Psychology

  Women in psychology 1900–1949 Women in the early 1900s started to make key findings within the world of psychology. In 1923,   Anna Freud   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   l atency 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 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...

  Controlled experiments   A  true experiment  with random assignment of research participants (sometimes called subjects) to rival conditions allows researchers to make strong inferences about causal relationships. When there are large numbers of research participants, the random assignment (also called random allocation) of those participants to rival conditions ensures that the individuals in those conditions will, on average, be similar on most characteristics, including characteristics that went unmeasured. In an experiment, the researcher alters one or more variables of influence, called  independent variables , and measures resulting changes in the factors of interest, called  dependent variables . Prototypical experimental research is conducted in a laboratory with a carefully controlled environment.   A  quasi-experiment  is a situation in which different conditions are being studied, but random assignment to the different conditions...

  Military and intelligence One role for  psychologists in the military  has been to evaluate and counsel soldiers and other personnel. In the U.S., this function began during World War I, when Robert Yerkes established the School of Military Psychology at  Fort Oglethorpe  in Georgia. The school provided psychological training for military staff.  Today, U.S. Army psychologists perform psychological screening, clinical psychotherapy,  suicide prevention , and treatment for post-traumatic stress, as well as provide prevention-related services, for example, smoking cessation.  The United States Army's Mental Health Advisory Teams implement psychological interventions to help combat troops experiencing mental problems.   Psychologists may also work on a diverse set of campaigns known broadly as psychological warfare. Psychological warfare chiefly involves the use of propaganda to influence enemy soldiers and civilians. This so-called black prop...

  psychology organizations In 1920,  Édouard Claparède  and  Pierre Bovet  created 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 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 Associat...

  Genes and environment All researched psychological traits are influenced by both  genes  and  environment , to varying degrees.  These two sources of influence are often confounded in observational research of individuals and families. An example of this confounding can be shown in the transmission of  depression  from a depressed mother to her offspring. A theory based on environmental transmission would hold that an offspring, by virtue of their having a problematic rearing environment managed by a depressed mother, is at risk for developing depression. On the other hand, a hereditarian theory would hold that depression risk in an offspring is influenced to some extent by genes passed to the child from the mother. Genes and environment in these simple transmission models are completely confounded. A depressed mother may both carry genes that contribute to depression in her offspring and also create a rearing environment that increases the risk of d...

  Unconscious mind Study of the unconscious mind, a part of the psyche outside the individual's awareness but that is believed to influence conscious thought and behavior, was a hallmark of early psychology. In one of the first psychology experiments conducted in the United States,  C.S. Peirce  and  Joseph Jastrow  found in 1884 that research subjects could choose the minutely heavier of two weights even if consciously uncertain of the difference.  Freud popularized the concept of the unconscious mind, particularly when he referred to an uncensored intrusion of unconscious thought into one's speech (a  Freudian slip ) or to his efforts  to interpret dreams .  His 1901 book  The Psychopathology of Everyday Life  catalogs hundreds of everyday events that Freud explains in terms of unconscious influence.  Pierre Janet  advanced the idea of a subconscious mind, which could contain autonomous mental elements unavailable to the...