it gives its readers a factual understanding of the field as a modern and scientific psychology while explaining how this science works.

Paul Ekman was born in 1934 and at age 14 his mother committed suicide after suffering from severe bi-polar disorder. At that point, he decided he wanted to study facial expressions of emotion in order to assist other people before such tragic outcomes occurred. By the time he was 15, he had enrolled in University of Chicago and became interested in group therapy. He earned his Bachelor’s degree in 1954 and in 1958 he had earned his Ph.D. in clinical psychology at Adelphi University. His Master’s thesis was about the study of facial expressions and body movement. From 1960 to 2004 he worked at the University of California and starting in 1963 he received continual research grants from the National Institute of Mental Health for 40 years to study nonverbal behavior.

Accuracy rates were in the 45% to 60% range, which replicates what has been found in studies with college students. However DePaulo and Pfeifer (1986) was the only study, which found noticeable difference in behaviour when the person told the truth or lied. Later Ekman et al (1988) argued that high stake lies might result in fraudulent facial emotional expressions, also referred to as micro – expressions. Theses are a facial expression that are displayed for only a fraction of a second but clearly reveals the liars true feelings.

The essay “The Naked Face” written by Malcom Gladwell is about the ability of recognizing the meaning behind someone’s facial expressions. He starts the essay with a life or death situation between an inner city police officer and a suspect that both are pointing guns at each other. The officer clearly has the right to shoot the suspect, but decided not to base on a hunch that the armed suspect was not a threat (Gladwell 24). Gladwell then demonstrates that the police officer is one out of a thousand people that scored really well on a psychology test to determine if someone is lying or telling the truth based on facial expressions (Gladwell 59). Gladwell’s essay then continues with