Cognitive psychology's approach to the study of memory was largely based on the analogy of information storage and retrieval, and the connection between the two processes. Endel Tulving explained memories as being organized by our minds into categories, which are put into different stores, and showed that these could be recalled by 'jogging the memory' with a cue.
He also described remembering as a form of 'mental time travel', taking us back to the time and circumstances when the memory was stored. This idea was taken up by British psychologist Alan Baddeley, who showed that divers recalled things better in the circumstances in which they had been learned. Gordon H.
Bower discovered that our memories are not only cue-dependent but also mood-dependent – our feelings when storing and retrieving memories affect their recall.
When we are in a bad mood, for instance, it is easier to remember unhappy memories than good times.#5978•
Chapter 65
What Schacter called the 'sin of suggestibility' has particular relevance in the legal world. Court cases often rely heavily on evidence from victims and eyewitnesses, but our memory of events is less than rock solid. American psychologist Elizabeth Loftus showed in experiments how leading questions can influence recollection.
Participants were shown a film of two cars colliding and their estimates of the vehicles' speed varied depending on whether they were described as 'bumping' or 'crashing' into each other.
Loftus also demonstrated that memories of traumatic events are especially susceptible. More worryingly, she showed that it is possible to have a memory of something that never happened, in an experiment where participants were led to believe they had been lost in a shopping mall as a child. This kind of 'false memory' calls into question the reliability of witness evidence, and casts doubt on the validity of Freud's theory about the effects of repressed memories (see page 152).#5983•
Chapter 70
Freud's 'talking cure' of the 1890s led him to develop a comprehensive theory of the way the human mind is structured. He realized that what we are consciously thinking is only a fraction of what is going on in our minds. Beneath the superficial level of the conscious mind, there is the preconscious, Freud proposed, containing thoughts and memories that we can easily access.
Further below is a much larger unconscious, where he believed repressed thoughts, memories and feelings are stored.
As well as these horizontal divisions of the mind, Freud later identified three separate parts of the psyche – the id, the ego and the superego.
The id is the childlike part of our selves that works on the 'pleasure principle', seeking immediate gratification of basic impulses.
The ego embodies the adult 'reality principle', the voice of reason moderating and supervising the id.
Thirdly, the superego is the judging principle', the voice of morality imposed upon us by our parents and society.
Conflict between these opposing 'voices' is the root cause of many psychological problems.#5975•
Chapter 77
Freud's most brilliant student, Carl Jung, soon found fault with many of his teacher's theories about the unconscious. Jung's model for the structure of the psyche, for example, was divided into the ego, the personal unconscious and the collective unconscious. The ego represented immediate consciousness, and the personal unconscious was the store for all personal experiences, both forgotten or repressed.
The collective unconscious, however, is a separate psychic system, which does not develop from our experience but is inherited.#5980•
Chapter 155
Paul Ekman, another pioneer of the psychology of emotion, noted that one of our involuntary emotional responses is a range of facial expressions. He identified six basic expressions, each associated with primary emotion: anger, fear, disgust, happiness, sadness and surprise. Like the experience of the emotion itself, these facial expressions are involuntary and impossible to completely control or conceal.#5981•
Chapter 164
It is possible to see many categories of mental disorder as merely extremes of 'normal' behaviour, personality or mood, and abnormal only in the sense that they do not fit society's norms. We tend to focus our attention on negative extremes. To highlight the double standards of our attitudes towards mental 'abnormality', Richard Bentall suggested that happiness should be officially classified as a mental disorder, since as a diagnosis of an affective disorder it is as valid as depression.
Bentall suggested that happiness is, 'statistically abnormal, consists of a discrete cluster of symptoms, is associated with a range of cognitive abnormalities and probably reflects the abnormal functioning of the central nervous system'. Our only reason for not seeking to correct it by treatment is that it is pleasant rather than distressing to the 'sufferer' and is valued positively.
On a more serious note, Bentall proposed that we should examine our classification of mental disorders to identify any bias that comes from value judgements.#5979•
Chapter 179
Wolpe went on from his technique of reciprocal inhibition (see page 362) to develop other methods of behavioural therapy. The best known is systematic desensitization, also called graduated exposure therapy, which has proved effective in the treatment of phobias and other anxiety disorders. Again the idea was simple – a person can unlearn a fearful response to an anxiety-producing stimulus by gradually increased levels of exposure to it, overcoming fear by degrees.
Wolpe suggested it could be done in three steps.
The patient first identifies the things that cause an anxiety, for example phobia of spiders, and arranges them into a hierarchy according to the severity of anxiety that they provoke – looking at pictures of spiders, seeing a dead spider, seeing a live spider, touching a spider, holding a spider and so on.
Next, he or she learns relaxation and coping techniques.
Then, he or she is exposed to the lowest-ranked anxiety stimulus and practises applying coping techniques.
Once that fear has been mastered, the patient moves on to the next level and gradually overcomes anxiety.#5977•