Mind And Body Essay, Research Paper
Much of the intellectual history of psychology has
involved the attempt to come to grips with the problem
of mind and body and how they interact.
While the philosophical distinction between mind and
body can be traced back to the Greeks, it is due to
the influential work of Ren? Descartes, (written
around the 1630’s) that we owe the first systematic
account of the mind/body relationship. When Descartes’
friend and frequent correspondent, Marin Mersenne,
wrote to him of Galileo’s fate at the hands of the
Inquisition, Descartes immediately suppressed his own
treatise. As a result, the world’s first extended
essay on physiological psychology was published only
well after its author’s death. In this essay, he
proposed a mechanism for automatic reaction in
response to external events. According to his
proposal, external motions affect the peripheral ends
of the nerve fibrils, which in turn displace the
central ends. As the central ends are displaced, the
pattern of interfibrillar space is rearranged and the
flow of animal spirits is thereby directed into the
appropriate nerves. This is the reason he has been
credited with the founding of the reflex theory.
Descarte was the first to talk about mind/body
interactions, and thus had a great influence in later
psychologists and thinkers. He proposed that not only
body can influence mind, but that mind could also
affect body.
Years later, the work of Nicolas Malebranche was
probably the most influential provider of
occasionalism. Occasionalism deals with the
contradiction that if the nature of causality is such
that causes and effects must have a necessary
connection and be of a similar type, then mind/body
interactionism is unsound. He argued that both of
Descartes’ substances, mind and body, are causally
ineffective. His belief was that G’d is the one and
only true cause. There is no influence of mind on
body or of body on mind.
“In order to retain the notion of God as the one true
cause without sacrificing the idea of causality as
operative in both the mental and the physical spheres,
Benedictus de Spinoza abandoned Descartes’
two-substance view in favor of what has come to be
called double-aspect theory.” Double-aspect theories
are based on the notion that the mental and the
physical are simply different aspects of one and the
same substance. Nonetheless, he agreed with Descartes
that the world of consciousness and that of extension
are qualitatively separate. He believed that
substance, G’d, is the universal essence or nature of
everything that exists. In other words he believed
that mental incidents can determine only other mental
incidents, and physical motions can determine only
other physical motions, “mind and body nonetheless
exist in pre-established coordination, since the same
divine essence forms the connections within both
classes and cannot be self-contradictory.” These
dual-aspect theories go went through a resurgence
during the 19th century.
Another view introduced by Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz
was that of psychophysical parallelism, which holds on
to both the dualism of mind and body and the notion of
a regular correlation between mental and physical
events. This view, however, avoids any assumption of
an underlying mind/body connection. It believes that
mind and body are so different, that they cannot
affect one another. They do, however, recognize the
fact that every mental event is correlated with a
physical event.
During the 18th century, the problem of re-relating
mind and body arose. George Berkely talked about the
view of immaterialism in which “he denies even the
possibility of mindless material substance. For
something to exist for Berkeley it must either be
perceived or is the active mind doing the perceiving.
>From this perspective, there is no mind/body
distinction because what we think of as body is merely
the perception of mind. While Berkeley had few
contemporary adherents, immaterialism was to resurface
in the later 19th century in the guise of mind- stuff
theory.”
As the 19th century progressed, the problem of the
relationship between mind and brain became
increasingly present. This is palpable especially in
texts after 1860. To a large extent, this directly
reflected two major developments that converged to
impress philosophers and psychologists with the
centrality of the mind/brain problem. “The formal
beginning of psychology as a modern science came in
1879 when Wilhelm Wundt founded, in Leipzig, Germany,
the first laboratory devoted to experimental
psychology.” Together with Hermann con Helmholtz and
Gustav Fechner, they founded the school of psychology
now labeled determinism. Determinism is based on the
idea that behaviors have causes that can be
investigated, and the causes of behavior are, to a
certain extent, beyond the control of the individual.
Determinism was proceeded by a school of psychology
called structuralism, which focused on the structure
or contents of the mind, and analyzed it in parts, in
other words, events can be understood when broken
down. Structuralism relied heavily on introspection.
Edward Titchener led this school of thought.
“Structuralism represented the early development of
psychology.”
The American John Dewey developed the school of
psychology called functionalism, which gave utmost
importance to learned habits which enabled organisms
to adapt to their environments and function
effectively, believing that an organism’s goal is to
adapt.
Since then, psychologists have taken different
approaches such as the biological approach, the
psyhodynamic approach, and the cognitive approach,
amongst many others. Psychology itself has grown in
popularity and has been therefore analyzed to a fuller
extent. An important issue directly related to the
field of psychology is the development of an
individual, which has been dealt with various
approaches.
Developmental psychology is “the branch of psychology
that is concerned with the changes in physical and
psychological functioning that occur from conception
through an entire life span.” Developmental
psychologists study physical, mental, and social
changes occurring throughout the life cycle.
Throughout life, there is never a period on which
change does not occur. Something is always changing.
Some psychologist view development as change is
essentially continuous. Other psychologists view
development as “a succession of reorganizations:
behavior is different in different age-specific
periods, such as infancy, childhood, and adolescence.
Thus, while development itself is continuous,
particular aspects of it are discontinuous.”
Because a great deal of who people are was determined
since before they were born, in order to fully
understand the development of an individual, we have
to go back to the origin of that person, the time of
conception. As soon as a zygote has been formed, it
contains genetic information “that will determine not
only the physical make-up, but many of the
psychological characteristics of the new individual.
For that reason, the study of behavior properly begins
with the study of mechanisms of heredity,” which is
why members of the same family have similar genes and
traits, and why brothers and sisters will resemble
each other as well as their parents. Genes are what
make each of us a distinctive human being, and yet
they are also what determines the characteristics that
make us human beings, rather than any other species.
What human beings have in common, nonetheless, is an
orderly sequence of biological growth processes
predetermined by our genes. This process is called
maturation. The genetic growth tendencies are innate.
Although fraternal twins are no more alike genetically
than ordinary siblings born at different times, their
environments are more similar, and thus their
development is more similar as well. All differences
between identical twins are due to environmental
factors. Everyday experiences shape human development
and maturation. It is still under discussion,
however, how much of behavior is due to heredity, and
how much is due to the environment.
The British philosopher John Locke believed neonates
are born without any knowledge or skills, as though
they were born with a blank tablet which, throughout
life gets filled with experiences which shape
development. “What directs human development, Locke
claimed, is the stimulation people receive as they are
nurtured by experience and educati
philosopher, Jean-Jacques Rousseau thought otherwise.
“He argued the view that nature, the totality of
predispositions and abilities we are born with, shapes
development.” People are noble savages corrupted by
contact with society. Since then new discoveries have
been made and contemporary developmental psychologists
now acknowledge that both, heredity and the
environment shape development and that neither one is
sufficient alone. The epigenetic model, with which
most psychologists agree with, states that
“development is influenced by the forces of both
nature and nurture.” It is a result of the
interaction of our genes and our past and present
experiences.
In 1801 a young boy around the age of twelve was
discovered in Aveyron, France. Animals had apparently
raised this “wild boy”. Because he was uncivilized,
he became known as the Wild Boy of Aveyron. Children
like him are called feral (meaning wild) children, and
the majority of times they are “completely unable to
cope with human society and usually die soon after
they are recovered from the wild, either from human
illnesses to which they have no immunity or dietary
shock, or psychological trauma… Feral children are not
the same as those tragic children raised in extreme
isolation or locked in cupboards and cellar for years
at a time by mentally disturbed parents.”
Plasticity is “the capacity of a developing organism
to be molded and shaped by the environment, nurture,
and experience.” Individuals themselves differ about
the extent of plasticity. Plasticity differs as well
according to different stages or periods in
development. “Your heredity establishes you
potential, but is your experiences that determine how,
and how much of, that potential will be realized.”
Each person is an individual with his or her own
developmental schedule and pattern, however it is
convenient to group the occurrence of various
developmental changes into stages. Nonetheless, one
must not forget that there is no one specific point at
which a task suddenly appears or disappears, because
each area of development is continually interacting
and influencing the others. The basic stages of
development are childhood, adolescence and adulthood,
and sometimes late adulthood is considered a separate
stage. Only recently has the neonate period of
development been carefully examined and considered.
In spite of this, there are some general principles
of development. Development follows a predictable
pattern with common characteristics such as the early
physical development of infants. In babies
development spreads downward from the head, which
develops first, to the feet. The individual first
develops general responses and then proceeds to
specific responses. A third characteristic of
development is that it is a continuous process. A
fourth principle is that some individuals have a
different rate of development, and each stage has
unique features, depending on the society and the
period of development involved.
The neonate is the newborn through the first two
weeks to a month of life. Neonates, within a few
hours of life, given certain stimulus are capable of
various responses. Almost all of these behaviors “are
reflexive—simple, unlearned, involuntary reactions to
specific stimuli. Many of these responses serve the
purpose of helping to respond to a basic need.”
Because different psychologists name certain stages
differently, Jean Piaget named the first stage the
sensory-motor stage, which involves the neonatal stage
as well as infancy. It is during this stage in which
infants learn by concrete actions; they learn
opposability. This “grasping” usually takes takes
place between the age of three and five months.
Opposability is of utmost importance in aiding the
processes of the mind. The first schemes involve its
senses, actions and abilities, in which opposability
plays a major role. “It seems that babies start to
build up their knowledge of the world by observing
relations between connected sensory events.” It is
in this manner that they learn to survive. Approaches
for survival and/or success begin to develop in
childhood.
“Regardless of the rate of one’s motor development,
there are regularities in the sequence on one’s
development.” Children grow very rapidly, both
physically and cognitively and they develop certain
intellectual abilities. It is during childhood that
individuals acquire language skills, which are
presumed to have been forming since infancy. Human
beings are presumed to be born with language learning
abilities, and “social interaction motivates children
to learn language so they can communicate with
others.” It is believed that learning abilities are
innate because all individuals are born with vocal
chords, and even as young as newborns, they already
babble and make certain sounds. Children all over the
world seem to go through similar steps of learning
language. Reinforcers as well as punishers play a
vital role in the development of language.
“Piaget say the human mind as an active biological
system that seeks, selects, interprets, and recognizes
environmental information to fit with or adjust to its
own existing mental structures.” Jean Piaget
greatly influenced the trying to successfully figure
out a way to understand the mental processes
(including the process of opposability) children go
through to understand physical realities. He named
the mental structures or programs that guide
developing sequences of thinking schemes.
Although Piaget’s theory has greatly influenced
developmental psychology, since then more research has
been made, and thus has caused some questioning of
some of his basic ideas. “The two major criticisms of
Piaget’s theory are that (1) the borderlines between
his proposes stages are much less clear-cut than his
theory suggests, and (2) Piaget significantly
underestimated the cognitive talents of preschool
children.” Another important disparagement is that
his theory focuses solely on the development of
children, and as we have already proven, development
does not stop until the day we die. He also gives
little consideration to the influence that language
development has on an individual. He also did not
elaborate much about the capacity of a child’s memory.
Erikson, on the other hand, proposed a theory which
he divided into eight stages of human development, his
first stage beginning at age zero and the eighth stage
referring to late adulthood. He too included the
characteristics of cognitive development, however, he
focused on much more than that. Also, “many of his
observations had more of a cross-cultural basis than
did Piaget’s.” Unlike Freud, Erikson decided to
emphasize the social environment, and thus his theory
is referred to as psychosocial. To Erikson,
development is not so much periods of time, but a
series of crises that need to be resolved. In
whichever way these conflicts or crises are resolved
affects greatly the development of the subsequent
stages. According to Erikson we “naturally go through
the resolution of each conflict or crisis in order and
that facing any one type of crisis usually occurs at
about the same age for all of us.”
Piaget agreed that moral development is closely
related to one’s cognitive awareness, yet it was
Lawrence Kohlberg who assembled a theory of moral
development. The theory is based on standards of moral
judgement. According to Piaget these cognitive
abilities develop only as the child progresses through
developmental stages. Kohlberg’s theory is too
divided into stages. He proposed three major levels
of moral reasoning, or development. According to
Kohlberg, his three stages occur in that same order in
all cultures.
Development is closely related to socialization,
because as we have discussed earlier, nurture, or the
environment plays a major role in the development of
an individual. Socialization the perceptual “process
of shaping an individual’s behavior patterns, values,
standards, skills, attitudes, and motives to conform
to those regardless as desirable in a particular
society.” Sexuality is closely related to
socialization.
Psychologists differ in their approaches towards
development because the view it from distinct points
of view. Piaget, for example, proposed a theory of
the cognitive development of children, while Erikson
proposed a theory based on the psychosocial
development of individuals. Although Kohlberg based
his theory on Piaget’s, his theory focused on moral
reasoning.