181-470: In conventional usage, boredom , ennui , or tedium is an emotion characterized by uninterest in one's surrounding, often caused by a lack of distractions or occupations. Although, "There is no universally accepted definition of boredom. But whatever it is, researchers argue, it is not simply another name for depression or apathy . It seems to be a specific mental state that people find unpleasant—a lack of stimulation that leaves them craving relief, with
362-555: A Black lens and dedicated her career to focusing on the anxiety of African American women. She founded the organization Rise Sally Rise which helps Black women cope with anxiety. She published her work Soothe Your Nerves: The Black Woman's Guide to Understanding and Overcoming Anxiety, Panic and Fear in 2003. In 2002 Dr. Teresa LaFromboise, former president of the Society of Indian Psychologists, received
543-434: A big role in emotions. He suggested that physiological reactions contributed to emotional experience by facilitating a focused cognitive appraisal of a given physiologically arousing event and that this appraisal was what defined the subjective emotional experience. Emotions were thus a result of two-stage process: general physiological arousal, and experience of emotion. For example, the physiological arousal, heart pounding, in
724-402: A biologically potent stimulus (e.g., food that elicits salivation) is paired with a previously neutral stimulus (e.g., a bell) over several learning trials, the neutral stimulus by itself can come to elicit the response the biologically potent stimulus elicits. Ivan Pavlov —known best for inducing dogs to salivate in the presence of a stimulus previously linked with food—became a leading figure in
905-539: A catch-all term to passions , sentiments and affections . The word "emotion" was coined in the early 1800s by Thomas Brown and it is around the 1830s that the modern concept of emotion first emerged for the English language. "No one felt emotions before about 1830. Instead they felt other things – 'passions', 'accidents of the soul', 'moral sentiments' – and explained them very differently from how we understand emotions today." Some cross-cultural studies indicate that
1086-569: A child should be recognized as their own person with their own right and have each session catered to the child's specific needs. She encouraged drawing, moving freely, and expressing themselves in any way. This helped build a strong therapeutic alliance with child patients, which allows psychologists to observe their normal behavior. She continued her research on the impact of children after family separation, children with socio-economically disadvantaged backgrounds, and all stages of child development from infancy to adolescence. Functional periodicity ,
1267-448: A common psychological response to industrial society, where people are required to engage in alienated labor . According to Fromm, boredom is "perhaps the most important source of aggression and destructiveness today." For Fromm, the search for thrills and novelty that characterizes consumer culture are not solutions to boredom, but mere distractions from boredom which, he argues, continues unconsciously. Above and beyond taste and character,
1448-680: A community, and self-esteem is one's estimate of one's status. Somatic theories of emotion claim that bodily responses, rather than cognitive interpretations, are essential to emotions. The first modern version of such theories came from William James in the 1880s. The theory lost favor in the 20th century, but has regained popularity more recently due largely to theorists such as John T. Cacioppo , Antonio Damasio , Joseph E. LeDoux and Robert Zajonc who are able to appeal to neurological evidence. In his 1884 article William James argued that feelings and emotions were secondary to physiological phenomena. In his theory, James proposed that
1629-399: A compound made of lange "long" and Weile "while", which is in line with the common perception that when one is bored, time passes "tortuously" slowly. Different scholars use different definitions of boredom , which complicates research. Boredom has been defined by Cynthia D. Fisher in terms of its main central psychological processes: "an unpleasant, transient affective state in which
1810-547: A concept of "recognition" ( pinyin : jen-shih ) which referred to the interface between individual perceptions and the socially accepted worldview; failure to correspond with party doctrine was "incorrect recognition." Psychology education was centralized under the Chinese Academy of Sciences , supervised by the State Council . In 1951, the academy created a Psychology Research Office, which in 1956 became
1991-552: A continuum of intensity. Thus fear might range from mild concern to terror or shame might range from simple embarrassment to toxic shame. Emotions have been described as consisting of a coordinated set of responses, which may include verbal, physiological , behavioral, and neural mechanisms. Emotions have been categorized , with some relationships existing between emotions and some direct opposites existing. Graham differentiates emotions as functional or dysfunctional and argues all functional emotions have benefits. In some uses of
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#17327908382932172-446: A degree of pleasure or displeasure . There is no scientific consensus on a definition. Emotions are often intertwined with mood , temperament , personality , disposition , or creativity . Research on emotion has increased over the past two decades, with many fields contributing, including psychology , medicine , history , sociology of emotions , computer science and philosophy . The numerous attempts to explain
2353-635: A degree of liberalization during the Khrushchev Thaw . The topics of cybernetics, linguistics, and genetics became acceptable again. The new field of engineering psychology emerged. The field involved the study of the mental aspects of complex jobs (such as pilot and cosmonaut). Interdisciplinary studies became popular and scholars such as Georgy Shchedrovitsky developed systems theory approaches to human behavior. Twentieth-century Chinese psychology originally modeled itself on U.S. psychology, with translations from American authors like William James,
2534-622: A greater connection to physiology, emerged in South America, under the leadership of Horacio G. Piñero at the University of Buenos Aires . In Russia, too, researchers placed greater emphasis on the biological basis for psychology, beginning with Ivan Sechenov 's 1873 essay, "Who Is to Develop Psychology and How?" Sechenov advanced the idea of brain reflexes and aggressively promoted a deterministic view of human behavior. The Russian-Soviet physiologist Ivan Pavlov discovered in dogs
2715-780: A hiatus for World War I, the Seventh Congress met in Oxford, with substantially greater participation from the war-victorious Anglo-Americans. In 1929, the Congress took place at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, attended by hundreds of members of the APA. Tokyo Imperial University led the way in bringing new psychology to the East. New ideas about psychology diffused from Japan into China. American psychology gained status upon
2896-468: A higher religiosity while performing boring tasks reported less boredom than people of less religiosity. People performing the meaningless task had to search less for meaning. Martin Heidegger wrote about boredom in two texts available in English, in the 1929/30 semester lecture course The Fundamental Concepts of Metaphysics , and again in the essay What is Metaphysics? published in the same year. In
3077-499: A host of behavioral, medical and social consequences." According to BBC News, boredom "...can be a dangerous and disruptive state of mind that damages your health "; yet research "...suggest[s] that without boredom we couldn't achieve our creative feats ." In Experience Without Qualities: Boredom and Modernity , Elizabeth Goodstein traces the modern discourse on boredom through literary, philosophical, and sociological texts to find that as "a discursively articulated phenomenon...boredom
3258-435: A laboratory procedure meant to study attachment style by separating and uniting a child with their mother several different times under different circumstances. These field studies are also where she developed her attachment theory and the order of attachment styles , which was a landmark for developmental psychology . Because of her work, Ainsworth became one of the most cited psychologists of all time. Mamie Phipps Clark
3439-714: A learning process that was later termed " classical conditioning " and applied the process to human beings. One of the earliest psychology societies was La Société de Psychologie Physiologique in France, which lasted from 1885 to 1893. The first meeting of the International Congress of Psychology sponsored by the International Union of Psychological Science took place in Paris, in August 1889, amidst
3620-607: A motive to any action of the will… it can never oppose passion in the direction of the will… The reason is, and ought to be, the slave of the passions, and can never pretend to any other office than to serve and obey them". With these lines, Hume attempted to explain that reason and further action would be subject to the desires and experience of the self. Later thinkers would propose that actions and emotions are deeply interrelated with social, political, historical, and cultural aspects of reality that would also come to be associated with sophisticated neurological and physiological research on
3801-517: A new applied psychology organization called the International Congress of Psychotechnics Applied to Vocational Guidance, later called the International Congress of Psychotechnics and then the International Association of Applied Psychology . The IAAP is considered the oldest international psychology association. Today, at least 65 international groups deal with specialized aspects of psychology. In response to male predominance in
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#17327908382933982-399: A pattern of physiological response (increased heart rate, faster breathing, etc.), which is interpreted as a particular emotion (fear). This theory is supported by experiments in which by manipulating the bodily state induces a desired emotional state. Some people may believe that emotions give rise to emotion-specific actions, for example, "I'm crying because I'm sad", or "I ran away because I
4163-509: A professor of psychology at the University of Pennsylvania and Columbia University and the co-founder of Psychological Review , was the first professor of psychology in the United States . The German psychologist Hermann Ebbinghaus , a researcher at the University of Berlin , was a 19th-century contributor to the field. He pioneered the experimental study of memory and developed quantitative models of learning and forgetting. In
4344-697: A psychologist and political activist has applied a black, feminist, and class lens to all her psychological studies. Aiding progressive and women's issues, she has been the executive director for many NGOs. In 2007 she became the Senior Director of the Women's Programs Office of the American Psychological Association. Therefore, she was one of the creators of the APA's "Women in Psychology Timeline" which features
4525-522: A religion established by Russian-American philosopher Helena Blavatsky , drew inspiration from these doctrines during her time in British India . Psychology was of interest to Enlightenment thinkers in Europe. In Germany, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646–1716) applied his principles of calculus to the mind, arguing that mental activity took place on an indivisible continuum. He suggested that
4706-551: A response to an evoking stimulus, the sight of a bear in the kitchen. The brain then quickly scans the area, to explain the pounding, and notices the bear. Consequently, the brain interprets the pounding heart as being the result of fearing the bear. With his student, Jerome Singer , Schachter demonstrated that subjects can have different emotional reactions despite being placed into the same physiological state with an injection of epinephrine. Subjects were observed to express either anger or amusement depending on whether another person in
4887-434: A sea change of opinion, away from mentalism and towards "behavioralism." In 1913, John B. Watson coined the term behaviorism for this school of thought. Watson's famous Little Albert experiment in 1920 was at first thought to demonstrate that repeated use of upsetting loud noises could instill phobias (aversions to other stimuli) in an infant human, although such a conclusion was likely an exaggeration. Karl Lashley ,
5068-666: A significant influence on psychology in China. Chancellor T'sai Yuan-p'ei introduced him at Peking University as a greater thinker than Confucius. Kuo Zing-yang who received a PhD at the University of California, Berkeley, became President of Zhejiang University and popularized behaviorism . After the Chinese Communist Party gained control of the country, the Stalinist Soviet Union became
5249-452: A snake. Psychological Psychology is the scientific study of mind and behavior . Its subject matter includes the behavior of humans and nonhumans, both conscious and unconscious phenomena, and mental processes such as thoughts , feelings , and motives . Psychology is an academic discipline of immense scope, crossing the boundaries between the natural and social sciences . Biological psychologists seek an understanding of
5430-433: A subject with ventromedial frontal lobe damage described in the book Descartes' Error , Damasio demonstrated how loss of physiological capacity for emotion resulted in the subject's lost capacity to make decisions despite having robust faculties for rationally assessing options. Research on physiological emotion has caused modern neuroscience to abandon the model of emotions and rationality as opposing forces. In contrast to
5611-419: A symptom of clinical depression . Boredom can be a form of learned helplessness , a phenomenon closely related to depression. Some philosophies of parenting propose that if children are raised in an environment devoid of stimuli , and are not allowed or encouraged to interact with their environment, they will fail to develop the mental capacities to do so. In a learning environment, a common cause of boredom
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5792-432: A theistic origin to humanity. God who created humans gave humans the ability to feel emotion and interact emotionally. Biblical content expresses that God is a person who feels and expresses emotion. Though a somatic view would place the locus of emotions in the physical body, Christian theory of emotions would view the body more as a platform for the sensing and expression of emotions. Therefore, emotions themselves arise from
5973-678: A time at Imperial University in Japan, with publications such as Clairvoyance and Thoughtography by Tomokichi Fukurai, but it was mostly shunned by 1913. As a discipline, psychology has long sought to fend off accusations that it is a "soft" science . Philosopher of science Thomas Kuhn 's 1962 critique implied psychology overall was in a pre-paradigm state, lacking agreement on the type of overarching theory found in mature hard sciences such as chemistry and physics. Because some areas of psychology rely on research methods such as self-reports in surveys and questionnaires, critics asserted that psychology
6154-450: A total of 100,000 individual members. At least 30 other international organizations represent psychologists in different regions. In some places, governments legally regulate who can provide psychological services or represent themselves as a "psychologist." The APA defines a psychologist as someone with a doctoral degree in psychology. Early practitioners of experimental psychology distinguished themselves from parapsychology , which in
6335-446: A wide range of topics related to mental processes and behavior. Typically the latter group of psychologists work in academic settings (e.g., universities, medical schools, or hospitals). Another group of psychologists is employed in industrial and organizational settings. Yet others are involved in work on human development , aging, sports , health, forensic science , education , and the media . The word psychology derives from
6516-529: Is 'good' or 'bad'. Alternatively, there are 'good emotions' (like joy and caution) experienced by those that are wise, which come from correct appraisals of what is 'good' and 'bad'. Aristotle believed that emotions were an essential component of virtue . In the Aristotelian view all emotions (called passions) corresponded to appetites or capacities. During the Middle Ages , the Aristotelian view
6697-655: Is a condition characterized by perception of one's environment as dull, tedious, and lacking in stimulation . This can result from leisure and a lack of aesthetic interests. Labor and art may be alienated and passive, or immersed in tedium. There is an inherent anxiety in boredom; people will expend considerable effort to prevent or remedy it, yet in many circumstances, it is accepted as suffering to be endured. Common passive ways to escape boredom are to sleep or to think creative thoughts ( daydream ). Typical active solutions consist in an intentional activity of some sort, often something new, as familiarity and repetition lead to
6878-512: Is a cross-disciplinary, holistic model that concerns the ways in which interrelationships of biological, psychological, and socio-environmental factors affect health and behavior. Evolutionary psychology approaches thought and behavior from a modern evolutionary perspective. This perspective suggests that psychological adaptations evolved to solve recurrent problems in human ancestral environments. Evolutionary psychologists attempt to find out how human psychological traits are evolved adaptations,
7059-425: Is a felt tendency impelling people towards attractive objects and propelling them to move away from repulsive or harmful objects; a disposition to possess the object (greed), to destroy it (hatred), to flee from it (fear), to get obsessed or worried over it (anxiety), and so on. In Stoic theories, normal emotions (like delight and fear) are described as irrational impulses that come from incorrect appraisals of what
7240-411: Is a state of tiredness, weariness, fatigue , or lack of energy. It can be accompanied by depression, decreased motivation, or apathy. Lethargy can be a normal response to boredom, inadequate sleep, overexertion, overworking, stress, lack of exercise, or a symptom of a disorder. When part of a normal response, lethargy often resolves with rest, adequate sleep, decreased stress, and good nutrition. Boredom
7421-546: Is a tendency to experience boredom of all types. This is typically assessed by the Boredom Proneness Scale. Recent research has found that boredom proneness is clearly and consistently associated with failures of attention. Boredom and its proneness are both theoretically and empirically linked to depression and similar symptoms. Nonetheless, boredom proneness has been found to be as strongly correlated with attentional lapses as with depression. Although boredom
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7602-428: Is an indecisive central character who drifts through his life and is marked by ennui, angst , and alienation . Grunge lit is an Australian literary genre of fictional or semi-autobiographical writing in the early 1990s about young adults living in an "inner cit[y]" "...world of disintegrating futures where the only relief from...boredom was through a nihilistic pursuit of sex, violence, drugs and alcohol". Often
7783-556: Is associated with a particular pattern of physiological activity". Emotions are complex, involving multiple different components, such as subjective experience, cognitive processes , expressive behavior, psychophysiological changes, and instrumental behavior. At one time, academics attempted to identify the emotion with one of the components: William James with a subjective experience, behaviorists with instrumental behavior, psychophysiologists with physiological changes, and so on. More recently, emotion has been said to consist of all
7964-399: Is at once objective and subjective, emotion and intellectualization—not just a response to the modern world , but also a historically constituted strategy for coping with its discontents." In both conceptions, boredom has to do fundamentally with an experience of time —such as experiencing the slowness of time—and problems of meaning . The expression to be a bore had been used in print in
8145-628: Is born into wealth and privilege. Typical characteristics are disregard for social values, cynicism , and existential boredom; typical behaviors are gambling, drinking, smoking, sexual intrigues, and duels . He is often unempathetic and carelessly distresses others with his actions. The bored antihero became prominent in early 20th century existentialist works such as Franz Kafka 's The Metamorphosis (1915), Jean-Paul Sartre 's La Nausée ( French for ' Nausea ' ) (1938), and Albert Camus ' L'Étranger ( French for ' The Stranger ' ) (1942). The protagonist in these works
8326-566: Is doing in order to maximize the enjoyment and pleasure derived from each activity. In contexts where one is confined, spatially or otherwise, boredom may be met with various religious activities, not because religion would want to associate itself with tedium, but rather, partly because boredom may be taken as the essential human condition, to which God, wisdom, or morality are the ultimate answers. Many philosophers, like Arthur Schopenhauer , espouse this view. This view of religiosity among boredom does affect how often people are bored. People who had
8507-416: Is generally disposed to feel irritation more easily or quickly than others do. Finally, some theorists place emotions within a more general category of "affective states" where affective states can also include emotion-related phenomena such as pleasure and pain , motivational states (for example, hunger or curiosity ), moods, dispositions and traits. For more than 40 years, Paul Ekman has supported
8688-576: Is important, and differs from the sum of its parts. Psychologists in Germany, Denmark, Austria, England, and the United States soon followed Wundt in setting up laboratories. G. Stanley Hall , an American who studied with Wundt, founded a psychology lab that became internationally influential. The lab was located at Johns Hopkins University . Hall, in turn, trained Yujiro Motora , who brought experimental psychology, emphasizing psychophysics, to
8869-439: Is known as "core-SELF" to be generating these affects. Psychologists have used methods such as factor analysis to attempt to map emotion-related responses onto a more limited number of dimensions. Such methods attempt to boil emotions down to underlying dimensions that capture the similarities and differences between experiences. Often, the first two dimensions uncovered by factor analysis are valence (how negative or positive
9050-427: Is lack of understanding; for instance, if one is not following or connecting to the material in a class or lecture, it will usually seem boring. However, the opposite can also be true; something that is too easily understood, simple or transparent, can also be boring. Boredom is often inversely related to learning , and in school it may be a sign that a student is not challenged enough, or too challenged. An activity that
9231-417: Is no single, universally accepted evolutionary theory. The most prominent ideas suggest that emotions have evolved to serve various adaptive functions: A distinction can be made between emotional episodes and emotional dispositions. Emotional dispositions are also comparable to character traits, where someone may be said to be generally disposed to experience certain emotions. For example, an irritable person
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#17327908382939412-552: Is not a diagnosed condition, but rather a symptom of boredom and sleepiness which people experience in their daily lives. People who are absent-minded tend to show signs of memory lapse and weak recollection of recently occurring events. This can usually be a result of a variety of other conditions often diagnosed by clinicians such as attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and depression . In addition to absent-mindedness leading to an array of consequences affecting daily life, it can also have more severe, long-term problems. Lethargy
9593-413: Is not an objective science. Skeptics have suggested that personality, thinking, and emotion cannot be directly measured and are often inferred from subjective self-reports, which may be problematic. Experimental psychologists have devised a variety of ways to indirectly measure these elusive phenomenological entities. Divisions still exist within the field, with some psychologists more oriented towards
9774-463: Is not as clear as it seems. Paul D. MacLean claims that emotion competes with even more instinctive responses, on one hand, and the more abstract reasoning, on the other hand. The increased potential in neuroimaging has also allowed investigation into evolutionarily ancient parts of the brain. Important neurological advances were derived from these perspectives in the 1990s by Joseph E. LeDoux and Antonio Damasio . For example, in an extensive study of
9955-406: Is often viewed as a trivial and mild irritant, proneness to boredom has been linked to a very diverse range of possible psychological , physical, educational, and social problems. Absent-mindedness is where a person shows inattentive or forgetful behaviour. Absent-mindedness is a mental condition in which the subject experiences low levels of attention and frequent distraction. Absent-mindedness
10136-475: Is predictable to the students is likely to bore them. A 1989 study indicated that an individual's impression of boredom may be influenced by the individual's degree of attention , as a higher acoustic level of distraction from the environment correlated with higher reportings of boredom. Boredom has been studied as being related to drug abuse among teens. Boredom has been proposed as a cause of pathological gambling behavior. A study found results consistent with
10317-506: Is that a large part of both human and lower-animal behavior is learned. A principle associated with behavioral research is that the mechanisms involved in learning apply to humans and non-human animals. Behavioral researchers have developed a treatment known as behavior modification , which is used to help individuals replace undesirable behaviors with desirable ones. Early behavioral researchers studied stimulus–response pairings, now known as classical conditioning . They demonstrated that when
10498-529: The Gemeinschaft ." Psychologists were to provide Seelenführung [lit., soul guidance], the leadership of the mind, to integrate people into the new vision of a German community. Harald Schultz-Hencke melded psychology with the Nazi theory of biology and racial origins, criticizing psychoanalysis as a study of the weak and deformed. Johannes Heinrich Schultz , a German psychologist recognized for developing
10679-602: The Pensées discusses the human condition in saying "we seek rest in a struggle against some obstacles. And when we have overcome these, rest proves unbearable because of the boredom it produces", and later states that "only an infinite and immutable object—that is, God himself—can fill this infinite abyss." Without stimulus or focus, the individual is confronted with nothingness , the meaninglessness of existence, and experiences existential anxiety . Heidegger states this idea as follows: "Profound boredom, drifting here and there in
10860-475: The Upanishads and other Vedic texts that formed the foundations of Hinduism was the distinction between a person's transient mundane self and their eternal, unchanging soul . Divergent Hindu doctrines and Buddhism have challenged this hierarchy of selves, but have all emphasized the importance of reaching higher awareness. Yoga encompasses a range of techniques used in pursuit of this goal. Theosophy ,
11041-530: The Ebers Papyrus mentioned depression and thought disorders. Historians note that Greek philosophers, including Thales , Plato , and Aristotle (especially in his De Anima treatise), addressed the workings of the mind. As early as the 4th century BC, the Greek physician Hippocrates theorized that mental disorders had physical rather than supernatural causes. In 387 BCE, Plato suggested that
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#173279083829311222-524: The Imperial University of Tokyo . Wundt's assistant, Hugo Münsterberg , taught psychology at Harvard to students such as Narendra Nath Sen Gupta —who, in 1905, founded a psychology department and laboratory at the University of Calcutta . Wundt's students Walter Dill Scott , Lightner Witmer , and James McKeen Cattell worked on developing tests of mental ability. Cattell, who also studied with eugenicist Francis Galton , went on to found
11403-584: The International Journal of Psychology . IAAP and IUPsyS agreed in 1976 each to hold a congress every four years, on a staggered basis. IUPsyS recognizes 66 national psychology associations and at least 15 others exist. The American Psychological Association is the oldest and largest. Its membership has increased from 5,000 in 1945 to 100,000 in the present day. The APA includes 54 divisions , which since 1960 have steadily proliferated to include more specialties. Some of these divisions, such as
11584-475: The James–Lange theory . As James wrote, "the perception of bodily changes, as they occur, is the emotion". James further claims that "we feel sad because we cry, angry because we strike, afraid because we tremble, and either we cry, strike, or tremble because we are sorry, angry, or fearful, as the case may be". An example of this theory in action would be as follows: An emotion-evoking stimulus (snake) triggers
11765-629: The Psychological Corporation . Witmer focused on the mental testing of children; Scott, on employee selection. Another student of Wundt, the Englishman Edward Titchener , created the psychology program at Cornell University and advanced " structuralist " psychology. The idea behind structuralism was to analyze and classify different aspects of the mind, primarily through the method of introspection . William James, John Dewey , and Harvey Carr advanced
11946-804: The Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues and the American Psychology–Law Society , began as autonomous groups. The Interamerican Psychological Society , founded in 1951, aspires to promote psychology across the Western Hemisphere. It holds the Interamerican Congress of Psychology and had 1,000 members in year 2000. The European Federation of Professional Psychology Associations, founded in 1981, represents 30 national associations with
12127-582: The Weber–Fechner law . Fechner's 1860 Elements of Psychophysics challenged Kant's negative view with regard to conducting quantitative research on the mind. Fechner's achievement was to show that "mental processes could not only be given numerical magnitudes, but also that these could be measured by experimental methods." In Heidelberg, Hermann von Helmholtz conducted parallel research on sensory perception, and trained physiologist Wilhelm Wundt . Wundt, in turn, came to Leipzig University, where he established
12308-418: The diencephalon (particularly the thalamus ), before being subjected to any further processing. Therefore, Cannon also argued that it was not anatomically possible for sensory events to trigger a physiological response prior to triggering conscious awareness and emotional stimuli had to trigger both physiological and experiential aspects of emotion simultaneously. Stanley Schachter formulated his theory on
12489-399: The emergent properties of brains, linking the discipline to neuroscience . As social scientists, psychologists aim to understand the behavior of individuals and groups. A professional practitioner or researcher involved in the discipline is called a psychologist . Some psychologists can also be classified as behavioral or cognitive scientists . Some psychologists attempt to understand
12670-434: The societal norms and roles they are assigned. As she states in her article, "Variability as related to sex differences in achievement: A Critique", the largest problem women have is the social order that was built due to the assumption women have less interests and abilities than men. To further prove her point, she completed another experiment with infants who have not been influenced by the environment of social norms, like
12851-467: The " wheel of emotions ", suggesting eight primary emotions grouped on a positive or negative basis: joy versus sadness; anger versus fear; trust versus disgust; and surprise versus anticipation. Some basic emotions can be modified to form complex emotions. The complex emotions could arise from cultural conditioning or association combined with the basic emotions. Alternatively, similar to the way primary colors combine, primary emotions could blend to form
13032-509: The 1870s, when in France Paul Broca traced production of speech to the left frontal gyrus, thereby also demonstrating hemispheric lateralization of brain function. Soon after, Carl Wernicke identified a related area necessary for the understanding of speech. The contemporary field of behavioral neuroscience focuses on the physical basis of behavior. Behaviorial neuroscientists use animal models, often relying on rats, to study
13213-634: The 1910s and 1920s, eugenics became a standard topic in psychology classes. In contrast to the US, in the UK psychology was met with antagonism by the scientific and medical establishments, and up until 1939, there were only six psychology chairs in universities in England. During World War II and the Cold War, the U.S. military and intelligence agencies established themselves as leading funders of psychology by way of
13394-469: The 1940s. These tests, called the doll tests , asked young children to choose between identical dolls whose only difference was race, and they found that the majority of the children preferred the white dolls and attributed positive traits to them. Repeated over and over again, these tests helped to determine the negative effects of racial discrimination and segregation on black children's self-image and development. In 1954, this research would help decide
13575-637: The 20th century further diversified the field of psychology, with women of color reaching new milestones. In 1962, Martha Bernal became the first Latina woman to get a Ph.D. in psychology. In 1969, Marigold Linton , the first Native American woman to get a Ph.D. in psychology, founded the National Indian Education Association . She was also a founding member of the Society for Advancement of Chicanos and Native Americans in Science . In 1971, The Network of Indian Psychologists
13756-471: The APA's Distinguished Career Contribution to Research Award from the Society for the Psychological Study of Culture Ethnicity, and Race for her research on suicide prevention . She was the first person to lead an intervention for Native American children and adolescents that utilized evidence-based suicide prevention. She has spent her career dedicated to aiding racial and ethnic minority youth cope with cultural adjustment and pressures. Dr. Shari Miles-Cohen,
13937-453: The Army's Project Camelot , the "Manhattan Project" of social science , an effort which enlisted psychologists and anthropologists to analyze the plans and policies of foreign countries for strategic purposes. In Germany after World War I, psychology held institutional power through the military, which was subsequently expanded along with the rest of the military during Nazi Germany . Under
14118-518: The Greek word psyche , for spirit or soul . The latter part of the word psychology derives from -λογία -logia , which means "study" or "research". The word psychology was first used in the Renaissance. In its Latin form psychiologia , it was first employed by the Croatian humanist and Latinist Marko Marulić in his book Psichiologia de ratione animae humanae ( Psychology, on
14299-548: The Institute of Psychology. Because most leading psychologists were educated in the United States, the first concern of the academy was the re-education of these psychologists in the Soviet doctrines. Child psychology and pedagogy for the purpose of a nationally cohesive education remained a central goal of the discipline. Women in the early 1900s started to make key findings within the world of psychology. In 1923, Anna Freud ,
14480-712: The Nature of the Human Soul ) in the decade 1510–1520 The earliest known reference to the word psychology in English was by Steven Blankaart in 1694 in The Physical Dictionary . The dictionary refers to " Anatomy , which treats the Body, and Psychology, which treats of the Soul." Ψ ( psi ) , the first letter of the Greek word psyche from which the term psychology is derived, is commonly associated with
14661-469: The Prussian state established psychology as a mandatory discipline in its rapidly expanding and highly influential educational system . However, this discipline did not yet embrace experimentation. In England, early psychology involved phrenology and the response to social problems including alcoholism, violence, and the country's crowded "lunatic" asylums. Philosopher John Stuart Mill believed that
14842-633: The Rockefeller Foundation, Mitscherlich established the first clinical psychosomatic medicine division at Heidelberg University. In 1970, psychology was integrated into the required studies of medical students. After the Russian Revolution , the Bolsheviks promoted psychology as a way to engineer the "New Man" of socialism. Consequently, university psychology departments trained large numbers of students in psychology. At
15023-491: The Soviet Union and inspired followers to use his methods on humans. In the United States, Edward Lee Thorndike initiated " connectionist " studies by trapping animals in "puzzle boxes" and rewarding them for escaping. Thorndike wrote in 1911, "There can be no moral warrant for studying man's nature unless the study will enable us to control his acts." From 1910 to 1913 the American Psychological Association went through
15204-402: The Soviet Union. Stalinist purges took a heavy toll and instilled a climate of fear in the profession, as elsewhere in Soviet society. Following World War II, Jewish psychologists past and present, including Lev Vygotsky , A.R. Luria , and Aron Zalkind, were denounced; Ivan Pavlov (posthumously) and Stalin himself were celebrated as heroes of Soviet psychology. Soviet academics experienced
15385-614: The U.S.'s entry into World War I. A standing committee headed by Robert Yerkes administered mental tests (" Army Alpha " and " Army Beta ") to almost 1.8 million soldiers. Subsequently, the Rockefeller family , via the Social Science Research Council , began to provide funding for behavioral research. Rockefeller charities funded the National Committee on Mental Hygiene, which disseminated
15566-710: The Western philosophers (including Aristotle , Plato , Descartes , Aquinas , and Hobbes ), leading them to propose extensive theories—often competing theories—that sought to explain emotion and the accompanying motivators of human action, as well as its consequences. In the Age of Enlightenment , Scottish thinker David Hume proposed a revolutionary argument that sought to explain the main motivators of human action and conduct. He proposed that actions are motivated by "fears, desires, and passions". As he wrote in his book A Treatise of Human Nature (1773): "Reason alone can never be
15747-700: The World's Fair celebrating the centennial of the French Revolution. William James was one of three Americans among the 400 attendees. The American Psychological Association (APA) was founded soon after, in 1892. The International Congress continued to be held at different locations in Europe and with wide international participation. The Sixth Congress, held in Geneva in 1909, included presentations in Russian, Chinese, and Japanese, as well as Esperanto . After
15928-404: The absence of meaningful tasks, rather than the presence of stress, is many workers' chief problem. A " banishment room " (also known as a "chasing-out-room" and a "boredom room") is a modern employee exit management strategy whereby employees are transferred to a department where they are assigned meaningless work until they become disheartened enough to quit. Since the resignation is voluntary,
16109-576: The abysses of our existence like a muffling fog, removes all things and men and oneself along with it into a remarkable indifference. This boredom reveals being as a whole." Schopenhauer used the existence of boredom in an attempt to prove the vanity of human existence, stating, "...for if life, in the desire for which our essence and existence consists, possessed in itself a positive value and real content, there would be no such thing as boredom: mere existence would fulfil and satisfy us." Erich Fromm and other thinkers of critical theory speak of boredom as
16290-419: The accompanying bodily sensations have always been part of the interests of thinkers and philosophers. Far more extensively, this has also been of great interest to both Western and Eastern societies. Emotional states have been associated with the divine and with the enlightenment of the human mind and body. The ever-changing actions of individuals and their mood variations have been of great importance to most of
16471-600: The accomplishments of women of color in psychology. She is well known for co-editing Eliminating Inequities for Women with Disabilities: An Agenda for Health and Wellness (published in 2016), her article published in the Women's Reproductive Health Journal about women of color's struggle with pregnancy and postpartum (Published in 2018), and co-authoring the "APA Handbook of the Psychology of Women" (published in 2019). In 1920, Édouard Claparède and Pierre Bovet created
16652-406: The adult male getting more opportunities than women. She found no difference between infants besides size. After this research proved the original hypothesis wrong, Hollingworth was able to show there is no difference between the physiological and psychological traits of men and women, and women are not impaired during menstruation . The first half of the 1900s was filled with new theories and it
16833-496: The ancient Greek ideal of dispassionate reason, the neuroscience of emotion shows that emotion is necessarily integrated with intellect. Research on social emotion also focuses on the physical displays of emotion including body language of animals and humans (see affect display ). For example, spite seems to work against the individual but it can establish an individual's reputation as someone to be feared. Shame and pride can motivate behaviors that help one maintain one's standing in
17014-620: The application of biological principles to the study of physiological and genetic mechanisms underlying behavior in humans and other animals. The allied field of comparative psychology is the scientific study of the behavior and mental processes of non-human animals. A leading question in behavioral neuroscience has been whether and how mental functions are localized in the brain . From Phineas Gage to H.M. and Clive Wearing , individual people with mental deficits traceable to physical brain damage have inspired new discoveries in this area. Modern behavioral neuroscience could be said to originate in
17195-415: The appraisal of situations and contexts. Cognitive processes, like reasoning and decision-making, are often regarded as separate from emotional processes, making a division between "thinking" and "feeling". However, not all theories of emotion regard this separation as valid. Nowadays, most research into emotions in the clinical and well-being context focuses on emotion dynamics in daily life, predominantly
17376-625: The armed forces and in the new Office of Strategic Services intelligence agency. University of Michigan psychologist Dorwin Cartwright reported that university researchers began large-scale propaganda research in 1939–1941. He observed that "the last few months of the war saw a social psychologist become chiefly responsible for determining the week-by-week-propaganda policy for the United States Government." Cartwright also wrote that psychologists had significant roles in managing
17557-541: The belief women are mentally and physically impaired during menstruation , impacted women's rights because employers were less likely to hire them due to the belief they would be incapable of working for 1 week a month. Leta Stetter Hollingworth wanted to prove this hypothesis and Edward L. Thorndike's theory, that women have lesser psychological and physical traits than men and were simply mediocre, incorrect. Hollingworth worked to prove differences were not from male genetic superiority, but from culture. She also included
17738-573: The brain advanced during the Qing dynasty with the work of Western-educated Fang Yizhi (1611–1671), Liu Zhi (1660–1730), and Wang Qingren (1768–1831). Wang Qingren emphasized the importance of the brain as the center of the nervous system, linked mental disorder with brain diseases, investigated the causes of dreams and insomnia , and advanced a theory of hemispheric lateralization in brain function. Influenced by Hinduism , Indian philosophy explored distinctions in types of awareness. A central idea of
17919-462: The brain and other parts of the physical body. The Lexico definition of emotion is "A strong feeling deriving from one's circumstances, mood, or relationships with others". Emotions are responses to significant internal and external events. Emotions can be occurrences (e.g., panic ) or dispositions (e.g., hostility), and short-lived (e.g., anger) or long-lived (e.g., grief). Psychotherapist Michael C. Graham describes all emotions as existing on
18100-401: The brain is where mental processes take place, and in 335 BCE Aristotle suggested that it was the heart. In China, psychological understanding grew from the philosophical works of Laozi and Confucius , and later from the doctrines of Buddhism . This body of knowledge involves insights drawn from introspection and observation, as well as techniques for focused thinking and acting. It frames
18281-443: The categorization of "emotion" and classification of basic emotions such as "anger" and "sadness" are not universal and that the boundaries and domains of these concepts are categorized differently by all cultures. However, others argue that there are some universal bases of emotions (see Section 6.1). In psychiatry and psychology, an inability to express or perceive emotion is sometimes referred to as alexithymia . Human nature and
18462-399: The central characters are disfranchised, lacking drive and determination beyond the desire to satisfy their basic needs. It was typically written by "new, young authors" who examined "gritty, dirty, real existences" of everyday characters. It has been described as both a sub-set of dirty realism and an offshoot of Generation X literature. Stuart Glover states that the term "grunge lit" takes
18643-549: The completion of training, positions were made available for those students at schools, workplaces, cultural institutions, and in the military. The Russian state emphasized pedology and the study of child development. Lev Vygotsky became prominent in the field of child development. The Bolsheviks also promoted free love and embraced the doctrine of psychoanalysis as an antidote to sexual repression. Although pedology and intelligence testing fell out of favor in 1936, psychology maintained its privileged position as an instrument of
18824-470: The components of the James-Lange theory of emotions. The James–Lange theory has remained influential. Its main contribution is the emphasis it places on the embodiment of emotions, especially the argument that changes in the bodily concomitants of emotions can alter their experienced intensity. Most contemporary neuroscientists would endorse a modified James–Lange view in which bodily feedback modulates
19005-581: The components. The different components of emotion are categorized somewhat differently depending on the academic discipline. In psychology and philosophy , emotion typically includes a subjective , conscious experience characterized primarily by psychophysiological expressions , biological reactions , and mental states . A similar multi-componential description of emotion is found in sociology . For example, Peggy Thoits described emotions as involving physiological components, cultural or emotional labels (anger, surprise, etc.), expressive body actions, and
19186-667: The concept of mental illness and lobbied for applying ideas from psychology to child rearing. Through the Bureau of Social Hygiene and later funding of Alfred Kinsey , Rockefeller foundations helped establish research on sexuality in the U.S. Under the influence of the Carnegie-funded Eugenics Record Office , the Draper-funded Pioneer Fund , and other institutions, the eugenics movement also influenced American psychology. In
19367-432: The concept of women's impairment during menstruation in her research. She recorded both women and men performances on tasks (cognitive, perceptual, and motor) for three months. No evidence was found of decreased performance due to a woman's menstrual cycle. She also challenged the belief intelligence is inherited and women here are intellectually inferior to men. She stated that women do not reach positions of power due to
19548-405: The daughter of Sigmund Freud , built on her father's work using different defense mechanisms (denial, repression, and suppression) to psychoanalyze children. She believed that once a child reached the latency period , child analysis could be used as a mode of therapy . She stated it is important focus on the child's environment, support their development, and prevent neurosis . She believed
19729-451: The difference between conscious and unconscious awareness is only a matter of degree. Christian Wolff identified psychology as its own science, writing Psychologia Empirica in 1732 and Psychologia Rationalis in 1734. Immanuel Kant advanced the idea of anthropology as a discipline, with psychology an important subdivision. Kant, however, explicitly rejected the idea of an experimental psychology , writing that "the empirical doctrine of
19910-692: The direction of Hermann Göring 's cousin Matthias Göring , the Berlin Psychoanalytic Institute was renamed the Göring Institute. Freudian psychoanalysts were expelled and persecuted under the anti-Jewish policies of the Nazi Party , and all psychologists had to distance themselves from Freud and Adler , founders of psychoanalysis who were also Jewish. The Göring Institute was well-financed throughout
20091-443: The distinct facial expressions. Ekman's facial-expression research examined six basic emotions: anger , disgust , fear , happiness , sadness and surprise . Later in his career, Ekman theorized that other universal emotions may exist beyond these six. In light of this, recent cross-cultural studies led by Daniel Cordaro and Dacher Keltner , both former students of Ekman, extended the list of universal emotions. In addition to
20272-596: The domestic economy. The Army rolled out its new General Classification Test to assess the ability of millions of soldiers. The Army also engaged in large-scale psychological research of troop morale and mental health . In the 1950s, the Rockefeller Foundation and Ford Foundation collaborated with the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to fund research on psychological warfare . In 1965, public controversy called attention to
20453-408: The earlier work of a Spanish physician, Gregorio Marañón , who injected patients with epinephrine and subsequently asked them how they felt. Marañón found that most of these patients felt something but in the absence of an actual emotion-evoking stimulus, the patients were unable to interpret their physiological arousal as an experienced emotion. Schachter did agree that physiological reactions played
20634-465: The early 20th century, Wolfgang Kohler , Max Wertheimer , and Kurt Koffka co-founded the school of Gestalt psychology of Fritz Perls . The approach of Gestalt psychology is based upon the idea that individuals experience things as unified wholes. Rather than reducing thoughts and behavior into smaller component elements, as in structuralism, the Gestaltists maintained that whole of experience
20815-407: The employee would not be eligible for certain benefits. The legality and ethics of the practice is questionable and may be construed as constructive dismissal by the courts in some regions. " Meh " is an interjection used as an expression of indifference or boredom. It may also mean "be it as it may". It is often regarded as a verbal shrug of the shoulders. The use of the term "meh" shows that
20996-612: The establishment of university psychology departments and journals, and the establishment of groups including the Chinese Association of Psychological Testing (1930) and the Chinese Psychological Society (1937). Chinese psychologists were encouraged to focus on education and language learning. Chinese psychologists were drawn to the idea that education would enable modernization. John Dewey, who lectured to Chinese audiences between 1919 and 1921, had
21177-437: The existentialist movement. Like Pascal , they were interested in people's quiet struggle with the apparent meaninglessness of life and the use of diversion to escape from boredom. Kierkegaard's Either/Or describes the rotation method , a method used by higher-level aesthetes in order to avoid boredom. The method is an essential hedonistic aspect of the aesthetic way of life. For the aesthete, one constantly changes what one
21358-862: The experience feels) and arousal (how energized or enervated the experience feels). These two dimensions can be depicted on a 2D coordinate map. This two-dimensional map has been theorized to capture one important component of emotion called core affect . Core affect is not theorized to be the only component to emotion, but to give the emotion its hedonic and felt energy. Using statistical methods to analyze emotional states elicited by short videos, Cowen and Keltner identified 27 varieties of emotional experience: admiration, adoration, aesthetic appreciation, amusement, anger, anxiety, awe, awkwardness, boredom, calmness, confusion, craving, disgust, empathic pain, entrancement, excitement, fear, horror, interest, joy, nostalgia, relief, romance, sadness, satisfaction, sexual desire, and surprise. In Hinduism, Bharata Muni enunciated
21539-434: The experience of emotion. (p. 583) Walter Bradford Cannon agreed that physiological responses played a crucial role in emotions, but did not believe that physiological responses alone could explain subjective emotional experiences. He argued that physiological responses were too slow and often imperceptible and this could not account for the relatively rapid and intense subjective awareness of emotion. He also believed that
21720-403: The field of psychology. In 1890, William James defined psychology as "the science of mental life, both of its phenomena and their conditions." This definition enjoyed widespread currency for decades. However, this meaning was contested, notably by radical behaviorists such as John B. Watson , who in 1913 asserted that the discipline is a natural science , the theoretical goal of which "is
21901-741: The field, female psychologists in the U.S. formed the National Council of Women Psychologists in 1941. This organization became the International Council of Women Psychologists after World War II and the International Council of Psychologists in 1959. Several associations including the Association of Black Psychologists and the Asian American Psychological Association have arisen to promote the inclusion of non-European racial groups in
22082-436: The following: Śṛṅgāraḥ (शृङ्गारः): Romance / Love / attractiveness, Hāsyam (हास्यं): Laughter / mirth / comedy, Raudram (रौद्रं): Fury / Anger, Kāruṇyam (कारुण्यं): Compassion / mercy, Bībhatsam (बीभत्सं): Disgust / aversion, Bhayānakam (भयानकं): Horror / terror, Veeram (वीरं): Pride / Heroism, Adbhutam (अद्भुतं): Surprise / wonder. In Buddhism , emotions occur when an object is considered attractive or repulsive. There
22263-404: The form of judgments, evaluations, or thoughts were entirely necessary for an emotion to occur. Cognitive theories of emotion emphasize that emotions are shaped by how individuals interpret and appraise situations. These theories highlight: These theories acknowledge that emotions are not automatic reactions but result from the interplay of cognitive interpretations, physiological responses, and
22444-473: The full spectrum of human emotional experience. For example, interpersonal anger and disgust could blend to form contempt . Relationships exist between basic emotions, resulting in positive or negative influences. Jaak Panksepp carved out seven biologically inherited primary affective systems called SEEKING (expectancy), FEAR (anxiety), RAGE (anger), LUST (sexual excitement), CARE (nurturance), PANIC/GRIEF (sadness), and PLAY (social joy). He proposed what
22625-503: The human mind was open to scientific investigation, even if the science is in some ways inexact. Mill proposed a "mental chemistry " in which elementary thoughts could combine into ideas of greater complexity. Gustav Fechner began conducting psychophysics research in Leipzig in the 1830s. He articulated the principle that human perception of a stimulus varies logarithmically according to its intensity. The principle became known as
22806-414: The hypothesis that pathological gamblers seek stimulation to avoid states of boredom and depression. It has been suggested that boredom has an evolutionary basis that encourages humans to seek out new challenges. It may influence human learning and ingenuity. Some recent studies have suggested that boredom may have some positive effects. A low-stimulus environment may lead to increased creativity and may set
22987-665: The idea of functionalism , an expansive approach to psychology that underlined the Darwinian idea of a behavior's usefulness to the individual. In 1890, James wrote an influential book, The Principles of Psychology , which expanded on the structuralism. He memorably described " stream of consciousness ." James's ideas interested many American students in the emerging discipline. Dewey integrated psychology with societal concerns, most notably by promoting progressive education , inculcating moral values in children, and assimilating immigrants. A different strain of experimentalism, with
23168-488: The inclusion of cognitive appraisal as one of the elements is slightly controversial, since some theorists make the assumption that emotion and cognition are separate but interacting systems, the CPM provides a sequence of events that effectively describes the coordination involved during an emotional episode. Emotion can be differentiated from a number of similar constructs within the field of affective neuroscience : There
23349-768: The individual feels a pervasive lack of interest and difficulty concentrating on the current activity." Mark Leary et al. describe boredom as "an affective experience associated with cognitive attentional processes." Robert Plutchik characterized boredom as a mild form of disgust . In positive psychology , boredom is described as a response to a moderate challenge for which the subject has more than enough skill. There are three types of boredom, all of which involve problems of engagement of attention . These include times when humans are prevented from engaging in wanted activity, when humans are forced to engage in unwanted activity, or when people are simply unable for some other reason to maintain engagement in an activity. Boredom proneness
23530-449: The influence of emotions on health and behaviors, suggesting the need to manage emotions. Early modern views on emotion are developed in the works of philosophers such as René Descartes , Niccolò Machiavelli , Baruch Spinoza , Thomas Hobbes and David Hume . In the 19th century emotions were considered adaptive and were studied more frequently from an empiricist psychiatric perspective. Christian perspective on emotion presupposes
23711-482: The intensity of specific emotions and their variability, instability, inertia, and differentiation, as well as whether and how emotions augment or blunt each other over time and differences in these dynamics between people and along the lifespan. The word "emotion" dates back to 1579, when it was adapted from the French word émouvoir , which means "to stir up". The term emotion was introduced into academic discussion as
23892-483: The landmark Brown v. Board of Education decision, leading to the end of legal segregation across the nation. Clark went on to be an influential figure in psychology, her work continuing to focus on minority youth. As the field of psychology developed throughout the latter half of the 20th century, women in the field advocated for their voices to be heard and their perspectives to be valued. Second-wave feminism did not miss psychology. An outspoken feminist in psychology
24073-418: The late nineteenth century enjoyed popularity (including the interest of scholars such as William James). Some people considered parapsychology to be part of "psychology". Parapsychology, hypnotism , and psychism were major topics at the early International Congresses. But students of these fields were eventually ostracized, and more or less banished from the Congress in 1900–1905. Parapsychology persisted for
24254-474: The lecture, Heidegger included about 100 pages on boredom, probably the most extensive philosophical treatment ever of the subject. He focused on waiting at railway stations in particular as a major context of boredom. Søren Kierkegaard remarks in Either/Or that "patience cannot be depicted" visually, since there is a sense that any immediate moment of life may be fundamentally tedious. Blaise Pascal in
24435-417: The main proponents of this view was Richard Lazarus who argued that emotions must have some cognitive intentionality . The cognitive activity involved in the interpretation of an emotional context may be conscious or unconscious and may or may not take the form of conceptual processing. Lazarus' theory is very influential; emotion is a disturbance that occurs in the following order: For example: Jenny sees
24616-399: The major influence, with Marxism–Leninism the leading social doctrine and Pavlovian conditioning the approved means of behavior change. Chinese psychologists elaborated on Lenin's model of a "reflective" consciousness, envisioning an "active consciousness" ( pinyin : tzu-chueh neng-tung-li ) able to transcend material conditions through hard work and ideological struggle. They developed
24797-662: The mid-late 19th century with Charles Darwin 's 1872 book The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals . Darwin argued that emotions served no evolved purpose for humans, neither in communication, nor in aiding survival. Darwin largely argued that emotions evolved via the inheritance of acquired characters. He pioneered various methods for studying non-verbal expressions, from which he concluded that some expressions had cross-cultural universality. Darwin also detailed homologous expressions of emotions that occur in animals . This led
24978-415: The neural, genetic, and cellular mechanisms that underlie behaviors involved in learning, memory, and fear responses. Cognitive neuroscientists , by using neural imaging tools, investigate the neural correlates of psychological processes in humans. Neuropsychologists conduct psychological assessments to determine how an individual's behavior and cognition are related to the brain. The biopsychosocial model
25159-453: The nine rasas (emotions) in the Nātyasāstra , an ancient Sanskrit text of dramatic theory and other performance arts, written between 200 BC and 200 AD. The theory of rasas still forms the aesthetic underpinning of all Indian classical dance and theatre, such as Bharatanatyam , kathak , Kuchipudi , Odissi , Manipuri , Kudiyattam , Kathakali and others. Bharata Muni established
25340-472: The origin, function , and other aspects of emotions have fostered intense research on this topic. Theorizing about the evolutionary origin and possible purpose of emotion dates back to Charles Darwin . Current areas of research include the neuroscience of emotion, using tools like PET and fMRI scans to study the affective picture processes in the brain . From a mechanistic perspective, emotions can be defined as "a positive or negative experience that
25521-445: The original six, these studies provided evidence for amusement , awe , contentment , desire , embarrassment , pain , relief , and sympathy in both facial and vocal expressions. They also found evidence for boredom , confusion , interest , pride , and shame facial expressions, as well as contempt , relief, and triumph vocal expressions. Robert Plutchik agreed with Ekman's biologically driven perspective but developed
25702-447: The perception of what he called an "exciting fact" directly led to a physiological response, known as "emotion". To account for different types of emotional experiences, James proposed that stimuli trigger activity in the autonomic nervous system , which in turn produces an emotional experience in the brain. The Danish psychologist Carl Lange also proposed a similar theory at around the same time, and therefore this theory became known as
25883-535: The person, or that which is "imago-dei" or Image of God in humans. In Christian thought, emotions have the potential to be controlled through reasoned reflection. That reasoned reflection also mimics God who made mind. The purpose of emotions in human life is therefore summarized in God's call to enjoy Him and creation, humans are to enjoy emotions and benefit from them and use them to energize behavior. Perspectives on emotions from evolutionary theory were initiated during
26064-453: The prediction and control of behavior." Since James defined "psychology", the term more strongly implicates scientific experimentation. Folk psychology is the understanding of the mental states and behaviors of people held by ordinary people , as contrasted with psychology professionals' understanding. The ancient civilizations of Egypt, Greece, China, India, and Persia all engaged in the philosophical study of psychology. In Ancient Egypt
26245-616: The profession. The International Union of Psychological Science (IUPsyS) is the world federation of national psychological societies. The IUPsyS was founded in 1951 under the auspices of the United Nations Educational, Cultural and Scientific Organization (UNESCO) . Psychology departments have since proliferated around the world, based primarily on the Euro-American model. Since 1966, the Union has published
26426-494: The psychological laboratory that brought experimental psychology to the world. Wundt focused on breaking down mental processes into the most basic components, motivated in part by an analogy to recent advances in chemistry, and its successful investigation of the elements and structure of materials. Paul Flechsig and Emil Kraepelin soon created another influential laboratory at Leipzig, a psychology-related lab, that focused more on experimental psychiatry. James McKeen Cattell ,
26607-415: The publication The Albion . The French term for boredom, ennui , is sometimes used in English as well, at least since 1778. The term ennui was first used "as a French word in English;" in the 1660s and it was "nativized by 1758". The term ennui comes "from French ennui , from Old French enui "annoyance" (13c.), [a] back-formation from enoiier, anuier. "The German word for "boredom" is Langeweile ,
26788-429: The result of a cognitive and conscious process which occurs in response to a body system response to a trigger. According to Scherer 's Component Process Model (CPM) of emotion, there are five crucial elements of emotion. From the component process perspective, emotional experience requires that all of these processes become coordinated and synchronized for a short period of time, driven by appraisal processes. Although
26969-514: The results of natural selection or sexual selection over the course of human evolution. The history of the biological foundations of psychology includes evidence of racism. The idea of white supremacy and indeed the modern concept of race itself arose during the process of world conquest by Europeans. Carl von Linnaeus 's four-fold classification of humans classifies Europeans as intelligent and severe, Americans as contented and free, Asians as ritualistic, and Africans as lazy and capricious. Race
27150-513: The richness, variety, and temporal course of emotional experiences could not stem from physiological reactions, that reflected fairly undifferentiated fight or flight responses. An example of this theory in action is as follows: An emotion-evoking event (snake) triggers simultaneously both a physiological response and a conscious experience of an emotion. Phillip Bard contributed to the theory with his work on animals. Bard found that sensory, motor, and physiological information all had to pass through
27331-550: The role of mental functions in individual and social behavior . Others explore the physiological and neurobiological processes that underlie cognitive functions and behaviors. Psychologists are involved in research on perception , cognition , attention , emotion , intelligence , subjective experiences , motivation , brain functioning , and personality . Psychologists' interests extend to interpersonal relationships , psychological resilience , family resilience , and other areas within social psychology . They also consider
27512-473: The same word (isizungu). This adds a new dimension to the oft-quoted definition of ubuntu : "A person is a person through other people". Although it has not been widely studied, research on boredom suggests that boredom is a major factor impacting diverse areas of a person's life. People ranked low on a boredom-proneness scale were found to have better performance in a wide variety of aspects of their lives, including career, education, and autonomy. Boredom can be
27693-492: The second half of the 20th century continued to do research that had large-scale impacts on the field of psychology. Mary Ainsworth 's work centered around attachment theory . Building off fellow psychologist John Bowlby , Ainsworth spent years doing fieldwork to understand the development of mother-infant relationships. In doing this field research, Ainsworth developed the Strange Situation Procedure,
27874-447: The sense of "to be tiresome or dull" since 1768 at the latest. The expression "boredom" means "state of being bored," 1852, from bore (v.1) + -dom. It also has been employed in a sense "bores as a class" (1883) and "practice of being a bore" (1864, a sense properly belonging to boreism, 1833). The word "bore" as a noun meaning a "thing which causes ennui or annoyance" is attested to since 1778; "of persons by 1812". The noun "bore" comes from
28055-469: The situation (a confederate) displayed that emotion. Hence, the combination of the appraisal of the situation (cognitive) and the participants' reception of adrenalin or a placebo together determined the response. This experiment has been criticized in Jesse Prinz's (2004) Gut Reactions . With the two-factor theory now incorporating cognition, several theories began to argue that cognitive activity in
28236-508: The social context. A prominent philosophical exponent is Robert C. Solomon (for example, The Passions, Emotions and the Meaning of Life , 1993 ). Solomon claims that emotions are judgments. He has put forward a more nuanced view which responds to what he has called the 'standard objection' to cognitivism, the idea that a judgment that something is fearsome can occur with or without emotion, so judgment cannot be identified with emotion. One of
28417-424: The soul can also never approach chemistry even as a systematic art of analysis or experimental doctrine, for in it the manifold of inner observation can be separated only by mere division in thought, and cannot then be held separate and recombined at will (but still less does another thinking subject suffer himself to be experimented upon to suit our purpose), and even observation by itself already changes and displaces
28598-510: The speaker is apathetic, uninterested, or indifferent to the question or subject at hand. It is occasionally used as an adjective , meaning something is mediocre or unremarkable. The superfluous man ( Russian : лишний человек , lishniy chelovek ) is an 1840s and 1850s Russian literary concept derived from the Byronic hero . It refers to an individual, perhaps talented and capable, who does not fit into social norms. In most cases, this person
28779-486: The stage for a " eureka moment ". Boreout is a management theory that posits that lack of work, boredom, and consequent lack of satisfaction are a common malaise affecting individuals working in modern organizations, especially in office-based white collar jobs. This theory was first expounded in 2007 in Diagnose Boreout , a book by Peter Werder and Philippe Rothlin, two Swiss business consultants. They claim
28960-417: The stage for further research to be done in social psychology , especially in gender construction . Other women in the field also continued advocating for women in psychology, creating the Association for Women in Psychology to criticize how the field treated women. E. Kitsch Child , Phyllis Chesler , and Dorothy Riddle were some of the founding members of the organization in 1969. The latter half of
29141-621: The state of the observed object." In 1783, Ferdinand Ueberwasser (1752–1812) designated himself Professor of Empirical Psychology and Logic and gave lectures on scientific psychology, though these developments were soon overshadowed by the Napoleonic Wars . At the end of the Napoleonic era, Prussian authorities discontinued the Old University of Münster. Having consulted philosophers Hegel and Herbart , however, in 1825
29322-427: The technique of autogenic training , prominently advocated sterilization and euthanasia of men considered genetically undesirable, and devised techniques for facilitating this process. After the war, new institutions were created although some psychologists, because of their Nazi affiliation, were discredited. Alexander Mitscherlich founded a prominent applied psychoanalysis journal called Psyche . With funding from
29503-466: The tedious. During the fin de siècle , the French term for the end of the 19th century in the West, some of the cultural hallmarks included "ennui", cynicism , pessimism , and "...a widespread belief that civilization leads to decadence ." Boredom also plays a role in existentialist thought. Søren Kierkegaard and Friedrich Nietzsche were two of the first philosophers considered fundamental to
29684-469: The term "grunge" from the "late 80s and early 90s—...Seattle [grunge] bands". Glover states that the term "grunge lit" was mainly a marketing term used by publishing companies; he states that most of the authors who have been categorized as "grunge lit" writers reject the label. Emotion Emotions are physical and mental states brought on by neurophysiological changes, variously associated with thoughts , feelings , behavioral responses , and
29865-722: The unconscious mind. Research psychologists employ empirical methods to infer causal and correlational relationships between psychosocial variables . Some, but not all, clinical and counseling psychologists rely on symbolic interpretation . While psychological knowledge is often applied to the assessment and treatment of mental health problems, it is also directed towards understanding and solving problems in several spheres of human activity. By many accounts, psychology ultimately aims to benefit society. Many psychologists are involved in some kind of therapeutic role, practicing psychotherapy in clinical, counseling, or school settings. Other psychologists conduct scientific research on
30046-459: The unique experiences of individual humans, which cannot be understood only as data points within a larger population. Critics inside and outside the field have argued that mainstream psychology has become increasingly dominated by a "cult of empiricism", which limits the scope of research because investigators restrict themselves to methods derived from the physical sciences. Feminist critiques have argued that claims to scientific objectivity obscure
30227-440: The universal case of boredom consists in any instance of waiting , as Heidegger noted, such as in line, for someone else to arrive or finish a task, or while one is travelling somewhere. The automobile requires fast reflexes, making its operator busy and hence, perhaps for other reasons as well, making the ride more tedious despite being over sooner. In some Nguni languages such as Zulu , boredom and loneliness are represented by
30408-548: The universe in term of a division of physical reality and mental reality as well as the interaction between the physical and the mental. Chinese philosophy also emphasized purifying the mind in order to increase virtue and power. An ancient text known as The Yellow Emperor's Classic of Internal Medicine identifies the brain as the nexus of wisdom and sensation, includes theories of personality based on yin–yang balance, and analyzes mental disorder in terms of physiological and social disequilibria. Chinese scholarship that focused on
30589-413: The values and agenda of (historically) mostly male researchers. Jean Grimshaw, for example, argues that mainstream psychological research has advanced a patriarchal agenda through its efforts to control behavior. Psychologists generally consider biology the substrate of thought and feeling, and therefore an important area of study. Behaviorial neuroscience, also known as biological psychology, involves
30770-459: The verb "bore", which had the meaning "[to] be tiresome or dull" first attested [in] 1768, a vogue word c. 1780 –81 according to Grose (1785); possibly a figurative extension of "to move forward slowly and persistently, as a [hole-] boring tool does." A popular misconception is that Charles Dickens coined the term "boredom" in his work Bleak House , published in 1853. The word, however, has been attested since at least 1829 in an issue of
30951-521: The view that emotions are discrete, measurable, and physiologically distinct. Ekman's most influential work revolved around the finding that certain emotions appeared to be universally recognized, even in cultures that were preliterate and could not have learned associations for facial expressions through media. Another classic study found that when participants contorted their facial muscles into distinct facial expressions (for example, disgust), they reported subjective and physiological experiences that matched
31132-506: The war with a mandate to create a "New German Psychotherapy." This psychotherapy aimed to align suitable Germans with the overall goals of the Reich. As described by one physician, "Despite the importance of analysis, spiritual guidance and the active cooperation of the patient represent the best way to overcome individual mental problems and to subordinate them to the requirements of the Volk and
31313-452: The way for animal research on emotions and the eventual determination of the neural underpinnings of emotion. More contemporary views along the evolutionary psychology spectrum posit that both basic emotions and social emotions evolved to motivate (social) behaviors that were adaptive in the ancestral environment. Emotion is an essential part of any human decision-making and planning, and the famous distinction made between reason and emotion
31494-487: The word, emotions are intense feelings that are directed at someone or something. On the other hand, emotion can be used to refer to states that are mild (as in annoyed or content) and to states that are not directed at anything (as in anxiety and depression). One line of research looks at the meaning of the word emotion in everyday language and finds that this usage is rather different from that in academic discourse. In practical terms, Joseph LeDoux has defined emotions as
31675-463: Was Naomi Weisstein , who was an accomplished researcher in psychology and neuroscience , and is perhaps best known for her paper, "Kirche, Kuche, Kinder as Scientific Law: Psychology Constructs the Female." Psychology Constructs the Female criticized the field of psychology for centering men and using biology too much to explain gender differences without taking into account social factors. Her work set
31856-607: Was a turning point for women's recognition within the field of psychology. In addition to the contributions made by Leta Stetter Hollingworth and Anna Freud , Mary Whiton Calkins invented the paired associates technique of studying memory and developed self-psychology . Karen Horney developed the concept of " womb envy " and neurotic needs. Psychoanalyst Melanie Klein impacted developmental psychology with her research of play therapy . These great discoveries and contributions were made during struggles of sexism , discrimination , and little recognition for their work. Women in
32037-404: Was adopted and further developed by scholasticism and Thomas Aquinas in particular. In Chinese antiquity, excessive emotion was believed to cause damage to qi , which in turn, damages the vital organs. The four humors theory made popular by Hippocrates contributed to the study of emotion in the same way that it did for medicine . In the early 11th century, Avicenna theorized about
32218-467: Was also used to justify the construction of socially specific mental disorders such as drapetomania and dysaesthesia aethiopica —the behavior of uncooperative African slaves. After the creation of experimental psychology, "ethnical psychology" emerged as a subdiscipline, based on the assumption that studying primitive races would provide an important link between animal behavior and the psychology of more evolved humans. A tenet of behavioral research
32399-561: Was another woman in psychology that changed the field with her research. She was one of the first African-Americans to receive a doctoral degree in psychology from Columbia University , along with her husband, Kenneth Clark . Her master's thesis, "The Development of Consciousness in Negro Pre-School Children," argued that black children's self-esteem was negatively impacted by racial discrimination . She and her husband conduced research building off her thesis throughout
32580-802: Was established by Carolyn Attneave . Harriet McAdoo was appointed to the White House Conference on Families in 1979. Dr. Kay Redfield Jamison , named one of Time Magazine's "Best Doctors in the United States" is a lecturer, psychologist, and writer. She is known for her vast modern contributions to bipolar disorder and her books An Unquiet Mind (Published 1995) and Nothing Was the Same (Published in 2009). Having Bipolar Disorder herself, she has written several memoirs about her experience with suicidal thoughts , manic behaviors, depression , and other issues that arise from being Bipolar . Dr. Angela Neal-Barnett views psychology through
32761-466: Was scared". The issue with the James–Lange theory is that of causation (bodily states causing emotions and being a priori ), not that of the bodily influences on emotional experience (which can be argued and is still quite prevalent today in biofeedback studies and embodiment theory). Although mostly abandoned in its original form, Tim Dalgleish argues that most contemporary neuroscientists have embraced
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