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Psychology and computer science are clearly distinct disciplines. As we have seen, there are obvious differences within the definitions and methodological approaches of the two. Still, despite the differences, there are some interdisciplinary subfields that try to fuse the two.

An interdisciplinary perspective on the two disciplines is cognitive science, wherein the human mind is seen as an information processor, a machine. According to cognitive scientists, the mind sees information in the same manner as computers do. First, it receives ‘input’ from a source. Then, this input is stored on some kind of ‘hard drive’. Finally, the input will be processed. The results of this process is the ‘output’ (Friedenberg, Silverman, 2006: p. 3). The mental representation of information is thus a significant part of cognitive science, which can be compared with information processing on computers.

A field that draws upon this is human-computer interaction (HCI). HCI can be seen as a merge between cognitive psychology and programming aspects of computer science, to create well designed interfaces. According to Carroll, it looks at how humans interact with technology, and how that can be supported through the design. It came into being partly because of “the recognition that computers can be deliberately designed to facilitate human activity and experience only when social and cognitive requirements drive the design process throughout” (Carroll, 1997: p. 62, 79). Therefore, cognitive psychology should be considered for the design of computer systems.

Another example is artificial intelligence (AI), early mentioned as a subset of computer science. AI scientists try to build machines that can automatically make intelligent decisions. They try to do this at the level of intelligence of a human agent, which should lead to the fact that the machine can act in the same manner as humans (Friedenberg, Silverman, 2006: p. 320). The consideration of what this intelligent behaviour is, comes from psychology.

Sources

Carroll, John M. (1997) ‘HUMAN-COMPUTER INTERACTION: Psychology as a Science of Design’, Annual Rev. Psych., 48, pp. 61-83.

Friedenberg, Jay, Gordon Silverman. (2006) Cognitive Science. An introduction to the Study of Mind. Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications Inc.

This week I will look at online surveillance and how psychology is related to it. Online surveillance has been a hot topic in the last couple of years.

During the Arab Spring, many Middle-Eastern governments have been accused of tracking down (potential) opponents and arresting them because of their online activity. Also, the revelations by Edward Snowden about the NSA have led to more attention to how the Web can be used as a tool of espionage. The rise in these kinds of activity show similarities with 1984, by George Orwell. This book describes a society wherein the government continuously watches and monitors its population. With the rise of the World Wide Web, people have put more and more information about themselves online. Therefore, it is becoming increasingly interesting for different (authoritarian) governments to ‘watch and monitor’ this information. Herewith, they can potentially control their country in an Orwellian way by arresting people who might potentially be a threat for them.

Of course, citizens are also becoming aware of the omnipresent online surveillance by governments. If they hear about people that have been arrested because of things they have posted on the Web, they might alter their (online) behaviour. From a psychological perspective, it is interesting to see how the mind and behaviour of people is changing because of this. Their response can be compared with psychological experiments, wherein the term social interference can be used to refer to such a response. This effect is a decline in performance when observers are present (Gray, 2007: p. 502). With an increasing notion of online surveillance, which might have consequences (i.e. physical punishment, imprisonment or worse) for a certain way of behaving, a citizen might become less (visibly) active online. This could be seen as a decline in performance.

This response can also be seen as the outcome of anxiety, which according to psychological terms can be seen as the mental situation when people worry excessively about a “stimulus or event that are vague, not identifiable, or in the future” (Gray, 2007: p. 590). When one does not know what future dangers may lie ahead, but expects consequences for certain actions, behaviour can change.

Social interference and anxiety are just two topics that can be used to look at online surveillance from a psychological perspective. Still, it offers many other perspectives to look at the subject. The approaches that I described earlier in a blogpost (biological, behaviourist, cognitive, psychodynamic, and humanistic) can for example all be used to look at online surveillance in a different way.

Next time, I will look at how online surveillance can be studied from the perspective of computer science. Also, I will look at how psychology and computer science can be combined to study online surveillance.

Sources

Gray, Peter. Psychology. Fifth Edition. New York: Worth Publishers, 2007.

It’s admittedly been a while since my last post, but I have still been a bit scattered about the nature of my topic and have been earnestly trying to refrain from focussing on Web Science issues that are too narrow and specifically, archaeological. In lieu of this I’ve been focused on getting to grips with Criminology first, a discipline which I know I want to study and apply elsewhere. I’ve been taking lots of notes along the way, but hadn’t yet transcribed them here, so here goes..

The following mostly stems from Walklate 2005: Criminology: The Basics.

What is Criminology?

Criminology as Multidisciplinary

One of the big take home points for me about Criminology as a discipline is actually how inherently multidisciplinary it is. Depending on who you ask, you might get a somewhat different take on the nature of criminological study, typically framed by the ‘other discipline’ from which the researcher stems from. This includes criminology from an economics, history, psychology, law, sociology, anthropology, and philosophical multidisciplinary stance – all researching and defining criminology somewhat differently. Yet Walklate claims all disciplines are “held together by one substantive concern: CRIME.”

What is Crime?

The question of “what is crime” within the criminology community is contested, and seems to go beyond defining crime as simply breaking the law though this is a useful starting place for most researchers, as it removes the emotive nature of studying such a subject area. But criminologists must also consider that laws change, thus understanding the processes of criminalizing and decriminalizing and the processes that influence policy can also fall under the remit of criminology. Criminologists must also consider social agreement, social consensus and societal response to crime, which extends the crime definition beyond that which is simply against the law. In addition, crime still occurs regardless of the content of the law – and this falls within a sub sect described as “deviant behaviour” which seems to lend itself more to the psychological-criminological studies.

Sociology of Crime

The sociology of crime is concerned with the social structures that lead to crime – “individual behaviour is not constructed in a vacuum” – and it takes place within a particular social and cultural context that must be examined when looking addressing criminal studies. Social expectations and power structures surrounding criminal acts are also important to the nature of studying crime in society.

Example applications and questions

• Why does there seem to be more of a certain type of crime in some societies and not others?
• Why/If the occurrence of a type of crime is changing throughout time?
• Why do societies at times focus efforts on reducing/managing/effecting certain types of crimes?

feminism – forced a thinking about the “maleness of the crime problem”, and question of masculinity within society – “search for transcendence” (to be master and in control of nature)

Counting Crime

Sources for analyzing crime

• direct experiences of crime
• mediated experiences of crime
• official statistics on crime – Criminal Statistics in England and Wales, published yearly a good starting point. Home Office, FBI, EuroStat
• research findings of criminologists

“the dark figure of crime” – the criminal events only known to the offender and the victim – e.g. those that don’t get caught, or  not reported/recorded.

Not all recorded offenses have an identifiable offender/not all offenders are convicted – partiality

The 3 R’s: recognising, reporting, recording.

Reporting – criminologists must understand reporting behaviour and reasons for not reporting crime, and then how that effects the results/statistics upon analysis.

• behaviour may be unlawful but witnesses may not recognise it as such, thus not report it
• witnesses may recognise an act as criminal but consider it not serious enough to report
• judicial process – and numbers of tried vs convicted, the politics of this and its subsequent effects in reporting
• police discretion on recording crime – e.g. meeting and reporting to targets

identifying trends – it’s important to understand crime statistics over time

• understand whether crime and terms for crime change over time, changes to how an offense is defined
• criminal victimisation surveys – do these exist for Internet fraud
• crimes against the personal vs crimes against property

the Problem of Respondents – getting people to respond to surveys can be challenging.

• big difference between crimes known to police and the dark figure of crime
• big difference between crimes made visible by criminal victimisation surveys and those that remain invisible (e.g. tax fraud)

Eriksen, T. H., 2004. What is Anthropology. London: Pluto Press.

“The raw material of anthropology – people, societies, cultures – is constituted differently from that of the natural and quantitative sciences, and can be formalised only with great difficulty…” (Eriksen, 2004, p 77). “[Anthropology’s approach] can be summed up as an insistence on regarding social and cultural life from within, a field method largely based on interpretation, and a belief (albeit variable) in comparison as a source of theoretical understanding” (Eriksen, 2004, p 81). Theory provides criteria by which to categorise data and to judge is significance. Anthropology applies theory to social and cultural data.

Fundamental questions

1. What is it that makes people do whatever they do?

2. How are societies or cultures integrated?

3 To what extent does thought vary from society to society, and how much is similar across cultures?

Anthropological theory is deeply tied to observation. Differences in approaches by region: US researchers favour linguistics and psychology and British favour sociological explanations (via politics, kinship and law).

Theory

There are 4 main theoretical underpinnings of Anthropological theory:

1. Structural-functionalism – A R Radcliffe-Brown: Demonstrating how societies are integrated. Person as social product. Ability of norms and social structure to regulate human interaction. Social structure defined as the sum of mutually defined statuses in a society.

2. Cultural-materialism – Ruth Benedict (1887-1948): Cultures and societies have ‘personality traits’.

Dionysian = extroverted, pleasure seeking, passionate and violent;

Apollonian = introverted, peaceful and puritanical;

Paranoid = members live in fear and suspicion of each other. Culture expressed seamlessly in different contexts – from institutional to personal levels.

Margaret Mead (1901 – 1978): sought to understand cultural variations in personality. Her highly influential work on child-rearing, Coming of Age in Samoa (1928) demonstrated that personality is shaped through socialisation.

3. Agency and society

Raymond Firth: Persons act according to their own will.

Pierre Bourdieu: Interested in the power differences in society distributed opportunities for choice unequally. Knowledge management: Doxa = what is self-evident and taken for granted within a particular society; Habitus = embodied knowledge, the habits and skills of the body which are taken for granted and hard to change; Opinion = everything that is actively discussed; Structuring structures = the systems of social relations within society which reduce individual freedom of choice. Important to understanding the causes that restrict free choice.

4. Structuralism – Theory of human cognitive processes.

Lévi-Strauss: the human mind functions and understands the world through contrasts in the form of extreme opposites with an intermediate stage (‘triads’). Cross-cultural studies of myth, food, art classification and religion. Based on Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s observation in La pensée sauvage: “…in order to study Man, one must learn to look from afar; one must first observe differences in order to to discover attributes”.  Post-structuralism more in favour today.

5. Primacy of the material – Strongly influenced by historical materialism (Marx). Gives primacy to material conditions of individuals above individual agency or how the mind works.

Two approaches within this area: those that favour economic conditions and those that give primacy to technological and ecological factors.

Julian Steward/Leslie White: Societies grow in complexity as a result of technological and economic change. Change happens in the ‘cultural core’ of technology, ecological adaption and property relations. The ‘rest of culture’ (e.g. religion, art, law etc) is more or less autonomous.

Gregory Bateson (Margaret Mead’s husband and one of the founders of cybernetics – i.e self-regulating systems) – all systems have properties in common: reaction to feedback (or lack of feedback) gives rise to repercussions which ensures the continuing re-imaging of the system.

6. Geertzian hermeneutics – interpretation of the world from the natives point of view.

Clifford Geertz: Thick description = a great deal of contextual description to elicit understanding of data. “…research primarily consists of penetrating, understanding and describing culture systematically the way it is experienced locally – not to explain it in terms of comparison…structuralist, materialist, or otherwise.”

Culture is expressed through shared, public symbols (communication) – so guessing the workings of the minds of those under scrutiny is unnecessary.

7. Eclecticism – a combined approach which recognises the complexity of the world and which attempts to “grasp both the acting individuals and the systemic properties constraining them”.

Fields

1. Reciprocity – the conduct of exchange, fundamental to sociality, crucial to human life.
a) Marcel Mauss – Gift-giving. The Gift (Essai sur le don, 1925). Three roles in gift-giving: obligation to give, obligation to receive and obligation to return the gift. Simplistic evolutionary view of society: i) Universal gift-giving fundamental to social integration (historical) ii) Institutions take on gift-giving role. iii) Marginal role for gift-giving in modern, alienating, capitalist societies. Exchange does not need to be economically profitable. “All economies have a local, moral, cultural element” (Eriksen, 2004, p 88). (Remnants of historical obligation are witnessed in round buying in pubs, dinner party invitations, circulation of second-hand children’s clothing among family and friends, voluntary community work, and Christmas. The potlatch institution (Boas) – where tribes seek to out-do each other in their extravagant wastefulness.

b) Karl Polanyi – Integration: reciprocity, redistribution and market principle. A radical critique of capitalism, directly relevant to ‘economic anthropology’. Rejects the view that people primarily strive to maximise utility (even if it happens at the expense of others). Psychological motivations are influenced by personal gain, consideration for others and the need to be socially acceptable. “Reciprocity is the ‘glue’ that keeps societies together” (Eriksen, 2004, p 91).

c) Marhsall Sahlins – 3 forms of reciprocity: balanced (e.g. tit-for-tat trade – close proximity ), generalised (gift-giving – family and friends), and negative (attempt to gain benefit without cost – strangers). Shows how “morality, economics and social integration are interwoven” (Eriksen, 2004, p 92).

d) Annette Weiner (Inalienable Possessions, 1992) – some things cannot be exchanged or given away as gifts, e.g. “…talismans, knowledges, [secret] rites which confirm deep-seated identities and their continuity through time” (Maurice Godlier, 1999). Cultural identity could be seen as an ‘inalienable possession’.

e) Daniel Miller (Theory of Shopping, 1998) – Sacrifice: women in buying at supermarkets purchase for others to form a relationship with them, and consider the views of others when buying for themselves.

f) Matt Ridley (The Origins of Virtue, 1996) – mathematical models show that cooperation ‘pays off’ in the long run.

2. Kinship – basis of social organisation. Not just family, but local community and work relations.

a) Lewis Henry Morgan – traditional societies thoroughly organised on kinship and descent.

b) Fortes and Evans-Pritchard – acephalous (‘headless) societies in Africa based on kinship-based social organisation. Segmentary system that expands and shrinks according to need – deeply influential in anthropology.

c) Lévi-Strauss – Alliance and reciprocity in kinship relations. Marriage in traditional societies is group-based and forms long-term reciprocity.

d) ‘Modern’ society – tension between family, kinship and personal freedom. Kinship is important in determining career opportunities

3. Nature

a) Inner nature – humans shaped by society and history, but with objective, universal human needs (Malinowski, Lévi-Strauss).

b) External nature – relationship between ecology and society, options are limited by environmental conditions, technology and population density.

c) Nature as a social construction – humans create representations of nature, which is often unspoken or not reflected upon – tacit knowledge.

d) Sociobiology – human actions cannot be be understood as pure adaption. “Research aims to establish valid generalisations about the mind as it has evolved biologically”.

4. Thought – people say what they think or express it through their acts, rituals or public performances.

a) Rationality – Evans-Pritchard’s 3 types of knowledge: i) mystical knowledge based on the belief in invisible and unverifiable forces; ii) commonsensical knowledge based on everyday experience; iii) scientific knowledge based on the tenets of logic and experimental method. Important, possibly unanswerable questions: i) is it possible to translate from one system of knowledge to another without distorting it with ‘alien’ concepts? ii) does a context-independent or neutral language exist to describe systems of knowledge? iii) do all humans reason in fundamentally the same way? Study of Technology and Science (STS) – science and technology as cultural products.

b) Classification and pollution – different people classify and subdivide them in different ways. Mary Douglas: classification of nature and the human body reflects society’s ideology about itself. What ‘pollution’, i.e. food prohibition, tells us about society.

c) Totemism – a form of classification whereby individuals or groups have special (often mythical) relationships to nature. Lévi-Strauss’ distinction between bricolage (associational, non-linear thought) and ‘engineering’ (logical thought).

d) Thought and technology

5. Identification a) The social b) Relational and situational identifications c) Imperative and chosen identities d) Degrees of identification e) Anomolies

Mind map: http://www.mindmeister.com/250242069

This post will look at the definition of gender and the different types of interaction to try and better understand the different gender interactions on the web, to further understand how one would go about answering this question using psychology as a discipline.

In order to study gender equality from a psychological point of view, it is first important to define the notion of gender. Psychology defines two terms in relation to defining gender: “gender identity” and “sex typing”. Gender identity is where there is a clear separation between male and female, and a vast majority of cultures extend that biological difference into affording highly contrasting attributes and expectations of behaviour to each gender. Sexual typing is the instance of a person of a specific gender taking on the qualities and characteristics of that gender as expected of them by culture and society.

Another interesting psychological area to look at is interactions, after all to study this topic interactions between different genders on the web would have to be addressed.

Group Interactions: these are often ruled by social norms whereby a certain level of behaviour is deemed acceptable or even actively encouraged. Group interaction patterns have the potential to become ‘institutionalised’, meaning that people who occupy certain roles will take on subsequent behavioural actions based on them. These roles could be the traditional ‘boss/employee’ role, however this could equally be applied to the stereotypical gender roles. Perhaps females will fall into occupying sites that contain material that is deemed ‘stereotypically female’ such as cooking and baking sites; whereas men will involve themselves with aggressive war based sites/online games.

This arguably may not even be a representation of gender inequality, as perhaps people are just running with their personal interests; however this could easily be an example of them falling into their historical roles even with a modern invention such as the web. Following on from the last psychology post involving case studies and direct observation as two of the methods of conducting psychological research, if I were investigating this question using psychology I would look at case studies of gender usage of the web and do some direct observing of posts on forums/social networking sites etc. A case study called ‘Measuring the Gender Gap on the Internet’ which looks at different genders presence and use of the internet. One of it’s hypothesis based on the larger presence of males over females was that ‘the Internet may have “gendered” attributes that favour men in some way’. It also suggests that the internet might be preferable to males given (or because of?) the stereotype that males prefer technology to females.

There are also different varieties of individual interaction: reactive, evocative and proactive.

Reactive Interaction: different individuals will interpret, experience and react to the same situations in vastly different ways depending on their personality. For example an anxious person might react significantly worse to a potentially worrying situation (e.g getting shut in a lift) in a very different way to a calm unaffected person. Different people could interpret different remarks about gender or websites that play to a specific gender stereotype in different ways inciting potential situations of gender inequality, or at least unequal gender representation.

Evocative Interaction: different personalities evoke varied responses from different people. Different types of behaviour will encourage people to react to them differently. Perhaps someone who makes a comment that implies they do not see the genders equally (even in jest) will provoke certain people to angry reactions thus resulting in gender bashing on both sides and potentially setting up of groups/statements being made that don’t represent the genders equally.

Proactive Interaction: we select our environments as we get older, perhaps one gender over the other will elect to spend their time on the web in a certain way, or even just spend more of their time on the web than the other; leading back to the case study about the gender gap on the internet.

I think studying the different types of interaction can give insight into gender representation on the web, as part of it will certainly be how both genders actually interact with each other on the web. Other factors will be looking into internet usage by the different genders, and also what sites are frequented by what genders. Drilling down into these it’s also looking at the access both genders have to various sites; the comments made about them and how they are represented on individual sites.

In my next two blog posts I will be looking at what defines a gender equal web from the perspectives of both philosophy and psychology, to better yet ascertain how I would answer this research question (aka determing the representation of gender on the web) by measuring reality against a proposed ‘idealised equal’ gender web.

[1] B. L. Fredrickson, S Nolen-Hocksema, G. R. Loftus, and W. A. Wagenaar. Atkinson and Hilgards’s Introduction to Psychology. Cengage Learning EMEA, 2009, 15th edition, 2009.
[2] David G Myers. Exploring Psychology. Worth Publishers, 2009, 7th edition, 2008.
[3] D. Westen and R. M. Kowalski. Psychology, Study Guide. Wiley, 5th edition, 2009.
[4] Bruce Bimber. Measuring the gender gap on the internet. Social science quarterly, 81(3):868–876, 2000.

This post will look at the different perspectives in psychology, and the subsequent different approaches to conducting psychological research.

Here are the seven different perspectives of psychology:

Biological Perspective – Studying the physical to inform the mental. Looking at the neural processes in our brains along with studying the immune system, nervous system and genetics to inform the mental processes. For example, people who are closely related to people who develop mental diseases, may have a greater chance of developing the same disease based on their similar genetics.

Behaviour Genetics – Looking at what extent of our personality traits stem from our genetics, commonly looked at as the ‘nature vs nurture’ debate. This is often studied using twins, looking at the similarity of twins brought up in the same environment, versus twins brought up in completely different environments and seeing which similarities still manifest themselves.

Behavioural Perspective – How conditioning/environmental events can affect how people behave. E.g if somebody was left handed, but rapped on the knuckles every time they used their left hand to write, that would build up a condition in their minds. Years later if they were asked to write something, they would instinctively feel nervous and in anticipation of pain at the idea of writing it with their left hand.

Cognitive Perspective – Analysing mental processes in relation to people’s past recollections and approaches to problem solving / reasoning. For example if someone feels like they cannot give a presentation in front of a large audience, chances are they will fail to do so.

Social Perspective – How people react to other people and situations based on their different social groups and cultures. For example different social groups may tend towards different political persuasions or particular likes/dislikes of food based upon the groups of people they interact with and what is seen as ‘normal’ in that culture.

Psychodynamic/Psychoanalytical Perspective – Proposing that people act in a certain way based on how they wish something to be as opposed to how it actually is. E.g somebody fails an exam, and professes not to care about said exam and that studying is overated, you know that that isn’t their philosphy on learning and they actually care about their grades, so you make the assumption that they are saying that to save face and that they merely wish that was true as opposed to actually believing it.

Evolutionary Perspective – Arguable ‘survival of the fittest’ approach, suggests that humans have adopted characteristics from their ancestors that helped them procreate and survive. For example, humans have an unhealthy appetite for fats and sugars, in the past the ability to obtain fats and sugars probably indicated a richer better lifestyle with a much higher chance of survival; whereas now such foods are so readily available it results in an unhealthy body.

Psychology also holds a selection of research methods, below is a description of these:

Experimental – Experiments are conducted in carefully controlled conditions (often a lab). This allows for certain variables to be carefully manipulated and to ensure that several of the same experiment can be replecated under the same conditions. The disadvantage to this is that lab conditions don’t mirror real life conditions and therefore these experiments can only make accurate predictions based on findings to a certain extent. In addition the different personalities of groups taking part in experiments also need to be taken into account, plus the fact that not everything can be tested within a lab situation. The key element in experiments are collecting measurements of specified variables in the study. E.g depriving five people of sleep and measuring how well their memory stands up compared to when they were fully functioning.

Correlational – This looks at the potential relationship between two variables and their affects on one another. This allows situations to be tested in a more real life style situation than in the lab (although of course this does mean that it will be less carefully controlled). The disadvantage of this is that whilst in an experimental method the cause is clear (increasing/decreasing a variable leads to a conclusion) but this cause and effect conclusion cannot be drawn from studies like this. How much these two variables are related is measured using a descriptive statistic called the ‘correlation coefficient’. This statistic will either show that the values are positively correlated (aka they increase or decrease together) or that they are negatively correlated (one increasing means the other decreases). An example of this would be taking a group of smokers, and a group of non smokers and looking at their taste sensitivities.

Observational – This can be done in one of two ways, direct observation of a naturally occuring event, or surveying a group of people to measure their responses. The advantage of direct observation is that it shows things happening in their natural environment as opposed to specifically controlled conditions such as a lab (which would be hard to use in this type of study). However when the observer is merely watching the events as opposed to measuring/testing them in some way, then the results can be potentially tainted by observer bias, not to mention if people know they are being observed. Survey observation is advantageous as it can reveal a group opnion/attitude towards a certain issue, although it also depends on the participants being not only honest but able to accurately report their thoughts. Neither of these types of research allows us to establish causation either.

Case Studies – Where a small number of cases are investigated in depth. This allows the psychologist to build up a more complex profile than a one time experiment or observation, and they tend to provide common data that can lead towards producing a hypotheses. However, this is not the sort of research that can be easily repeated in such a way that multiple sets of studies could aid one another, and again is subject to researcher bias.

Obviously looking at all of these different perspectives and methodologies is unrealistic, not only because we are writing a 2500 word essay, but because not all of these are relevant to how one would go about studying how gender is represented on the web from a psychological point of view.

The perspectives and research methods that would be most relevant to this study are:

Psychodynamic/Psychoanalytical Perspective – looking at why different people represent genders in a potentially unequal manner on the web, and are these representations merely a way of showing their unconscious mental desires (e.g similarly to pretending that one doesn’t wish to be in a relationship after the other person leaving, one might perceive a comment as ‘sexist’ or indeed face a real life situation involving gender bias, and subsequently unconsciously be drawn to expressing an unequal view on the web.)

Behavioural Perspective – looking at how we have been conditioned to react to certain things, perhaps some men and women are conditioned to believe that ultimately their gender is better and that is reflected in their behaviour on the web. Additionally perhaps some people/genders are conditioned to feel like the unvervalued gender and therefore look for gender inequality where it doesn’t exist.

Direct Observation – looking at how events on the web unfold, facebook groups, forum conversations, blogs etc.

Case Studies – looking at studies and research on this issue.

[1] B. L. Fredrickson, S Nolen-Hocksema, G. R. Loftus, and W. A. Wagenaar. Atkinson and Hilgards’s Introduction to Psychology. Cengage Learning EMEA, 2009, 15th edition, 2009.
[2] D. G. Myers. Exploring Psychology. Worth Publishers, 2009, 7th edition, 2008.
[3] D. Westen and R. M. Kowalski. Psychology, Study Guide. Wiley, 5th edition, 2009.

After having described the basic definition and research strategies of psychology last week, I want to focus on the different approaches of the discipline this week. To do this in a proper manner, I loaned two books from the library: ‘Approaches to Psychology’ by Glassman and Hadad, and ‘Contemporary Approaches to Psychology’ by Helson and Bevan. After having looked at both books I found that, despite of the title, the latter is outdated, because it was firstly published in 1967. The Glassman and Hadad book, being published first in 2004, gives a more contemporary, clear and concise image of the different approaches that can be used to study the field of psychology. Because of this, it will be more useful for the eventual assignment.

Glassman and Hadad explain that there is a necessity to use different approaches, because of the complexity of behaviour. They argue that there is no single theory that can grasp every aspect of it (Glassman and Hadad, 2004: p. 5). They identify five main approaches that over time have tried to understand psychology at its fullest:

• The biological approach
• The behaviourist approach
• The cognitive approach
• The psychodynamic approach
• The humanistic approach

After describing these approaches, the two authors use them to show how one can look at development, social and abnormal psychology.

Glassman and Hadad start with the biological approach, a perspective wherein humans are seen as a biological organism. “What we do, and even what we think, is seen as having its basis in our physical structure”, they argue. Herewith, many biological researchers see behaviour as something that can be fully explained through the physics of the human body (Glassman and Hadad, 2004: p. 44-45). In some ways, the second approach that they look at, is the opposite of the biological approach. Glassman and Hadad namely state that the behaviourist approach sees environmental stimuli as determinative for the way in which humans act. They argue herewith that “human experience can be understood through the interrelations between stimuli and responses.” Everything that cannot be studied empirically, like feelings and thoughts, is not relevant for the behaviourist approach (Glassman and Hadad, 2004: p. 100-104). Only observable events are thus relevant.

The third approach, might be seen as a middle ground between the first two approaches. “The cognitive approach is concerned with understanding the thinking processes that underlie our actions”, Glassman and Hadad explain. According to them, it also “sees events within the person as being at least as important as environmental stimuli in the understanding of behaviour” (Glassman and Hadad, 2004: p. 150, 151). The fourth approach is pioneered by Sigmund Freud. The so-called psychodynamic approach looks at inner processes, which include notions of self and awareness. Herewith, Glassman and Hadad describe it as a “both a theory of motivation and a theory of personality”. The authors contrast it to the cognitive approach, because the psychodynamic approach looks at behaviour within the context of personality and herewith at the whole person, not just at discrete mental processes (Glassman and Hadad, 2004: p. 205). In the words of the authors: “The psychodynamic approach attempts to understand behaviour by analyzing how personality is shaped by past experience and the workings of the mind” (Glassman and Hadad, 2004: p. 247).

The final approach, the humanistic approach, is arguably the most subjective way of looking at behaviour. Glassman and Hadad identify two assumptions: the belief that behaviour can only be understood through the subjective experience of an individual, and that behaviour is not constrained by current circumstances or past experience (Glassman and Hadad, 2004: p. 255).

If one would look at the changing behaviour of individuals because of online surveillance, probably all of the approaches could be used and make an interesting study. The biological approach seems the hardest approach to associate with the subject of online surveillance. Still, when looking at examples that Glassman and Hadad give on social psychology, one could for example look at the innate characteristic of a human being to act differently when being ‘the victim’ of online surveillance (Glassman and Hadad, 2004: p. 339). Is this explainable by heredity? Can the changed behaviour be explained by the characteristic of humans? Does the gender of an individual have an influence on the way online surveillance is affecting him or her? These questions are just some examples of how one can look at the subject. Therefore, I may conclude that the varying approaches in psychology are able to offer many ways of studying the subject of online surveillance.

Sources

Glassman, William E. and Marilyn Hadad. Approaches to Psychology. Fourth edition. Berkshire: Open University Press, 2004.

Helson, Harry and William Bevan.  Contemporary Approaches To Psychology. D.Van Nostrand Company Inc., 1967.

Researcher: Jo Munson
Title: Can there ever be a “Cohesive Global Web”?
Disciplines: Economics, Ethnography (Cultural Anthropology)

Is now the time for a transparency and global cooperation on the web?

Can there ever be a “cohesive global web”?

The web is more a social creation than a technical one. I designed it for a social effect — to help people work together — and not as a technical toy. The ultimate goal of the Web is to support and improve our weblike existence in the world. We clump into families, associations, and companies. We develop trust across the miles and distrust around the corner.

A hopeful inditement of the web’s potential from the “father of the web”, Sir Tim Berners Lee (Tim BL), but unfortunately, we are developing mistrust on the web. Whether or not it was the intention of Tim BL and other pioneers of the internet and the web, the power over the infrastructure and development of the web has long been routed in the Western English speaking world.

As the rest of the world has begun to engage with, depend upon and contribute to the web, the US/UK-centric view of the web is being challenged. This distrust for a web where 80% of web traffic is passed through US servers is not limited to the likes of the ever elusive and separatist nations such as North Korea, but by some of the largest economies in the world. Brazil’s President Dilma Rousseff voiced her dismay at the NSA’s “miuse” of the web to spy on her private email and correspondence and duly threatened to install Fibre-optic submarine cables that link Brazil directly with Europe, bypassing the current connection via a single building in Miami. German, Mexican and French leaders are also outraged by being victims of the NSA’s “snooping”.

The world’s second largest economy, China, has long dissociated itself from the outside web and US ogliopolistic companies such as Facebook and Twitter, through the implementation of its “Great Fire Wall”. Whilst on the one hand Westerners may view such measures as restrictive, perhaps there is a protective element to such actions that in retrospect, we too may have aspired to.

Discontinuity in global web use is often far less politically motivated and often evades our press. It may shock you to know that Google is not the search engine of choice in some of the world’s most technologically advanced nations. This reaslisation leads me to wonder how other cultures use the web, how can the web work better for them? is the web fit for purpose to move into frontier nations where literacy is far from universal and the concerns rather more fundamental than a 140-character regurgitation of our lunch can cater for?

Why would we want a cohesive global web anyway?

I believe that for the web to establish harmony and be “fit for purpose” as it expands and develops into a global phenomenon, it will have to become more representative of its diverse user base. It seems to me that there are a great deal of reasons why having a cohesive centrally governed (or at least cooperatively governed) web would benefit global society, examples include:

• Economic growth / stability
• Social & political stability
• A more diverse pool of ideas / talent for invention and innovation
• Increased collaboration across nations
• Increased tolerance of other cultures
• Improved security & safety
• Improved use as a tool to combat poverty
• Improved cross-cultural communication

However, the world has had a fractious history – is it therefore too much to hope that the web could transcend our propensity to be territorial and militant? What else might the web be destined for if it cannot sit comfortably within a global society?

The aim of my report will be to assess how two distinct disciplines would approach the feasibility of a "cohesive global web" and how they might come together to approach the problem from a multidisciplinary perspective. I have chosen the following disciplines for my review:

• Economics – primarily because I believe that Economics can be seen in a wealth of our current usage and the “cost benefit” argument seems to play a big role in whether we choose to collaborate / engage with a concept.
• Ethnography (Cultural Anthropology) – because I believe we will only make progress with the concept of a cohesive global web by moving away from our Anglo-centric view and observing the thoughts and experiences of other cultures.

Next steps…

My understanding of both fields is currently naïve at best, so I am excited to discover how the two fields will affect my perspective, and how they will come together to form a research methodology for looking at the future cohesiveness of the web. In the next week I will be compiling a to do list for the remainder of the semester and beginning to delve into my disciplines of choice.

Sources

Nytimes.com. 2013. Log In – The New York Times. [online] Available at: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/14/business/international/google-jousts-with-south-koreas-piecemeal-internet-rules.html?_r=0 [Accessed: 23 Oct 2013]

The Verge. 2013. Cutting the cord: Brazil’s bold plan to combat the NSA. [online] Available at: http://www.theverge.com/2013/9/25/4769534/brazil-to-build-internet-cable-to-avoid-us-nsa-spying [Accessed: 23 Oct 2013]

Heine, J. 2013. Beyond the Brazil-U.S spat. [online] Available at: http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/op-ed/beyond-the-brazilus-spat/article5186893.ece [Accessed: 23 Oct 2013]

Illustration: Gade, S. Retrieved from: http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/op-ed/beyond-the-brazilus-spat/article5186893.ece

Eriksen, T. H., 2004. What is Anthropology. London: Pluto Press.

Fieldwork
Although they “cast their net far and wide” (to provide context for observations), the work of the anthropologist is undertaken primarily through close interaction with individuals and the groups they live within. In-depth, structured interviews are used extensively and the key research method is ‘participant observation’ – the goal being to extensively record everyday experiences.

Concepts and theoretical approaches
Observation and reporting is influenced by the interplay between theories, concepts and methodologies.

Key concepts:
1. Language The human perception of the world is primarily shaped by language. The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis proposes that language is a strong indicator of the world view that different groups inhabit. Studying the language structure (e.g. predominant use of grammar) can provide a good understanding of a particular groups’ everyday concerns.

2. Theories of the person
a) Egocentric. Person as a unique individual, whole and indivisible; responsible for the decisions they take.
b) Sociocentric. Person as a part of a community, who is a re-creation of an earlier human entity and has a pre-ordained role as a member of a social strata within the community (caste). A persons life is decided by fate and destiny (karma and dharma).
c) Ancestor-centric. Person as a unique individual with personal responsibility, but guided by ancestral spirits.
d) Relational. Person is primarily understood through their relationship with others.
e) Gender. The social construction of male/female distinctions, often described through the idiom of female oppression. Perception of oppression is based on personal appreciation. Male domination of formal economy is prevalent, with women exerting “considerable” informal power. Societies experiencing change often demonstrate conflict and tensions through gender and generational relations.

3) Theories of society
Often related to nation state. But each state contains communities, ethnic groups, interest groups, people who work or live together for a long time and have moral relationship. This presents a tension between ‘face-to-face’ society and abstract national society, where face-to-face societies have more permeable boundaries than state, and the state may be perceived as oppressive, corrupt, or remote.
a) Henry Maine (1861):
i) Status societies. Persons have fixed relationships to each other, based on birth, background, rank and position.
ii) Contract societies. Voluntary agreements between individuals, status based on personal achievement. Perceived as more complex than status societies.
b) Ferdinand Tönnies (1887):
i) Gemeinschaft (community). People belong to group with shared experiences and traditional obligations.
ii) Gesellschaft (society). Large-scale society. Driven by utilitarian logic, where the role of family and local community has been taken over by state and other powerful institutions.
These simple dichotomies are no longer followed by anthropologists as distinct boundaries within society are mutable. Power within a state may reside in political elite, but in ethnically plural states, the ethnic leadership may hold sway, or in poorly integrated states, local and kinship grouping may hold greater power than state politicians.

When setting out a study subject, anthropologists describe the scale of the subject (e.g. web use among teenagers in urban Europe).

4) Theories of culture
Possibly the most complex area in anthropology. The classic concept of culture is based on cultural relativism, which has been discredited due to its use to promote particular group claims, discriminate against minorities and promote aggressive nationalism. The key intellectual architect of apartheid was anthropologist, Werner Eiselen (Bantu Education Act, 1953).
a) No definition that all anthropologists agree on. A L Kroeber and Clyde Kluckholn (1952) – Culture: A Critical Review of Concepts and Definitions describes and analyses 162 different definitions of culture.
The concept of ‘multicultural society’ indicates that culture has a different meaning to society – although there are similarities between them and are often used as synonyms for each other.
b) E B Tylor (1871). ‘Culture in its widest ethnographic sense, is that complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, morals, customs, and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society’.
c) Clifford Geertz (1960s). Interpretive Anthropology – shared meanings through public communications.
d) Objections to concept of culture:
i) Culture as plural can be seen as something that divides humanity, as the attention shifts from uniqueness of humanity to the differences between groups. (Boas – cultural relativism, Malinowski – field methodology, focus on single societies). Expressions of culture are unique and variable – but refer to universal, shared humanity.
ii) Problem of boundaries, internal variation and change. Delineating culture is problematic as there is considerable variation – often more so within groups than between groups.
iii) Mixed cultural forms and transnational flows of culture makes it more difficult to draw boundaries between cultures. Ulf Hannerz (1992) describes culture as flowing, dynamic process rather than static entity – culture as a global web of networks with no absolute boundaries, with nodes of varying density which are more or less stable.
iv) Inaccurate and vague nature of culture. Term used glibly to mean many different things and gives the illusion of insight. To understand what goes on in the world a more nuanced, specific concept is required.

5) Problems of translation
This includes translation of acts as well as language, and is mediated by necessary forms of compression and editing, which implies subjectivity. To understand a group it is not sufficient to simply observe, the anthropologist must learn the meaning and connotations of actions and words. Understanding only comes when a phenomenon is understood and explained in terms of its full meaning and significance to the group under observation – and how it forms part of a continuous whole. The main difficulty comes in translating abstract terms.

Problems: Misrepresentation, inevitable subjectivity of researcher, standard data organisation (gender, class, ethnicity) may not correspond to life-world of observed group.
Criteria for distinguishing good from bad subjectivity:
a) High level of detail.
b) Degree of context provided.
c) Triangulation with related studies.
d) Closeness of researcher to group (e.g. homeblindness).

6) Comparison
A means to clarify the significance of findings through contrasts that reveal similarities with other societies and build on theoretical generalisations. The aim of comparison is to understand the differences as well as the similarities.
a) Translation is a form of comparison – the native language is compared to the anthropologists own.
b) Establish contrasts and similarities between groups.
c) To investigate the possible existence of human universals (e.g. shared concepts of colour) – or to disprove them (e.g male aggression).
d) Quasi-experiment – anthropologists are unable to carry out blind studies, as the results would be inauthentic. Comparisons between two or several societies with many similarities, but with clear differences can provide an understanding of these differences.

7) Holism and context
Within anthropology holism refers to how phenomena are connected to each other and institutions to create an integrated whole, not necessarily of any lasting or permanent nature. It entails identification of internal connections in a system of interaction and communication.
a) Edmund Leach (1954) shows that societies are not in integrated equilibrium, but are unstable and changeable.
b) Fredrik Barth (1960s) transactionalism – a model of analysis which puts the individual at the centre and does not assume that social integration is a necessary outcome of interaction.

Holism has fallen from favour recently as anthropologists now understand that they are studying fragmented groups that are only loosely connected. However contextualisation may have become the key methodology; that is, every phenomenon must be understood within its dynamic relationship with other phenomena. The wider context is key to understanding single phenomena. For example – an anthropologist studying the Internet will explore both the online and offline lives of individuals. The choice of relevant contexts depends on the priorities of the researchers.

This week I have been looking at the basics of psychology. After I talked to a friend in the Netherlands, who studies psychology, I came to the conclusion that the book ‘Psychology’ by Peter Gray would be a solid introduction to the discipline and could introduce me in an appropriate matter to the subject. I scanned over the 654 pages of the book and learned about psychology’s basic methodologies and research fields.

On the first page of his book, Gray states the following:

“Psychology is the science of behavior and the mind. In this definition behavior refers to the observable actions of a person or an animal. Mind refers to an individual’s sensations, perceptions, memories, thoughts, dreams, motives, emotional feelings, and other subjective experiences.”

(Gray, 2007: p. 1)

After this formal definition, Gray continues with explaining that there are three foundation ideas for psychology. The first idea is that behavior and mental experience have physical causes, the second that mind and behavior are shaped by experience, and the last is that the machinery of behavior and mind have evolved through natural selection (Gray, 2007: p. 2).

These foundational ideas are explored by using different research strategies. Gray recognizes three categories in which these strategies can be ordered. The first is research design, wherefore experiments, correlational studies, and descriptive studies are needed. The setting is the second category. Herewith, one must think of either field or laboratory research. Finally, the data-collection method is important. The basic types are self-report and observation (Gray, 2007: p. 29). Another important factor of psychology is the usage of statistical methods to understand the data that has been collected. According to Gray, descriptive statistics are used to summarize sets of data. Inferential statistics help researchers in their confidence about the collected data (Gray, 2007: p. 35).

After the basic methodologies of psychology, Gray goes into more detail and talks about the different fields that are being explored in psychology and have shaped it to what it is now. Human behavior is an important field, that is often being examined  through genetic evolution and the environment around a human being (Gray, 2007: p. 49). Furthermore, cognition and neuroscience are important in studying the shaping of behavior and the mind.

An interesting example in which the field of psychology is particularly relevant to Web Science and the subject that I chose, online surveillance, is through laws of behavior as social facilitation and social interference. These terms are being described by Gray as influential on human behavior, because the individual knows when it is being observed and its behavior is being affected by it (Gray, 2007: p. 502).

This week I wrote on the basic definition of psychology and some of its methodologies. Next week I want to explore in detail which different fields of psychology exist and how they might relate to online surveillance. 

Source

Gray, Peter. Psychology. Fifth Edition. New York: Worth Publishers, 2007.