Please read chapter 2. Remember, this outline follows chapter 2 closely and adds material to help you learn and understand it. Please report any problems with the page by e-mailing me
ZEITGEIST (p.29)
Every chapter from now on will include a Zeitgeist section. Their purpose is to situate your learning about psychology into a broader context. In this chapter I want you to think of what the world would be like without all of the things we now have available to us to make life easier. Below, you'll also find an assignment that will ask you to briefly describe how you would cope one million years ago.
Camping
Naked and Afraid TV show (fun being uncivilized, it's not a show I watch often :-)
I use camping to help us understand prehistoric peoples
Look at all of the things we might pack with us on a wilderness camping trip:
tent
sleeping bag
air mattress
flashlight
knife
cook stove
matches
fuel
dishes
cutlery
food
fishing gear
rod
hooks
bait
line
hunting gear
rifle
shotgun
ammuntion
extra clothes
ice and ice chest
Now imagine providing ALL of the above by yourself, every day, for the rest of your life...
ASSIGNMENT: Tell me how your day might be 1 million years ago. See HERE
PREVIEW (p. 30)
Why go back so far into human history? I'm reminded of Vince Lombardi's first practice with the Green Bay Packers. He assumed his new team needed to be made anew from the ground up. So, in their first meeting, he held a football in his hands and told them, "Gentlemen, this is a football."
Similarly, I want you to learn from the ground up. "Here are our ancestors, how are they like us?"
It is nearly impossible to form a clear picture of what humans were like before they began to keep written records.
What those prehistoric peoples thought and did cannot be understood using methods requiring living participants. However, as cognitive archeologists and others have shown, inferences about their thinking and behavior can be made by the careful analysis of ancient artifacts, akin to Wundt’s völkerpsychologie.
Wundt believed all of psychology was obligated to appreciate and explore the developmental and social processes that led to the creation of individual consciousness. As such, Wundt saw psychology as a discipline consisting of two parts. One part, first psychology, for which he remains revered, was lab-centered and used scientific methods to study presumably universal human characteristics such as sensation, perception and physiological psychology. The other part, second psychology, culminates with his Völkerpsychologie. As time passed psychology seized upon Wundt’s experimental approach and its laboratory methods, and all but ignored his Völkerpsychologie. (Kardas and Henley, 2020)
Völkerpsychologie explored language, myths, customs, and other similar areas in a manner very different from laboratory psychology. Wundt, likely, would find this chapter necessary for a complete understanding of psychology.
Biologically, however, the picture is clearer. Most likely, members of the species Homo sapiens are more similar to each other than different, at least over the last 50,000 years. Culturally, much has changed over the last 15,000 years. The human species has multiplied exponentially and has transformed much of the Earth through technology and radically changed its demography with most now living in large cities and subject to conditions of crowding scarcely imaginable in the past.
Narvaez (2020) urges us to see outside our fishbowl and consider the restraints that civilization has imposed: a foreshortened view of humanity, a negative view of human nature and prehistory, biases against individualism and towards abstraction, and a misunderstanding of human potential.
She believes that (p. 113), “Understanding where we have been can help us figure out how to move forward.” We could learn much about how to live and prosper in partnership with the environment she argues; the San Bushmen, for example, have maintained such a balance with nature for over 150,000 years. We should understand that civilization is very new and it profoundly altered older lifeways.
Only some 7,000 years ago did civilizations begin to appear and create surpluses of goods and specialization. One of those specializations was philosophy, an essential part of any civilization and the mother of nearly every other academic discipline including psychology.
INTRODUCTION (p. 30)
Time
Big Bang--~13.8 billion years ago
Earth--~4.5 billion years ago
Human lifetime--78.8 years (USA 2012)
So it's difficult for us to understand time
Carl Sagan (1977) provided a calendar analogy where the Big Bang took place on January 1 and the present was December 31. In other words, he made each month last just over a billion years each.
Chasing prey animals until they overheat or stop and then killing them
Glaub and Hall (2017, Abstract) analyzed modern !Kung hunters and demonstrated that they gain more energy from the animal than they expend in the chase. Be sure to expand the abstract.
Toolmaking (see early tools below) (p. 34)
Once the criterion between distinguishing between humans and animals, no more (Goodall, 1971)
She discovered that chimpanzees made and used tools
Gona choppers--2.5 M ybp (years before present, oldest tools known)
This is a good example of how modern scientists must interpret prehistory, obviously we cannot find the motivation for creating the figurine but its existence speaks to a concern with art and esthetics
Language
(p. 35)
6,000 languages in the world but declining fast
FOXP2 gene and language
Mutated gene in Homo neanderthalenis and Homo sapiens may be part of a genetic language complex
Homo sapiens spoke 50,000 ybp (and, likely so did Homo neanderthalensis)
Language research supports evidence from anthropology
Basque language (NW Spain and SW France) [Original video is in English but narrated in Spanish with English subtitles. If you ever find the version in English, let me know!] The Basque language, Euskera, is at least 20,000 years old while all Indo-European languages are around 8,000 years old.
Sociality
(p. 36)
Reasons for extinction of other hominin species?
Why is Homo sapiens the only living species from the genus Homo?
"A mimetic act is basically a motor performance that reflects the perceived event structure of the world, and its motoric aspect makes its content a public, that is, a potentially cultural, expression."
What do you do when the person next to you is talking during the performance of a play?
What do you do with your hands when stopped by a state trooper?
Hunter-Gatherers (p. 36)
Hunter-Gatherer: A human lifestyle based around males hunting animals and women gathering plant materials. The lifestyle demands constant movement from place to place as local conditions change.
e.g.,--phases of the moon, natural lore, medicinal plants
Red sky at night, sailor's delight.
If there's a halo around the moon, expect rain soon.
Are we less knowledgeable than primitive hunter gatherers?
Here's a short online quiz on surviving in the wild. (You have to answer questions at the end to see your score) Last year I scored 57%. This year I scored 75%, but I'd rather stay at home or in a hotel :-)
FYI, you will be getting the Brainfall Newsletter if you complete the process.
Technical intelligence
Technology is always changing
Tool use (think of cars, computers, the Internet vs bows and arrows, the atlatl, or starting a fire)
FYI, there is a nice atlatl on exhibit on the second floor of Cross Hall
Most likely, we'd have trouble with Stone Age technology and vice versa; those from a stone age environment would have trouble with modern technology
Would you give a time-traveled Stone Age person your car keys?
What would you do if you were time traveled and were given a spear and an atlatl?
You dropped off in jungle (there is Naked and Afraid again!)
You'd probably starve
Starting to sound like ZEITGEIST is important!
Border with Computational Science (p. 39)
Time-factored markings
Marshack (1972) believed ancient peoples created objects that showed astronomical events (e.g., phases of the moon) non-arithmetically and non linguistically
Later workers discounted his thesis
Farming, Sedentism, and Domestication (p. 39)
Farming is about 10,000 years old
Why leave hunter-gathering?
"Work" is less in hunter-gathering
Natural global temperature changes
Last Glacial Maximum (LGM)
about 18,000 years ago
Earth's climate has been relatively stable the last 6,000 years
IDEA: sedentism-a human lifestyle associated with largely remaining in one place or locality with food production based on farming plants and livestock.
Farming creates a population trap
No longer possible to revert to hunter-gathering because families are larger because of increased fecundity
"Lucky latitudes"
parts of the Earth between 20 to 35 degrees north AND with domesticable animals nearby
Is USA learning to similarly cope with mass murders?
"The current survey found that more than three-quarters of adults (79%) in the U.S. say they experience stress as a result of the possibility of a mass shooting."
The Rise of Philosophy (p. 46)
Writing, history, and philosophy are natural partners
Philosophy began in ancient Greece about 3,000 years ago
The goal of the early philosophers was to explain world without resorting to supernatural explanations: Natural philosophy
Some of their first (and enduring) questions were:
What is the nature of the universe?
still under exploration (e.g., Big Bang, dark matter, black holes)
What separates living from nonliving?
Biology
Can we trust our senses?
Senses can deceive
Scientific methods control for sensory data (just wait until Research Methods course!)
Is the universe constant or variable?
An early question for philosophy
Mind and Soul
Mind: a focus for psychology except during the Behaviorist era
Soul: no longer a focus for science but a hallmark of many religions
-isms
Materialism: the belief that everything in the universe must consist of matter, including minds and mental states.
Nihilism: the belief that nothing that exists can be known or communicated.
Monism: the search for the one thing that will explain all.
Relativism: the belief that no universal values exist and that instead values vary by individuals, groups, or historical era.
Harry Triandis in India
Cultural psychologist Harry Triandis told this story at a meeting.
He received a note from the conference host hotel in India that looked like the one below. Naturally, he interpreted the note as meaning he no longer had a room there because the check mark was in the "No Vacancy" box. Disgusted, he made a reservation at another hotel, one with fewer stars. Later, he was at the conference hotel when a manager found him and asked why he had not checked in. Triandis pulled out the note and showed it. The manager respondes, "We always check the box that does not apply."
This section is designed to acquaint you with the zeitgeist of the original philosophers. These gods were the source of the supernatural explainations they wished to dispel.
Rete mirabile (a heat exchanger not found in humans)
venal and arterial blood flows in close proximity
Physician training
Well-rounded
Goal should not be to make money
Later physicians did not continue empirical practice
Ideas
Time
Toolmaking
Language
Sociality
Hunter-gathering
Urbanized settings
Civilization
Philosophy
Nature of the universe
Origin of life
Reliability of sensory information
-isms
materialism
nihilism
monism
dualism
relativism
Medicine
Humorism
Chapter 2 Changes (Kardas)
Title Change: Old-From Prehistory to Civilization/New-Psychology in Prehistory
PREVIEW
All new chapters from chapter 2 on begin with a preview. Italicized items indicate topics that the chapter will address. Previews were not used in original edition.
Bipedalism
Added Glaub and Hall (2017) reference on !Kung persistence hunting.
Language
Added Staes et al. (2017) reference on FOXP2 gene differences in five great ape species.
Sociality
Added Donald (2020) reference on cognitive precursors to language.
HUNTER-GATHERERS
Rolled “Health and Lifestyle” box from original edition into text.
Added Morris (2010) reference about geography.
Added Konner (2020) reference on hunter-gatherers.
Heading change:
INVENTION OF FARMING (old) changed to FARMING, SEDENTISM, AND DOMESTICATION (and dropped DOMESTICATION (old)
GREEK MEDICINE
New to this chapter and moved from original chapter 5.
SUMMARY
Added Kardas and Henley (2020) reference to Wundt’s völkerpsychologie.
Added Narvaez (2020) reference on civilization’s constraints.
Added Learning Objectives
Learning Objective 1: Calculate the length of each of Sagan’s days, hours, and minutes.
Learning Objective 2: Illustrate an example of mindsharing or cooperative cognitive work you have engaged in with another using few if any words.
Learning Objective 3: Appraise whether the recent use of Zoom or similar electronic tools to teach courses made geography lose its traditional distance barriers.
Learning Objective 4: Diagnose why only two carnivores (dogs and cats) were domesticated.
Learning Objective 5: Predict what new technology or device might be a candidate for global standardization.
Learning Objective 6: Demonstrate relativistic thinking where a male might interpret a cultural situation differently from a female.
Learning Objective 7: Interpret why humorism had such a long life in the history of medicine.
GLOSSARY
hominin: member of one of the primate genera in the line of descent to modern humans, or a member of the subfamily: Hominini.
hunter-gatherer: a human lifestyle based around males hunting animals and women gathering plant materials. The lifestyle demands constant movement from place to place as local conditions change.
sedentism: a human lifestyle associated with largely remaining in one place or locality with food production based on farming plants and livestock.
humorism: the belief that health was maintained by a balance of the four humors: blood, black bile, yellow bile, and phlegm.
