The sex drive, or sexual desire, is an unlearned, powerful drive that humans share with other animal species. Heterosexuals experience sexual desire in relation to members of the opposite sex. This contrasts with homosexuals, where the object of sexual desire is a member of one's own sex. Most researchers believe that children begin to notice physical differences between males and females b…
The principal feature of heuristics is the formulation of a hypothetical solution to a problem at the beginning of an investigation of the problem. This working hypothesis serves to direct the course of the investigation, and is modified and refined as relevant facts are discovered and analyzed. During the course of the investigation, the heuristic method reduces the range, and increases the plaus…
Ernest Hilgard distinguished himself through his studies of the role of hypnosis in human behavior and response. Hypnotism, often regarded as nothing more than a stage trick by pseudo-psychics, is in fact an important psychological tool; it can be used to alter behavior (smoking cessation, for example), and to relieve pain. Much of Hilgard's research and writing on the topic was done with h…
Robert Aubrey Hinde has played an important role in integrating ethology (the scientific study of typical behavior patterns in animals) with other fields, such as psychology. He was born in 1923 in Norwich, England. The youngest of four children, Hinde's father, Ernest Bertram, was a doctor, and his mother Isabella (maiden name Taylor) was a nurse. He got much of his early education at an E…
Individuals with histrionic personality disorder tend to seek attention by exaggerating events, even if insignificant, and are immature, self-centered and often vain. They react emotionally to the slightest provocation. Histrionic personality disorder is classified by psychologists with the group of personality disorders characterized by overly dramatic, emotional, impulsive or erratic reactions. …
The Holtzman inkblot technique was developed in an attempt to minimize certain statistical difficulties that arise in the analysis of Rorschach results. In the Holtzman inkblot, the subject responds to each of a series of 45 ambiguous inkblots. These responses are scored to describe and to classify the personality of the subject. The main difference between the Holtzman inkblot and the Rorschach i…
For most of history, open discussions about homo-sexuality—sexual attraction to people of one's own gender—have been taboo. Men and women with a homosexual orientation are referred to as gay, while the term lesbian refers to women only. Homosexuality was classified as a mental disorder until 1973, when the American Psychiatric Association removed "homosexuality" …
Evelyn Hooker's groundbreaking work on homosexuality paved the way for greater acceptance of a group of people who had for years been labeled "abnormal." Modern society still finds many ways to discriminate against gay men and lesbians, but before Hooker's study many viewed homosexuality as a bona fide mental disorder. Hooker's research proved that, aside from th…
Hormones are biochemical messengers that regulate physiological events in living organisms. More than 100 hormones have been identified in humans. Hormones are secreted by endocrine (ductless) glands such as the hypothalamus, the pituitary gland, the pineal gland, the thyroid, the parathyroid, the thymus, the adrenals, the pancreas, the ovaries, and the testes. Hormones are secreted directly into …
Karen Horney (Corbis-Bettmann. Reproduced with permission.) Karen Horney was born in Hamburg, Germany, and educated at the University of Berlin and the University of Freiberg. She emigrated to the United States in 1932, after having taught for two years at the Berlin Institute of Psychoanalysis. From 1932-34, she was assistant director of the Chicago Institute for Psychoanalysis; she then l…
Hostility is a strong impulse inspired by feelings of anger or resentment. Though hostile impulses are normal, and everyone has them from time to time (for example, when frustrated, offended, or deprived of something), a hostile person feels those impulses regularly. She or he is always ready to take offense or feel frustrated in some way. This is often described as "having a chip on one&#x…
Clark L. Hull was born in a country farmhouse near Akron, New York, on May 24, 1884. He attended high school for a year in West Saginaw, Michigan, and the academy Clark Hull (Archives of the History of American Psychology. Reproduced with permission.) of Alma College. His education was interrupted by bouts of typhoid fever and poliomyelitis, giving him pause to consider possible vocational …
Humanistic psychology evolved in the 1960s as a reaction to psychodynamic psychology and behaviorism. Humanists objected to the pessimistic view of human nature advocated by psychodynamic psychologists who saw the selfish pursuit of pleasure as the root of all human behavior. They also felt that the behaviorists' beliefs that all human behavior is the product of environmental influences red…
William James, an early proponent of human potential and altered states of consciousness, is considered a forerunner of the human potential movement. However, modern interest in human potential can be traced most directly to the humanistic psychological approach of such figures as Carl Rogers and Abraham Maslow in the 1950s. Humanistic psychology was sometimes referred to as the Third Force becaus…
If one was to judge a philosopher by a gauge of relevance—the quantity of issues and arguments raised by him that remain central to contemporary thought—David Hume would be rated among the most important figures in philosophy. Ironically, his philosophical writings went unnoticed during his lifetime, and the considerable fame he achieved derived from his work as an essayist and histo…
Sigmund Freud considered humor an outlet for discharging pent up psychic energy and diminishing the importance of potentially damaging events. Since the 1970s, research on humor has shifted from a Freudian focus to an emphasis on its cognitive dimensions, including investigations involving information-processing theory. Humor has been found to depend on the disparity between expectations and perce…
Practiced since ancient times, hypnosis or hypnotism remains difficult to define accurately and completely. Although the word hypnosis comes from the Greek word hypnos, for sleep, hypnosis is actually an intense state of concentration. There are three degrees of hypnosis. Under light hypnosis, the subject becomes sleepy and follows simple directions; under deep hypnosis, the person experiences dul…
Typically, hypochondriacs not only falsely believe that they have a serious disease (often, but not exclusively, of the heart or another internal organ), they persist in this belief even after being assured that they do not have the disease by a physician (or, usually, by many physicians). Hypochondriacs seem to have an increased sensitivity to internal sensations. It is also thought that serious …
The hypothalamus, which together with the thalamus makes up the section of the forebrain called the diencephalon, is involved in such aspects of behavior as motivation, emotion, eating, drinking, and sexuality. Lying under the thalamus, the hypothalamus weighs only a fraction of an ounce and is a little larger than the tip of the thumb. It is connected to the autonomic nervous system, and controls…
When psychologists engage in research, they generate specific questions called hypotheses. Research hypotheses are informed speculations about the likely results of a project. In a typical research design, researchers might want to know whether people in two groups differ in their behavior. For example, psychologists have asked whether the amount that we can remember increases if we can find …
Components of identity include a sense of personal continuity and of uniqueness from other people. In addition to carving out a personal identity based on the need for uniqueness, people also acquire a social identity based on their membership in various groups—familial, ethnic, occupational, and others. These group identities, in addition to satisfying the need for affiliation, help people…
Sigmund Freud believed that human personality consisted of three components: the id, the ego, and the superego. The id is the part of the personality that includes such basic biological impulses or drives as eating, drinking, eliminating wastes, avoiding pain, attaining sexual pleasure, and aggression. The id operates on the "pleasure principle," seeking to satisfy these basic urges …
Imagination involves the synthetic combining of aspects of memories or experiences into a mental construction that differs from past or present perceived reality, and may anticipate future reality. Generally regarded as one of the "higher mental functions," it is not thought to be present in animals. Imagination may be fantastic, fanciful, wishful, or problem-solving, and may differ …
Unlike behaviorist models of learning through various forms of conditioning, imitation occurs naturally without outside stimulus or reward. In a child's early years, an enormous amount of learning is done through imitation of parents, peers, and modeling based on other stimuli, such as television. Imitative learning occurs in primates, both human and nonhuman, but has not conclusively been …
Imprinting is the process that prompts ducklings to form an attachment to their mothers—or whatever other moving object that appears—within the first two days of life. Ethologists, scientists who study the behavior of animals in their natural environment, noted the process of imprinting as they observed newly hatched ducklings. They discovered that if a duckling were introduced to an…
Impulse control disorders are thought to have both neurological and environmental causes and are known to be exacerbated by stress. Some mental health professionals regard several of these disorders, such as compulsive gambling or shopping, as addictions. In impulse control disorder, the impulse action is typically preceded by feelings of tension and excitement and followed by a sense of relief an…
While the incest taboo is nearly universal and exists in nearly all societies, notions of kinship vary greatly from culture to culture. Thus, some cultures would consider sexual relations between first cousins incest, while others would not. The same premise holds true for inter-course between a stepfather and stepdaughter. The very rare exceptions to incest, such as those found in ancient Egyptia…
In experimental research, psychologists create two or more groups that are as similar as possible except for a single change that the psychologist makes from one group to the next. That single element that varies across groups is called the independent variable. In more complex research, the experimenter may include more than one independent variable. In one experiment dealing with eyewitness test…
When a child uses inductive thinking or reasoning, he or she engages in the evaluation and comparison of facts to reach a conclusion. Inductive reasoning progresses from observations of individual cases to the development of a generality. (Inductive reasoning, or induction, is often confused with deductive thinking; in the latter, general principles or conditions are applied to specific instances …
Some industrial psychologists, also called personnel or organizational psychologists, may be employed by companies to administer tests which measure employee aptitudes or skills in hiring and placement programs. Others work for consulting firms which offer their services to companies on a contractual basis to solve specific problems. The projects which they work on may include facilitating interpe…