Psychology-based theories

As he was so close to us in time and spirit, and because our brain-based theory is so different from his, in this chapter we focus on Freud s psychoanalytic model as it was developed in his Projectfor a Scientific Psychology (1895) and The Interpretation of Dreams (1900). Freud wanted his psychology to have a solid foundation in brain science, but he was 100 years too early to build it as we now can. For this reason, he was forced to resort to speculative philosophy, the medium of all pre-modern dream theories that analyse content. The differences between Freud s content analytical scheme and modern theory are shown in Table 1. 

Cooper, C. L. and E. A. Locke, eds. 2000. Industrial and Organizational Psychology Linking Theory with Practice, Oxford, U.K./Malden, MA Blackwell Business. This book contains a set of contributing papers written by experts in the field of industrial and organizational psychology. The theoretical and practical approaches presented allow for a blend of practical-based and research-oriented discussions that would benefit students and professionals. It covers most of the relevant topics in the field. 

You have probably noticed by now that I get quite disturbed when I read or hear pop psychology based on xmfounded intuition or common sense. Many statements I have read or heard relating to the psychology of safety sound good but are incorrect. Profound knowledge comes from rigorous research and theory development, and often runs counter to common sense. 

Georgiadou, A., Tsaparlis, G. (2000). Chemistry teaching in lower secondary school with methods based on (a) psychological theories (b) the macro, representational, and submicro levels of chemistry. Chemistry EducationResearch andPractice, 1, 217-216. 

Although it has received the most attention, CBT is not the only form of psychotherapy that is effective for depression. Other psychological treatments include interpersonal psychotherapy, short-term psychodynamic therapy and non-directive supportive therapy. Interpersonal psychotherapy focuses on problems that arise in interpersonal relationships, such as marital conflict, the loss of a loved one and social isolation.20 Short-term psychodynamic therapy focuses on acquiring insight and understanding of unresolved conflicts arising from the person s childhood. It is based on Freud s psychoanalytic theory, but requires only months, rather than the years it takes for a full psychoanalysis.21 Non-directive supportive therapy provides a warm, supportive atmosphere in which the depressed person can explore life issues... 

Abramson, L., Metalsky, G. I., Alloy, L. B. (1989). Hopelessness depression A theory-based subtype of depression. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 96, 358— 372. 

This flexibility is not without a price, however, as learners need to keep track of where they are and pace themselves. To address this, we examine the situation from the psychological perspective of cognitive load theory. Cognitive load theory is based on the premise that people have a limited working memory capacity and that information must flow through before it can be stored in long-term memory (Sweller 2005). The basis for this is Miller s work, which indicated most people had a working memory capacity of 7 2 items (Miller 1956). 

Quality by Design is a systemic approach that applies the scientific method to the process. QbD theory contains components of management, statistics, psychology, and sociology. The FDA s new century has identified the QbD approach as its key component based on process quality control before industry end results [3,17]. 

Sigmund Freud, an Austrian physician who began his career in the 1890s, focused on psychological disorders that he felt were caused by memory disturbances. Freud felt mental illness occurs when unpleasant childhood memories are repressed, or kept from consciousness. His highly influential theory of psychoanalysis is in fact based on the concept that memories can be repressed, and he developed psychoanalytic therapy to uncover those memories and cure the patient. 

Clearly, these models aU have merit in helping to tease out complex factors that can contribute to the development of depression. These psychological causes also very likely influence much of what goes on in the so-called biologic depressions. However, the focus of this section is limited to a discussion of current theories of biological causation—causes that either imderlie or contribute to the development of the biologic-based depressions listed above. 

More recently, Abraham Tesser and John Achee have developed an argument of this kind more systematically.10 They observe that in many social situations the function relating the independent variables to the dependent variable is two-valued rather than one-valued, and hence the distribution of behaviors bimodal rather than unimodal. Brehm s theory of "reactance/ for instance, is based on the premise that social pressure can decrease as well as increase conformity.109 John Roemer s idea of the "psychology of tyranny" is also relevant here.110 The tyrant induces fear in his subjects, but also hatred. The fear makes them less likely to rebel, the hatred more likely. Tesser and Achee argue, however, that the indeterminacy disappears once we go beyond state variables and introduce path dependence or hysteresis ... 

The theory of the chemical bond is one of the clearest and most informative examples of an explanatory phenomenon that probably occurs in some form or other in many sciences (psychology comes to mind) the semiautonomous, nonfundamental, fundamentally based, approximate theory (S ANFFBAT for short). Chemical bonding is fundamentally a quantum mechanical phenomenon, yet for all but the simplest chemical systems, a purely quantum mechanical treatment of the molecule is infeasible especially prior to recent computational developments, one could not write down the correct Hamiltonian and solve the Schrodinger equation, even with numerical methods. Immediately after the introduction of the quantum theory, systems of approximation began to appear. The Born Oppenheimer approximation assumed that nuclei are fixed in position the LCAO method assumed that the position wave functions for electrons in molecules are linear combinations of electronic wave functions for the component atoms in isolation. Molecular orbital theory assumed a characteristic set of position wave functions for the several electrons in a molecule, systematically related to corresponding atomic wave functions. 

Theories of the known which are described by different physical ideas may be equivalent in all their predictions, and are hence scientifically indistinguishable. However, they are not psychologically identical when trying to move from that base into the unknown. For different views suggest different kinds of modifications which might be made, and hence are not equivalent in the hypotheses one generates from them in one s attempt to understand what is not yet understood. 

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