Ajourdee Joseph: “How two ideas of behavior developed: Schizophrenia and Fear”
Most scientific ideas must involve scientific methodology to result into a possible theory. The scientific method includes observations, formulating a hypothesis, testing the hypothesis and gathering the data to support the hypothesis. These are the steps scientist take to propose and prove an idea they might have discovered. A vital part of this process involves having reliable information or reasons to support what the discovery is or how it has changed. Psychological theorists attempt to use reliable research to support their idea. Sometimes, the information they use to support their idea lacks validity. Two examples of this would be the readings of A Racialized Disease by Beacon Press and J.B. Watson’s Little Albert, Cyril Burt’s Twins, and the Need for a Critical Science by Franz Samelson. These readings provide an insight on how psychological scientists deal with developing the source of information to support an idea, the effect the evidence found has on the validity of the idea and the influences the results make in the scientific community.
A Racialized Disease begins with explaining how mental illnesses such as schizophrenia were defined in a vague and unspecified way in the first edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM). This manual was a guide on how to properly diagnose mental illnesses and how to identify the symptoms associated with them. As a result, the American Psychiatric Association published the DSM-II. This version of the manual contained “progressive revisions” to narrow the definition of the illnesses the DSM-I lacked. In this edition schizophrenia was defined as “a group of disorders manifested by characteristic disturbances in thinking, mood, and behavior.” Based on this definition it was easy to classify African American men as schizophrenic regarding the current events going at that time such as The Civil Rights Movement.
During the1960s in the US, African Americans were protesting segregation and inequality. As more people became frustrated during this time of mistreatment people began to exhibit anger and frustrations that were deeply rooted by the inexistence of social changes. Thus, making it easy to connect the symptoms defined by the APA in DSM-II for schizophrenia to black men. In my opinion, the definition used in the DSM-II was not entirely valid because it remained biased making it somewhat unreliable. If information behind any scientific research is unreliable and/or invalid it takes away from the credibility of the scientific community. This can result in society doubting the scientific community and the answers we receive from them.
In the text, J.B. Watson’s Little Albert, Cyril Burt’s Twins, and the Need for a Critical Science it discusses J.B. Watsons early experiments on understanding conditioned responses. He performed different experiments to show how certain traits can be programmed or “conditioned” in a person, specifically infants. In one of his experiments called “The Little Albert Experiment” Watson exposed an infant named Albert to various furry animals to engage with. Watson then accompanied a loud sound with each animal he exposed to Albert which lead him to become afraid of the animals. Questions emerged from other scientists regarding Watsons experiment such as ethics and reliability.
The Little Albert experiment did not involve “reliable” research because Watson did not include certain aspects a scientist would need to take to prove and idea. For example, Albert was the only infant for this experiment. If Watson would have tested his theory on various infants the experiment perhaps it would have been more reliable. Also, Watson was inconsistent in his details of the experiment. His retelling of the experiment varied and were embellished at times. Later, Watson theory was again tested by two other psychologists and concluded his experiment is not as simple as he provided little evidence for his claims. As a result, Watson theory became questionable in the scientific community in the years following his experiments.
As scientist continue to propose new discoveries they must follow the scientific method to support their ideas. Scientific methodology includes observations, forming a hypothesis, and supporting the hypothesis with data. The evidence scientist collect must be reliable and well researched to become theorized. Sometimes, scientist lack certain evidence or miss certain details while trying to prove a hypothesis. In the readings, A Racialized Disease and J.B. Watson’s Little Albert, Cyril Burt’s Twins, and the Need for a Critical Science it provided an insight on how scientist at times overlook details. These theories and/or experiments conducted were questionable and as a result caused the scientific community to reevaluate these theories and experiments for improvement.