耶鲁大学开放课程OpenYaleCourseIntroduction to Psychology 13.docx

1、耶鲁大学开放课程OpenYaleCourseIntroduction to Psychology 13Introduction to Psychology: Lecture 13 March 7, 2007 backProfessor Paul Bloom: What weve been talking about so far in the course are human universals, what everybody shares. So, weve been talking about language, about rationality, about perception,

2、about the emotions, about universals of development, and weve been talking about what people share. But honestly, what a lot of us are very interested in is why were different and the nature of these differences and the explanation for them. And thats what well turn to today.So first, well discuss h

3、ow are people different, different theories about what makes you different in a psychological way from the person sitting next to you, and then well review different theories about why people are different. And this is the class which is going to bother the most people. Its not dualism. Its not evol

4、ution. Its this because the scientific findings on human psychological differences are, to many of us, shocking and unbelievable. And I will just try to persuade you to take them seriously.Okay. So, how are people different? Well, theres all sorts of ways. Your sexual identity-It is at the core of y

5、our being for almost all of us whether youre male or female. How we refer to you in language, what pronoun we use, is indexed on how we-on your-on how-whether youre male or female and related to that though imperfectly is your sexual orientation, who youre attracted to. The question of why some of u

6、s think of ourselves as males and others as females, and the question of why some of us would ideally want to have sex with males, others with females, others with both, and then a few others who have harder to define desires, is such a good question that were going to talk about it after spring bre

7、ak while all the sexual desire has been spent and you could focus on laughter on a scientific discussion of this-not that I recommend you do that on spring break.How happy are you? This is also such a good topic its going to get its own class. The very last class of the semester is devoted to happin

8、ess and the question of what makes people happy, what makes people unhappy, and what makes people differ in their happiness. If I asked you to rank how happy you are from a scale of 1 to 10, the numbers would differ across this room. And theres different theories as to why. Your success and failure

9、in life-This is somewhat interesting because you could study this in more or less objective ways. We dont have to ask people. We could look at your relationships, how they begin, how they end, your job satisfaction. We could look at your criminal records. Some of you are going to see time. Most will

10、 not. Some of you will get into little troubles all through your life. Some of you already have seen the inside of a police station, possibly a lineup. Others couldnt go near such a thing. What determines that?And at the root of all human differences are two main factors. And so, I want to talk abou

11、t the two main interesting factors. One is personality. The other is intelligence. And this is what-These are the differences Ill talk about today first from the standpoint of how do we characterize them, how do we explain them, and then from the standpoint of why these differences exist in the firs

12、t place.One way to characterize personality is in terms of peoples style with dealing with-in dealing with the world and particularly their style with dealing-in dealing with other people. So, you take a simple character you know of and you could talk about that persons personality. You could talk a

13、bout it in terms of being impulsive, irresponsible, sometimes lazy, good-hearted. You could compare that persons personality with other peoples personalities such as my colleague who gave a talk last class. Hes wonderful. Hes responsible and reliable and very kind laughter and different from Homer.

14、And so, this difference is a difference in personality.Now, when we talk about personality were talking about something else as well. Were talking about a stable trait across situations and time. So, if all of a sudden the person next to you kind of smacks you in the head, you might be angry but we

15、wouldnt call that personality because thats something thats a result of a situation. Wed all feel that way in that situation. Its personality if you walk around all the time angry. Thatd be a stable trait. Thatd be something you carry around with you and thats what we mean by personality.Now, how do

16、 we scientifically characterize differences in personality? And its a deep question. Theres been a lot of attempts to do so. Any assessment has-Any good assessment has to satisfy two conditions. And these are terms which are going to show up all over psychological research but its particularly relev

17、ant for this sort of measure. One is reliability. Reliability means there is not measurement error. And one crude way to think about reliability is, a test is reliable if you test the same person at different times and you get the same result. My bathroom scale is reliable if whenever I stand on it,

18、 it gives me more or less the same number. Its not reliable if its off by ten pounds in the course of a day. Similarly, if I give you a personality test now and it says that youre anxious and defensive, well-and then give it to you tomorrow and it says youre calm and open minded, its not a reliable

19、test. So, reliable is something you could trust over time.Validity is something different. Validity is that your test measures what its supposed to measure. So, validity means its sort of a good test. Forget about how reliable it is. Does it tap what youre interested in? So, for example, suppose I d

20、etermine your intelligence by the date of your birth. I figure out what day you were born and I have a theory that, from that, predicts how smart you are. Thats my intelligence test, the date of your birth. Maybe people born in January are the dumbest, people born in December are the smartest. Is th

21、at-I was born on Christmas Eve. laughter Is that a reliable test? Yes, its a wonderfully reliable test. Ill test you today; Ill test you tomorrow; Ill test you next year; Ill test you the day you die; Ill get the same IQ score. Is it a valid test? Its a joke. Its absolutely not a valid test. It has

22、nothing to do with intelligence. But you noticed these are two different things. Something can be reliable but not valid and something can be valid and not reliable.Now, there are no shortage of personality tests. You could get them all over the place including on the web. So, I took one recently. I

23、 took which super hero are you? laughter And its a series of questions determining what super hero you are. You could take this yourself if you want to. The same web page, by the way, offers you a test in whether youre hot or not. Well discuss that later. And when I did this laughter it told me I wa

24、s Batman laughter and you are dark, love gadgets, and have vowed to help the innocent not suffer the pain you have endured. Now, the honest- laughter Now, to be honest though, its neither reliable nor valid. When I first did the test I came up as The Incredible Hulk. I then changed my answers a bit

25、and was Wonder Woman. laughter And finally, out of frustration, I carefully tailored my answers so I would be Batman. But the fact that I can do that, well, raises questions about both the reliability of this measure and its validity.Here is an example 鈥 a real world example. This is, in black and w

26、hite form, a version of the Rorschach test, the Rorschach inkblot test. How many people have heard of the Rorschach test? Okay. Is there anybody here who has actually, in any sort of situation, taken a Rorschach test? Some people scattered in the room have taken them. It was originally used only for

27、 psychiatric cases but then became extremely common. About eighty percent of clinical psychologists claim to use it and most graduate programs in the American Psychological Association who are accredited teach it. Catholic seminaries use it for people who want to join the seminary.It was invented by

28、 a guy named Herman Rorschach. He devoted his entire life to the inkblot test. His nickname when he was a teenager 鈥 I am not kidding you 鈥 was Inkblot. laughter And the idea is by looking at these inkblots and then seeing what somebody says you get great insights into the nature of their personalit

29、y, into what they are. Anybody want to try it? Come on. Yes. What do you see?Student: I see two people holding hands pressed together.Professor Paul Bloom: Two people holding hands pressed together. Very good. Anybody have a different reading? Yes, in back. Yes. Yes.Student: Dancing bears.Professor

30、Paul Bloom: Dancing bears. Okay. Good.laughter Good. Okay. I got to write your name down- laughslaughter report you to health- No. Dancing bears, very good. Anybody else? One other. Yes.Student: A man in a ski mask.Professor Paul Bloom: A man in a ski mask. Well, it turns out that there are right an

31、swers and wrong answers to the Rorschach test. According to the test, and this is from a real Rorschach test, it is important to see the blot as two human figures, usually females or clowns. Good work over there. If you dont, its seen as a sign you have problems relating to people. laughter If you w

32、ant to go for a cave entrance or butterfly or vagina, thats also okay. laughterNow, the Rorschach test is transcendently useless. It has been studied and explored and it is as useless as throwing dice. It is as useless as tea leaves. Nonetheless, people love it and its used all over the place. It is used for example in child custody cases. If you have broken up with your partner and you guys are quarreling over who gets to keep the kids, you might find yourself in a shrinks office looking at this. And i