Best of the Century

1. What have been the major changes in psychotherapy this century?
During the 19th century, getting psychotherapy was rare; thousands of dollars were spent within weeks while achieving minimal improvements. How ever during the 20th century, many major changes have been made during this century. Million groups of people have been engaging in regular therapy such as self help books, cassettes and computer assisted materials. The effectiveness of the therapy has significantly helped about 80% of the people who participated in it. Many new methods of psychotherapy were developed during the 20th century, which includes: Multicultural, behavior, biological, neurological, religious and spiritual therapy. Multicultural therapy presumes that different patients of different racial group should be treated differently by the therapist to avoid miscommunication and mistrust. Behavior therapy hardly exists during the 19th century. Behavioral therapist leads us to a healthy thinking and a peace of mind. Therefore if we are experiencing unwanted feelings patients of emotional disorders with medications. Religious and spiritual theory is neglected during the early 20th century, but it has served its importance in human psychotherapy. In conclusion, psychotherapy is the key to improve the health of our human minds.

2. Twenty breakthroughs are identified. Which 5 do you think are the most important? Justify your answer. Focus: What comes to mind when you hear the word psychology. (List as many ideas as you can)
BREAKTHROUGH: Jean Piaget, Interview by Elizabeth Hall, May 1970
There was a case study made by Elizabeth Hall, she found out that children have no concept of conservation. When you pour milk in to a tall glass of milk and a wide bowl, the children will think that the milk will become less. This shows that human intelligence start developing at the stage of young children. In my opinion, the most important stage of learning is at young children. There is a research that I have read, it is this girl, she did not receive any education until the ages of 13. After that when psychologist try to educate her, she couldn’t speak complex English. This proofs that Children stage is the most important stage to develop the intelligence. After the child hood stage, we can no longer increase our intelligence. During this stage, adults tend to not focus on their child’s education. They presume that children understand easy knowledge such as conservation and the sense of justice.

BREAKTHROUGH: Stanley Milgram, Interview by Carol Tavris, June 1974
I was so surprised by this study that Carol Tavris made. She suggested to her students to ask anyone on the subway to simply ask for a seat. My first impression of the testable hypothesis is that most people won’t get up; they will think that you have a mental illness for asking some one to get up. The result came out astonishing, “They’re getting up!”. I was also shocked by the results, it sounds impossible that a stranger would let his or her seat if you ask them without asking any reason.

BREAKTHROUGH: Ellen Langer, April 1982
Ellen Langer demonstrated that mentally mediation would help you live a longer and healthier life. The result of her experiment was significant, "The ultimate harm of mindlessness is that it may shorten one's life span. In several investigations, we created situations that allowed nursing-home residents to be more mindful, to engage in active decision making, and we gave each one a plant for which he was responsible. We found that significantly fewer of the mindful residents had died--in one study, 14% compared with 47%."
I believe the human mind controls what we say and what we do; it will lead us in to happiness if we keep our mind in peace. This breakthrough also relates to the study of religion, Buddhism believes that we all should keep our mental mind in peace and we will live in happiness. So I strongly believe mental condition is one of the factors that could improve our spiritual condition.
BREAKTHROUGH: Matina Homer], November 1969
I think this is an important breakthrough, because it showed the differences between the thoughts of girls and boys. Phil and Monica are both honor role students, but they were placed into difference situations. They are described differently; Phil was recognized as a conscientious, hard working student, but in the other hand Monica was hated by her classmate. We next ask them to take a series of test by themselves, Monica scored higher than Phil. When they were to compete with each other in the same room, Phil scored higher. This shows that girls are less aggressive when competing with other boys. While boys are more aggressive, they want to show what ever they have. This influences the performance in competitive situations between men and women, which lead to their status in our society.
BREAKTHROUGH: Elizabeth F. Loftus, February 1984
This breakthrough shows how unreliable eyewitness is. We can create false memories by leading questions or over confidence. False memories could be both created by children and adults, so it won’t be influential evidence in courts. Before the 20th century people took eye witness as one of the important evidence to consider in the courts, they could miss judge the case by false eye witnesses.

What is the scientific attitude and why is it important for critical thinking?

"Having a scientific attitude consists in being willing to accept only carefully and objectively verified facts, and to hold a single fact above the authority of the oldest theories. Nothing can be called scientific that is not based on such an attitude." Boris Podolsky, (1965).

Yes indeed, we need to have willingness to give up an old established theory and identify new ideas without being misled by hindsight bias and overconfidence. Having scientific attitude is not only the needs skepticism but also humility. There would be no branch of new knowledge discovered without this scientific attitude.

Critical thinking is a process of analyzing arguments and conclusions. It is a process of examining the offered evidence and reasoning, and forming reasonable judgments about the facts. Without the critical thinking ability, we would be misled to our high sight bias and overconfidence of our judgments.

My motivation

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