Famous Social Scientists
Review
Piaget
• Stages of Cognitive Development
• Sensorimotor (birth → 2)
– Object permanence
– Direct sensory experience
• Preoperational (2 → 7)
– Simple symbols
– Egocentric
• Concrete Operational (7 → 11)
– Conservation/Complex Operations
– See others’ point of view
• Formal Operational (12 →)
– Abstract thought
– Use of logic and evidence
Freud
Superego
Id
Ego
Defense Mechanisms
-Deny/distort reality
-Act unconsciously
Freud
http://www.discunlimited.com/images/company_assets/512f1c7f-0d64-4a5e-9d91-785dc064755f/Image/Research/FreudsIcebergModel.bmp
Freud
• Id – pleasure principle - innate
• Ego – reality principle - learned
• Superego – “conscience” learned
• If Ego can’t maintain balance
between Id and Superego, then
defense mechanisms
• Psychoanalysis
• dream analysis, hypnosis
and free associations
• reveal unconscious
Freud
Stages of Psychosexual Development
• Oral Stage (0-1 year)
• Anal Stage (1-3 years)
• Phallic Stage (3-5/6 years)
• Latency Period (5/6 – puberty)
• Genital Stage (puberty – maturity)
The events of psychosexual development may lead to
fixations later on in adult life
Jung
• Unconscious split into individual
and collective
• Individual Unconscious
– contains selfish drives and
individual experience
• Collective Unconscious
– Archetypes – common to all
• Two personality types
– Extrovert – desire and interest
directed to others
– Introvert – desire and interest
directed to self
http://www.jungneworleans.org/images/JungMandalaLarge.jpg
Maslow
• Theory of
motivation –
Hierarchy of
Human Needs
• Needs range
from low (food
and water) to
high (self
actualization)
• Lower needs
must be met
before higher
ones
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/58/Maslow%27s_hierarchy_of_needs.svg/800px-Maslow%27s_hierarchy_of_needs.svg.png
Erikson
• Focused on child development
• Concerned with identity crises
• Contributed eight stages of life
– Each stage offers a crisis that must be resolved
– Success at later stages depends on ability to resolve
earlier crises
• Overcoming crises successfully leads to healthy personality
development
• Inability to resolve crises can lead to unhealthy development
• Personality develops through lifetime
– Expands on Freud’s infancy theories
– Extends development to late adulthood
Adler
• motivating force is sense of
inferiority
– People strive for perfection
• People try to overcome with
compensation
– Striving towards perfection or
superiority
• Compensation can be too great
(overcompensation – superiority
complex)
• Birth Order can influence
personality
http://cheekygen.blogspot.com/2008/06/birth-order-and-siblings-rivalry.html
Sheldon
• Behavior explained by body type
– Endomorph – round
– Mesomorph – muscular
– Ectomorph – thin
• Temperament is related to body type
– Somatotypes
http://www.umsl.edu/~keelr/pics/somato3.jpg
Kohlberg
• Piaget found 2
stages of moral
thought
– moral realism –
concern with
consequences
– moral autonomy –
concern with
reasons
• Morality motivates
behavior
• Extended Piaget’s 2
stages to 6
LEVEL
STAGE
SOCIAL
ORIENTATION
Preconventional
1
Obedience and
Punishment
2
Individualism
Conventional 3
Good boy/girl
Postconventional
4
Law and Order
5
Social Contract
6
Principled
Conscience
Gilligan
• Responded to Piaget and Kohlberg
– Almost exclusively researched males
• Found different moral perspectives among genders
– Male – Justice orientation – rights, principles, rules, …
– Female – Care orientation – concern, sensitivity, …
• Preconventional stage – individual survival
– Transition from selfishness to responsibility for others
• Conventional Stage – self sacrifice
– Transition from goodness to truth
• Postconventional - nonviolence
Marx
• Motivation by economic conditions
– Economic conditions affect other social structures
(religion, politics, art,…)
• Wrote Communist Manifesto
– Outlined struggle in which proletariat is exploited by
bourgeoisie – class struggle
– Proletariat sells labour to owner, who enjoy surplus
value
• Proletariat – large group of working class
• Bourgeoisie – small group of owners
• Suggested revolution by working class and
ultimately a classless society
Durkheim
• Emphasis on social structure
– Society (exterior to individual) can explain social
behavior
• Social stability found in common religion and
morality
– Loss leads to confusion (Anomie)
• Explained suicide as result of anomie, over
association, or under association
– Strong social ties tend to reduce likelihood of suicide
– Excessive social ties can increase the likelihood of
suicide
Weber
• Reaction to Marx
– Motivation not by economic condition but meaning
(religion)
• Examined relationship between religion and
economy
– Found capitalism thrives under western religions (but
not eastern) – Protestant work ethic
• Study of social structures alone cannot explain
human behavior
– Study of Sociology must be a mix of interpretation
and experience