SPECIALTIES IN PSYCHOLOGY

1.0 INTRODUCTION

In unit 3, we discussed some basic concepts in psychology. The unit also served to introduce us to other units in this course. You can now explain tire concepts of learning, maturation, growth and development. You are about to study another interesting and practical unit: specialties in psychology. We will now consider the areas in which psychology can be applied. Let us look at what other contents you should learn in this unit as specified in the objective below:

2.0 OBJECTIVES

By the end of this unit, you should be able to:
describe some of the main psychological influences on human behaviour.

3.0 MAIN CONTENT

3.1 Development Psychology

Developmental psychology is a broad field of interest in which the physical, emotional and intellectual characteristics and development of youngsters from pre-natal stage onwards are studied. In addition to this are changes in many other forms of activity, for example, the acquisition of language or the growth of a sense of morality.

3.2 Educational Psychology

An educational psychologist will use the subject matter of psychology mainly to help children going through the education system. You should note also tha1 educational psychology seeks to discover by studying the mental, physical, social and emotional behaviour of children and adults, the factors which influence the quality and quantity of learning. Thus, if a particular child is experiencing difficulty with his/her school work, or is being disruptive in the classroom, the psychologist may examine the child to try to establish what might be causing the problem. Let us cite an example: the teacher may conduct an I.Q. test on the child, or interview the individual and the parents. Following such an assessment the psychologist may be able to recommend the best way in which the school might deal with the individual or meet his/her needs.


The application of psychology in education therefore gives us a means of appraising children’s similarities and differences when attempting to create more efficient learning environments for them.
The application of psychology in education also provides us with a means 0 making evaluations of our own strengths and weaknesses as learners and teachers (Alhassan, 2000).1n the light of our discussion above, educational psychology could be seen as a fundamental discipline in education,
performing functions similar to what the pure sciences (physics, chemistry, mathematics, biology) do to applied sciences (engineering, architecture, town planning, estate management and food technology). In fact, Gage and Berliner (1979) argued that teachers combine insight from educational psychology with philosophical reasoning.

3.3 Social Psychology

Social psychology is the study of social institutions and their impact on the behaviour of individuals. It concentrates on the external agencies which influence man. Social psychologists would be interested in the study of family, village, and role of the head teacher or effect of family background on achievement at school.
It is now time for you to check your level of understanding of our discussion.

SELF-ASSESSMENT EXERCISE 1

1.  Would you say developmental psychology is a broad area of interest? 
2.  List any 4 areas that may generate research interest in social psychology 

3.4 Physiological Psychology

The domain of the physiological psychology is the examination of the biological best bases of behaviour with particular reference to the biochemical reactions underlying memory and learning, and the role of various portions of the brain in the regulation of such motives as hunger and thirst, and such basic processes as sleep.

3.5 Clinical Psychology

A clinical psychologist is someone who specialises in the treatment of those with behavioural problems and mental illness. Such a person will have received specialized training, usually involving a further three year course of study. You should note that to clinical psychologists often work within hospitals or specialist psychiatric facilities and many sometimes are part of a team comprising psychiatrists, nurses, and so on. Clinical psychiatrists often work to help those with relatively minor behavioural disorders, such as phobias.

3.6 Occupational Health Psychology

Occupational health psychology focuses on work environment, the individual, and the work-family interface. It concerns the application psychology to improve the quality of work life and to protect and promote the safety, health and well being of workers.

3.7 Cardiac Psychology

This studies the workings of the heart -a cardiac structure of the transport system in higher animals and the centre of emotions, especially love and the mind, what a person thinks or feels, conscious thoughts of patients (The monitor APA, 1998).

3.8 Psychology of Law

Both psychology and law deal generally on human behaviour with reference to testimony, evidence, influences, crime, truancy, delinquency, and emotion. Psychology has a great deal to offer any law enforcement agency -large or small. Law enforcement officers and their management structure face a considerable variety of problems, many of which can be addressed by knowledgeable and skillful professional psychologists. It is important for you to note that whether psychological services can be effective depends on the degree to which police managers accept that understanding human behaviour can further the goals and purposes of law enforcement

3.8.1 Community Psychology

The main thrust of community psychology is in the direction of family-care programmes and programmes in child guidance and rehabilitation centres.

3.9 Forensic Psychology

This is the branch of psychology that will be of most interest to those studying this course. It involves mainly the application of psychology to the area of crime and the legal system. Note that forensic psychology is applicable in many other areas.
Forensic psychology studies psychological damages, forensic examination, expert testimony in employment -related disputes, doomsday cults, secret societies and militias: brain washing, madness, criminality, sexual predator laws, patient estimate of pain, child-custody decision-making, child-sexual behaviour in relation to abuse variable, treating psychological disturbances caused by motor accidents, and forensic evaluation of sexual harassment (The monitor APA, 1998).
Now, take a short break of2 minutes. Let us continue by checking your progress in understanding our discussion.

SELF-ASSESSMENT EXERCISE 2

1. Given our discussion so far, which of the areas of psychology will you want to specialize in? 
2. Why do you prefer that specialty? 

You deserve commendation for active participation in our discussion. Let us continue.

3.9.1 Psychology of Politics

It is that body of knowledge which lies somewhere between individual psychology and political science, just as social psychology and sociology. It deals with the problems of control of behaviour among groups, with the study of organizations of people in conflict. It refers also to the ways and means, the methods and techniques by which politicians particularly partisan politicians, promise the masses various things, such as paradise, having all their villages air-conditioned, and so on; when in reality, the masses, particularly in developing countries of Asia, Africa, and Latin America are always  forgotten once such politicians are on the seat of power.

Such politicians manipulate and exploit the needs and aspirations of the gullible masses to their advantage. It is important for you to note that the psychology of politics is practiced in the developed and developing countries. However in the former, the level of literacy is comparatively high and the electorate is far more sophisticated. These factors make the practice of both politics and the psychology of politics much more demanding. Conversely, in the developing countries the level of literacy is comparatively low and the citizens are both less
sophisticated and more gullible. This makes it easier for politicians in the developing countries to practice the .psychology of politics on the people. 

3.9.2 Feminist Psychology

This branch of psychology is on how widely-held feminist tenets -such as empowering individuals, valuing diversity, and creating dialogue -can be integrated across the field of psychology.

3.9.3 Disability and Health Psychology

This studies the interplay between psychological health and medical conditions, it introduces information on the nature of different types of disabilities and the ways in which duabi1ity -specific factors such as age of onset, duration of the disability and how the disability was acquired -all towards psychological adjustment.

3.9.4 Philosophical Counseling

Unlike the approach of counseling psychology, the approach of philosophical counseling is more open-ended and reflective- there are no fixed ideas or goals. The possibilities of cross-fertilization between philosophy and psychology are wonderful.


It is important for you to know that there are many ways in which meaningful life changes can occur through education, one form of which is the discussion of philosophical issues. Gerad Achenbach is believed to be the first to revive the profession of philosophical counseling when in 1981 he founded a suicide-prevention organization called the Samaritan (Phillips, 1997:12). In his work, Achenbach believed that the counter between the philosopher and the client was of the paramount importance, and that the aim was not healing but arriving at a satisfactory self- explanation and clarification. You must remember that philosophical practice has been a world-wide movement that is starting to flourish in Germany, the Nether- lands, the USA, Canada, Britain, France, Israel and South Africa. It is to be noted that each of these countries now has its own certification organization.

3.9.5 Police Psychology

We must of course add police psychology, as this is the subject matter of another unit in this course. In the unit, you will see the extent to which
psychology might be useful in the training of police recruits and in everyday policing.

4.0 CONCLUSION

In this unit, you have learnt branches of psychology. You have therefore learnt the areas in which psychology can be applied. We can now say that there is no discipline that has no psychological perspective. For example, as we discussed earlier, we have developmental psychology, social psychology, clinical psychology, and psychology of politics among others. 5.0 SUMMARY

1.  What you have learnt in this unit concerns the specialties in psychology. 
2.  You also learnt occupational health psychology, psychology of law, forensic psychology, feminist psychology, and police psychology. 
3. The unit has served to indicate what you will learn in other units later in your course. 
4. The units that follow shall build upon this interesting and revealing unit. In this way, you will gain a better understanding of the contents. 

6.0 TUTOR-MARKED ASSIGNMENT

l. a. Two things that the educational psychologist will do are:

i. ……………………………………………………..…….


ii. …………………………………………………………... b. The social psychologist will be interested in the study of two areas.


These are:


i. ……………………………………………………...…………


ii. ……………………………………………………………… c. Occupational health psychology concerns the application of


psychology to:


i. …………………………………...……………………………


ii. ……………………………………...………………………… d. Describe clinical psychology.


e. What is forensic psychology?

THE PROBLEM OF DECEPTION

1.0 INTRODUCTION

In the last unit, we discussed accuracy of judgments. In addition, the unit served to introduce us to other units in this course. You can now describe person perception and explain cues used to make judgments. It is now time for us to discuss another interesting unit: the problem of deception. We will how consider non-verbal behaviour. Let us look at what other content you should learn in this unit as specified in the objectives below.

2.0 OBJECTIVES

At the end of this unit, you should be able to:

1. identify channels of communication; 
2. eExplain deceptive non-verbal cues; and 
3. list factors influencing deception attempts. 

3.0 MAIN CONTENT

3.1 Channels of Non-Verbal Communication

It is frequently assumed that certain aspects of non-verbal behaviour are not under voluntary control. Thus a look, or glance, or tone of voice may be involuntary or unintentional. However, a number or provisos need to be kept in mind. First not all channels of non-verbal communication are alike, some seem to be more under voluntary control than others. Leakage cues are defined as those non-verbal acts which give away information the sender wishes to conceal, while deception cues are those non-verbal acts which indicate that deception is occurring without revealing the concealed content of the message. Second, a number of factors influence success in deceiving others. Let us cite an example. Highly motivated deceivers seem more likely to fail to deceive observers, while experienced and confident lairs and those with the opportunity to plan their deceit seem to be more adept at deceiving. Thirdly, situational factors such as the degree of stressfulness of the situation influence detection of deceit.

Finally, a range of factors associated with the observer or message recipient influences the extent of detecting deception. For example, degree of suspicion, extent of probing questions asked and experience.

SELF-ASSESSMENT EXERCISE 1

How will you define leakage cues?

3.2 Explanation for Deceptive Non-Verbal Cues

A number of psychological processes underpin deceptive communication (Zuckeerman and Driver, 1985). These are listed as control, arousal, felt emotion and cognitive processing. Lie tellers are insecure, more concerned with the impression they are making, more guilty or anxious or more aroused than truth tellers. Because most people tell lies rather less frequently than they tell the truth there may be a general tendency to feel less confident and insecure when trying to deceive. As a result, deceptive behaviour may appear to be planned, rehearsed or lacking in spontaneity. This is more apparent for those non verbal bebaviours over which some degree of voluntary control can be exerted; for example taking a longer time to respond before speaking, or speaking more slowly.


Those who are socially anxious also exhibit a longer response time and slower speech. That is, they are by nature concerned about making a particular impression but are insecure about doing so. Hence their non- verbal style is a characteristic sign of deceit. I know you are enjoying our discussion given your active participation. That is nice. We must go on now. It is important for you to note that deception seems to increase body arousal. .Behaviours associated with arousal includes increased pupil dilation, eye blinks, voice pitch, speech errors and hesitations. Given the stressful nature of most interrogative interview, such signs would be the norm rather than the exception. For example, it would be quite usual when someone is telling the truth but is highly motivated to be believed.

It must also be noted that telling lies is likely to require thought and may well be a more cognitively complex task than telling the truth. A number of non-verbal behaviours are associated with cognitive demand including pupil dilation, pausing and decreased number of illustrative hand movements. An opportunity to plan and rehearse may thus be advantageous to some deceivers. It is worth bearing in mind also that thought and planning may be required when truthful message senders are highly motivated to convince others they are telling the truth. Note that this is not unusual in many interrogative interviews.


Thus, although it may well be the case that lie tellers, in comparison to truth tellers, are more concerned with the impression they are making, they may appear more guilty or more anxious or more aroused but there are certain instances when these same motives and feeling may be affected in truth tellers; for example, during interrogative interviews when it is important that a truthful message is believed.

3.3 Factors Influencing Deception Attempts

Motivation
The research literature suggests that the behaviour of highly motivated deceivers differs from the behaviour of less motivated ones. To get away  with lying, their lies become more obvious to observers. De Paulo et. at (1983 cited in Taylor et. al. 2000) found that judges who could see the speakers’ facial expressions and body movements, or hear the tone of voice cues, were more successful at detecting the lies of motivated than unmotivated speakers. In contrast, those judges who only had access to the typed transcript of what had been said were relatively less successful at detecting lies told by motivated speakers.

A similar effect was suggested by De Paulo (1985) in another study where undergraduates were urged to make a good impression while telling lies and truths to attractive or unattractive members of the same sex or opposite sex. The author argued that subjects would be more highly motivated to lie to members of the opposite sex and indeed lies were more readily detected in this instance.


Reviews of a range of studies suggest that, in comparison to less highly motivated senders, those who are more highly motivated to deceive give slower, shorter, more negative and more highly pitched responses which are accompanied by less eye contact, 1ess blinking, fewer head movements, and fewer postural shifts and fewer adaptive gestures, (De Paulo et. al. 1983 cited in Taylor et. al. 2000). Motivated deceivers try hard to either suppress or control their behaviour and, as a result, end up over controlling it. Observers notice this and infer that the person might be lying.
Highly motivated liars may also be those who are likely to plan their response, be more practiced and more confident in their ability to deceive.

SELF-ASSESSMENT EXERCISE 2

Will you be motivated to be a member of a discussion group with female student) be reading or studying the same course with you and with whom you regularly meet at the study centre?
Let us continue

Experienced Deceivers

The ability to use non-verbal behaviour is gained by practice and experience. For example, there is some evidence that experienced sales people are effective liars (De Paulo and De Paulo, 1989). In this study, sales people were videotaped while making pitches for products they liked and products they disliked but still had to try to sell. With these more experienced liars, observers were unable to detect lies from the truth even when they were directed towards cues which typically help people to detect them. This failure to detect deception showed that the relevant cues were simply not present.

De Paulo and De Paulo suggest four possible explanations for their results: 

1. Sales people may be more practiced or experienced at telling similar lies. 
2.  They may have confidence in their ability to deceive. 
3. They may have a natural ability to deceive or may lack guilt about lying in relation to selling. 

You must also remember that individual differences (which we have discussed) in communication skills are closely linked to deception ability and that confidence in one’s ability to deceive plays an important role. Self-Confidence Individuals who are skilled communicators of posed emotions tend to be more successful deceivers, whereas socially anxious subjects are less successful. Lies, in comparison to truths are particularly detectable when it is important for the deception to be successful but the deceiver has a low expectation of their likely success. 

Message Planning

The opportunity to plan and rehearse deceptive messages makes them more difficult to detect. Spontaneous deception contains more speech errors and pauses than spontaneous truthful messages. In contrast, there may be no difference between truth- tellers and liars that are given the opportunity to plan their messages. It is to be noted that truth-tellers may be even more highly motivated than deceivers in interrogative situations and yet they are frequently assumed to be lying.

4.0 CONCLUSION

In this unit, you learnt non-verbal behaviour. You have therefore learnt channels of non-verbal communication. In addition, you have learnt explanations for deceptive non-verbal cues and factors influencing deception attempts.

5.0 SUMMARY

1. What you have learnt in this unit concerns non-verbal behaviour
2. You also learnt channels of non-verbal communication, explanations for deceptive non-verbal cues, and factors influencing deception attempts. 
3. It is more likely that a highly experienced, self-confident and socially skilled liar who has taken the opportunity to plan their lies but is not highly motivated to deceive will be erroneously assumed to be telling the truth. 

6.0 TUTOR-MARKED ASSIGNMENT

1.  Distinguish between leakage cues and deception cues 
2. Three factors that influence success in deceiving other are: 
3.  Four psychological processes that underpin deceptive communication are: 

THE CONCEPT OF PSYCHOLOGY

1.0 INTRODUCTION

By now, you should have read through the course guide, which was sent to you as part of your institutional package furthering course. If you have not, please ensure that you read the course guide before reading your study materials as it provides a comprehensive outline of the materials you will cover on a unit-to-unit basis, starting with the topic you are about to study: definitions of psychology. The unit guides you through several definitions of psychology across the ages. Let us look at what you should learn in this unit, as specified in the unit objectives below.

2.0 OBJECTIVES

By the end of this unit, you should be able to:

1. describe the concept of psychology; and 
2. define the concept of psychology in a specific way. 

3.0 MAIN CONTENT

3.1 Descriptions

There are various reasons for popular misconceptions e.g (frequent appearances in the mass media) of statements about what psychologists tell us. These are often one- sided views exaggerating some opinions held by only a few psychologists or even by some who are not properly qualified psychologists. This is because human behaviour can be observed by all and sundry who attempt to explain occurrences from their own intuition, or belief. In other branches of science, for example physics and chemistry, common sense or intuition does not help observers to explain why diatomic hydrogen behaves differently from a monatomic one, when these are bombarded by neutrons.


Another explanation of such differential judgments is traceable to the fact that whereas human behaviour may be a matter of common observation, scientific facts are only understood after sustained learning. Many writers also think that the labels, especially labels of definitions and constructs, in psychology, are derived from the daily usage of many common words while those used in pure science have separate origins and they are of restricted use. For example, intelligence is a psychological construct which implies one thing to a psychologist and another to a layman, and a typical word thermocouple of pure science means a very special thing to scientists and students of science but, perhaps nothing to a layman.

Furthermore, many people think psychology is the same as psychoanalysis and Freudian or neo- Freudian psychology (We will discuss this in the later units of this course), which psychologists regard as accounting for only a minor part of the entire body of psychological knowledge. It is also not uncommon to find ignorant individuals who conceptualise psychologists as those who can hypnotise others.

Here we will look at some of the descriptions of the concept of psychology. You will probably have come across the word ‘psychology’ before, and you may have your own idea of what psychology is all about. Unfortunately there are a number of misconceptions and misunderstandings as to what psychology is exactly, and for this reason we will consider why this is so and then examine some descriptions of this subject area.

SELF-ASSESSMENT EXERCISE 1

How would you describe psychology? Make a few brief notes before moving on to the next section.
Now, let us go on with our descriptions of the concept of psychology. While people have been interested in human behaviour for thousands of years, psychology has only become a discipline in its own right in the last 100 years. For many years, philosophers puzzled over the nature of the human mind and people’s motivations. However, philosophers’ accounts were essentially speculative and they made no attempt to prove whether their views were correct or incorrect.

Many writers agree that the birth of psychology as we now understand the concept was in 1879 in Leipzig, Germany. At this time, Wilhelm Wundt founded the first laboratory devoted to experimental psychology. Over the next 40 years, many universities throughout Europe and the United States set up their own laboratories. The main belief shared by these early pioneers was that human psychological processes could be studied objectively using the same experimental methods developed over the years by the natural sciences (for examp1e physics and chemistry). The first recognized book on psychology was written by William James and published in 1890.
From these early beginnings, psychology expanded quite rapidly and achieved various important milestones in its history. Many see the writings of Sigmund Freud as very significant in the development of psychology, although as you will see later, his work has been criticized for lacking in sound scientific basis. Psychology today encompasses a wide range of perspectives and has been applied to a large number of different areas of human functioning. You will learn about some of these in what follows. I know you now find our discussion meaningful and interesting. Let us continue.


Any dictionary and almost all introductory psychology textbooks will contain a description of the word psychology. Unfortunately, you may find that there are almost as many different descriptions of the subject area as there are textbooks. This may not however be as confusing as it might at first appear as many descriptions will share common elements, or say basically the same thing in slightly different ways. Why do psychologists differ in their descriptions?

There are at least two reasons why psychologists do not always agree on a simple common description of psychology.

1. The first is that psychology is a relatively new discipline. Compared with sciences such as chemistry and physics, psychology is in its infancy and its theories and methods are still being developed
2. The second reason is that psychology already covers a diverse range of subjects, and psychologists working in different areas see psychology in slightly different ways. Let us cite an example so that you can have a clear understanding. Educational psychologists will be mainly concerned with the way in which children learn, and how to help children who are not doing well at school. By contrast, a clinical psychologist will deal almost exclusively with people who are mentally ill or who are experiencing behavioural problems. It is time for you to try your hand on a question. 

SELF-ASSESSMENT EXERCISE 2

State one reason why psychologists disagree on a common description of psychology.

3.2 Is Psychology more than just ‘Common Sense’?

One reaction that people have when they hear of the results of a psychological research is that it is all just ‘common sense’. While it is true that psychologists do sometimes confirm what people may already believe, their research also allow them to ascertain the conditions under which certain events do or do not occur. Different people have different views of how the world works and may presume different things about ‘human nature’. Sometimes common sense appears to be contradictory. For example if you were asked to speculate as to why some people enjoy each other’s company and others do not, you may fall back on the proverb ‘Birds of the same feathers flock together’. In other words, people with similar interests, habits, and personalities tend to be attracted to each other. However you might equally have provided an alternative theory which is that ‘opposites attract’. Both of these expressions are well known, yet surely both cannot be true. A psychologist may wish to examine this and determine whether one is more accurate than the other, or identify the circumstances under which one is truer than the other.

There are many other examples of ‘common sense’ which turn out not necessary to be true. As you read more about psychology, you will come across a number of such challenges. For example, some police officers may believe that they can persuade a reluctant suspect to confess or believe that only a guilty person would sign a confession. We will see in another unit of this course that both of these presumptions may not actually be true.]

 SELF-ASSESSMENT EXERCISE 3

Visit the School of Arts and Social Sciences in the National Open University of Nigeria’s library. Open any recent book on introductory psychology at the contents page and note the different subjects that are covered. If possible, compare it with an introductory psychology book published more than 20 years ago. Note the differences between the contents of the two volumes.

Now, clap for yourself for participating in our discussion. Let us continue. 

3.3 Definitions

It is not very clear if one would have time to think as Marshall Temple (1984 11) wanted when she opined. Can you imagine what life would be like if we had idea at all what effect our behaviour is going to have on others? What a mad world it would be if a smile were answered by a kick and angry shout by a friendly greeting.  Efforts at thinking about these questions and hazarding answers for them have to do with a branch of knowledge known as psychology. Perhaps the most succinct definition of the concept is that psychology is the scientific study of behaviour. Many people would insert the world ‘human’ in this definitions, as the vast majority of psychologists are interested exclusively in studying human behaviour (Alhassan, 2000).  However, some psychologists study animals other than humans, partly because such study is interesting in itself and partly because studying animals allows researchers to carry out experiments and then extend the results into the human domain. Perhaps the best known example of this is the work of B.F. Skinner, who carried out many experiments using rats, pigeons and other animals in order to understand how they respond to their environment. Many of Skinner’s findings were expanded to cover human populations and valuable lessons were learnt (Andrew et.at.1993).
In some cases, psychologists have used animals such as rats and mice because such subjects are more easily recruited than humans. It may also be true that some psychologists are less worried about carrying out potentially harmful experiments on animals such as rats and mice than they might be when carrying out the equivalent studies on humans. However, it is important for you to note that today; psychologists in almost all countries are governed by rules, meaning they should not harm any animals (human or otherwise) that are used in experiments.

My dear student, l knows you are getting more interested in our discussion. That is nice. You are likely to find the next section even more interesting. Let us go on.

So, psychologists generally study human behaviour and try to understand why people behave the way they do. They may also gather information about a subject and by carefully analyzing their information, reach a conclusion. We will see in unit 2 some of the ways in which psychologists might go about studying human behaviour.

4.0 CONCLUSION

In this unit, you have learnt some descriptions of psychology. Psychologists differ in their descriptions of psychology because psychology is a relatively new discipline. In addition, psychology already covers a diverse range of subjects. Given this situation, psychologists working in different areas see psychology in slightly different ways. You have also learnt some definitions of psychology. Psychology is mainly concerned with the systematic (or scientific) study of human behaviour. Such systematic study allows psychologists to offer explanations for different behaviour and in some cases to make predictions about future behaviour.

5.0 SUMMARY

1. What you have learnt in this unit concerns descriptions and definitions of psychology from the perspectives of different psychologists. 
2. The unit has served to introduce you to other units in the course. 3. The units that follow shall build upon this introduction to ensure clarity of concepts and understanding of contents. 

6.0TUTOR-MARKED ASSIGNMENT

1.  State two reasons why psychologists do not always agree on a common description of psychology 
2.  From your understanding of our discussion, how would you define psychology

UNDERSTANDING AND ATTRIBUTING CAUSES TO OTHERS’ BEHAVIOUR

1.0 INTRODUCTION

In the last unit we discussed personality traits inferences about what the personis like. Also, the unit served to introduce us to other units in the course. You can now describe competence and sociability. You can now move from observable information to personality traits. We are now ready to discuss another interesting and practical unit: understanding and attributing causes to others’ behaviour. We will now consider behaviour. Let us take a look at what other content you will learn in this unit as specified in the objectives below.

2.0 OBJECTIVES

By the end of this unit, you should be able to:

1. identify the goals we have for interacting with people; 
2. explain affective cues; and 
3. describe the causes of behaviour. 

3.0 MAIN CONTENT

3.1 Goals

So far, we have discussed person perception as if it were a relatively rational process of taking in information about others and organizing it according to particular principles. Our goals and feelings about other people also influence the information that we gather about them. One such factor that influences how we gather information about others is the goals we have for interacting with them. In one study, (Klein & Kunda, 1992 cited in Taylor et. al. 2000) participants were told that another student would be either their partner or opponent in a forthcoming game. Those who expected the student to be their partner were motivated to see him as very high m ability, whereas those who expected him to be an opponent were motivated to see him as low in ability. After interacting with the student in a simulated quiz show during which the student answered some questions correctly and others incorrectly, the participant’s impression corresponded to their motivations. Those who expected the student to be their partner thought he was smarter than those who expected him to be their opponent. This occurred even though the student exhibited exactly the same pattern of answers in both conditions.

Goals have also been manipulated experimentally by telling participants either to form a coherent impression of a person (impression formation goal) or to try to remember the separate bits of information they might be exposed to (remembering goal). Generally speaking, under impression goal conditions, people form more organized impressions of others than when their goal is simply to remember the information (Matheson, et. al. 1991 cited in Taylor et. al. 2000).

SELF-ASSESSMENT EXERCISE 1

List the goals you intend to achieve by applying and getting admitted into the National Open University of Nigeria to read the Diploma in HIV Education management programme.
Clap for yourself for your active particil1atio~ in our discussion. Now, let us continue.

Anticipating future interactions with somebody creates very different social goals than simply trying to learn about that person, and research shows that people remember more and organize the information differently when they expect to interact with someone in the future. Another important point you must remember is that the need to be accurate usually produces more extensive and less biased information gathering about a person. Chen et. al. (1996 cited in Taylor et. al. 2000) also reported that the need to be accurate generally leads to more thorough and systematic processing of information about people than is true under conditions when accuracy is not a goal.

The type of impression one forms of another person also depends on the kind of interaction one anticipates having with that individual. Outcome dependency that is, the situation in which achievement of an individual’s own goals depends heavily on the behaviour of another person typically leads the individual to form a careful impression of the other. Participants whose goals are not dependent upon the behaviour of another person are more likely to form their impressions quickly and casually. Another powerful goal is communication. The process of gathering information for another person greatly influences not only what information people communicate to that other person, but also the impression they finally form themselves.


Sedikides (1990) asked participants to form their own impressions of a target to a third individual. Communication goals completely determined the information that was provided to the third individual such that they overrode the participant's own impressions. In fact, participants actually reformulated their own impressions in the direction of the positive, negative, or neutral impression they had been instructed to convey. When people communicate information about a target individual to a listener, they not only modify their own perceptions about the target, they systematically affect the impressions formed by the listener.

The influence of social goals on the kinds of impressions that people form of others is substantial. People who have a particular social goal when they interact with another person appear to make inferences that are consistent with their goals about the other person, even when they do not intend to do so or are completely unaware that they are doing so.
Try your hand on this question.

SELF-ASSESSMENT EXERCISE 2

How will you describe the process of gathering information on your study centre to another distance learner whom you come across in the bookshop? Let us go on.

3.2 Affective Cues

Sometimes we use our internal state as a basis for judging other people, and this can lead to systematic errors. When people are emotional, they are more likely to attend to emotional information and use that in their impression. Let us cite an example to drive the point home. When we are aroused, we tend to perceive other people in a more extreme manner than when we are not aroused (Stangor, 1990 cited in Taylor et. al. 2000). If you have just finished playing a table tennis game and you meet someone who strikes you as sleazy, your impression of the person as sleazy is likely to be more extreme than if you met the person having just come from reading a book.


Mood is another factor that can influence how another person is perceived. When we are in a good mood, we tend to see another person more positively, and when we are in a bad mood, we tend to view that person more negatively. The effects of mood appear to be stronger for judgments about unusual people than for more ordinary individuals. The reason is .that unusual people elicit extensive processing; therefore more information is available, and there is a longer time for mood to have an influence (Forgas, 1992). Mood may influence not only1he content of impressions we form of others, but also the process we use in forming them. A negative mood makes people more likely to use piecemeal processing in impression formation than categorical processing, even when categorical information is available to them.

3.3 Attributing Causes to Behaviour

One of the most important influences we make about other people is why they behave as they do. What causes one individual to be shy at a party and another to be outgoing? What prompts a romantic breakup between two people who had seemed so close? Attribution theory is the area of psychology concerned with when and how people ask ‘why’ questions. Theorizing about causal attributions that is, how and why people infer what causes what began with Heider (1958 cited in Taylor el. al. 2000). He argued that all human beings have two strong motives: the need to form a coherent understanding of the world and the need to control the environment. In order to achieve understanding and control, we need to be able to predict how people are going to behave. Otherwise, the world is random, surprising, and incoherent.


We are especially likely to make causal attribution when something unexpected or negative events create a need for greater predictability (Kanazawa, 1992, cited in Taylor et. al. 2000). To illustrate this point, researchers talked with distressed married couples who had come to a clinic  for marital therapy. Each person was asked to list positive and negative events that had happened in their marriage and to indicate how frequently those events occurred. They were then asked their thoughts about the events, which were coded for the presence of causal attributions. The researchers found that the most attributional thoughts were made about the most distressing event: their partner’s frequent negative behaviours or infrequent positive behaviours (Holtzworth et. al. 1985).

4.0 CONCLUSION

In this unit you have learnt about goals, you have therefore learnt about affective cues. In addition you have learnt about attributing causes to behaviour.

5.0 SUMMARY

1. What you learnt in this unit concerns goals and feelings about other people. 
2.  You also learnt affective cues. 
3.  Often we are in the position of wanting to know why a person committed a particular action. . 
4. You have therefore learnt attributing causes to behaviour. 

6.0 TUTOR-MARKED ASSIGNMENT

1. . State the reason the effects of mood appear to be stronger for judgments, about unusual people than for more ordinary individuals. 
2.  State the two strong motives that all human beings have and 
3. What do you understand by outcome dependency in relation to impression one forms of another person? 

SOME BASIC CONCEPTS IN PSYCHOLOGY CONTENTS

1.0 INTRODUCTION

In unit 2, we discussed the study of behaviour. The unit also served to introduce us to other units in this course. You can now explain approaches to the study of behaviour, List the objectives of psychology, and describe some of the methods used by psychologists in their research. You are about to study another interesting and insightful unit: some basic concepts in psychology. We will now consider what some concepts mean within the context of psychology. Let us look at other contents that you will learn in this unit as specified in the objectives below.

2.0 OBJECTIVES

By the end of this unit, you should be able to:

1. explain the concept of learning; 
2. describe the relationship between maturation and learning; 
3. define the concept of growth and development; and 
4. list the principles of growth and development. 

3.0 MAIN CONTENT

3.1 Concept of Learning

To the layman ‘learning’ has always been a rather simple matter, he sees it frequently and assumes that he has a clear understanding of its meaning, that is getting to know something he does not know. As Oxiedine (1968:5) puts it, that ‘we learn what we are taught is often the attitude of the non- professional person’. Alhassan (2000) states that although there is little disagreement among psychologists as to the importance of learning and pervasiveness of learning in all forms of human activity, there is a marked difference between the ways they look at learning and the ways the layman does. Let us cite some examples to ensure you have a clear understanding of the concept.


Kohler (1925) in his book, The Mentality of Apes explained learning as a perceptual process with the major emphasis being on the study of relationships and how people learn to see relationships among various items of experience. Learning of relationships can be clearly seen in the phenomenon of insight. Sometimes pupils work for a long time on a problem or skill with apparently little progress. All of a sudden there will be a flash of understanding in which the pupil or student sees through the problem or reform his responses into a more complex habit. This phenomenon was first widely publicized by this famous psychologist. Worgang Kohler. He found that apes, when confronted with a different problem, might act as if they were surveying the situation and would then go directly to the goal object (banana) by putting two sticks together, or by piling one box on top of another. It appeared that there had been a sudden perceptual charge in which these animals saw the relationship of the sticks or boxes to themselves and the goal in a new way.

I can perceive you are looking comfortable indicating you are finding out discussion clear and understandable. Fine, we must go on.


Aristotle talked of learning as a association of ideas following the laws of similarity, contrast, and continuity. He believed that people learn and remember those things that are alike, that are striking because of their difference, and that occur together in space and time (Murphy, 1949). Bugelski (1956:120) on his own parts sees learning as the process of the formation of relatively permanent neural circuits through the simultaneous activity of the elements of the circuit to be. Such activity is of the nature of change in cell structure through growth in such a manner as to facilitate the arousal of the entire circuit when a component element is aroused or activated.


Lindgren (1961) posts that learning is a central process in understanding human behaviour. Most aspects of human behaviour, the writer argues, the learned contrary to the widely held view at the turn of the century that human behaviour is instinctive in nature. Learning may also be thought of as a process of problem solving, a way of thinking, creating, and synthesizing.


Alhassan (1985:1) opines that learning is the totality of the acquisition of factual information, the mastering of skills and means of aiding further study (understanding); acquisition of behaviour patterns, the styles of tacking problems of everyday life and more. Learning is a dynamic process whereby, through interactive experience, insights or cognitive structures of life spaces are changed and so become more useful for future guidance. Gagne (1970:3) attempts a definition of learning which seems to have a wide appeal when he writes that a learning event take place when the stimulus situation affects the learner in such a way that his or her performance changes from a time- before being in that situation to a time after being in it. The change in performance is what leads to the conclusion that learning has occurred.  In spite of the above discussion, note that leaning may not be easy to define adequately. This may be so because we cannot see it directly, but when we' observe a child’s behaviour, we can conclude that some kind of leaning has occurred. Let us give an example to drive home this point. When a preschooler is able to recite the alphabet from A – Z or the numerals which he could not do before, we can deduce that some learning has taken place. Another example: When we look at the stages of a child’s development we can see that he first knows how to eat, then to sit, to crawl about, to stand, to walk, to run about, and to speak. The child is now capable of doing some things which he could not do earlier in his life. It may be said that in these respects, the child has learned because ‘observed changes in behaviour are evidence of learning’ (Balogun,1981:52). Many psychologists agree that learning is a general term for relatively lasting or permanent change in performance or behaviour caused or produced directly by experience. O’ Connon (1963) submits that a study of learning is part of the larger study of psychology, which may be defined as the scientific study of human experience and human and animal behaviour.

For Mukherjee (1478) learning may be held to be an inference from some performance of the organism manifesting a change of behaviour venile for Olaitan (1992), learning refers to a collection of experiences which a person progressively acquires to be regarded as educated in his/her society. I want you note what this f description of the concept of learning implies: It implies that the value of learning is determined primarily by the society. People learn what the social leaning environment permits them to learn by way of subjects offered, quality of teachers, quality of the curriculum, quality of the learning environment, and so on. The writer fi.1rther states that when the learning the society is capable of offering does not suit its definition of an educated man, a vacuum is created which has to be bridged by making learning more meaningful and relevant to the societal perception of an educated man.


Time is ripe for you to check the progress you have made in understanding our .discussion.

SELF-ASSESSMENT EXERCISE 1

i. Complete the following psychological statements in the spaces

provided.


- Learning is……………………..change in…………..………………. - Learning is a c………………………………………..………process. - Learning is a d…………………………………………….…process. Well done. You deserve my commendation for your active participation in our discussion. Let us keep the ball rolling.

3.2 Maturation and Learning

Maturation as a scientific and psychological concept designates that period of development during which a germ cell becomes mature. It is a process of ripening and of moving towards the fuller unfolding of potentials of the organism. Maturation denotes both a change in the physical equipment of the organism but more importantly it is a change in function and the capacity to perform through the use of this equipment. Let us cite an example: When the muscles of a child’s legs grow they can be noticed, but it is only when maturation takes place that the baby walks with the legs. If in spite of the growth of the legs the baby cannot stand or walk, then maturation of the can germ cells of the muscles has not taken place. It is important for you to remember that psychologists have run experiments and discovered that in spite of the training, sessions babies are subjected to in order to quicken walking or standing, they do not yield any significant result when compared with sessions. The muscles wait until maturation takes place.


The concept of maturation has some indirect relationship with learning. Learning; by as discussed earlier, means a change in function as a result of experience and practice. In one sense, both learning and maturation depend on change of function. However, while maturation is not noticeable and takes place inside the organism, leaning is entirely based on experience and practice. You should note that the interesting relationship is that maturation must take place before any learning can take effect.


The concept of maturation leads to the concept of phsylogenetic function or prehensile skills sometimes referred to as developmental tasks. Such tasks include crawling, creeping, walking and so on. Remember that they are cross cultural and therefore common to all races. More importantly, remember that training is of little importance if maturation is not ready. Such tasks as learning to ride a tricycle or bicycle, learning to swim or make ridges in the farm require maturation and training. So while an American child of four can ride a bicycle, a child of eight in a remote African village may not be able to do so. Whereas maturation provides the raw time table for learning, the culture directs or determines what is learnt. Here’s a question for you to answer.

SELF-ASSESSMENT EXERCISE 2

Fill in the blanks in the statements below:

Maturation denotes both a in the physical equipment of the but more importantly it is the in function and the capacity to through the use of this equipment. We must continue now.

3.3 Concept of Growth and Development

Modem educationists stress the point that a teacher should not only know his subject matter but also the child he teaches. The knowledge of the .child would include knowing the child’s growth patterns’ developments, social and emotional characteristics. It is a thorough understanding of the growth and development of the child that would enable the teacher to make his education more meaningful to the child. Human body grows in stages and each stage has its dominant characteristics and uniqueness. Each stage has also its significant problems. Each stage is related to another and not clearly marked out as distinct. No individual passes from one stage to another on a particular birthday. A stage moves imperceptibly to the next stage. Some of the stages are very short but some are long. Psychologists see the study of the child from conception to the beginning of adolescence as child study while the adolescent psychologists see adolescence as concerned with the study of the child from the on-setting of puberty until maturity. Note that an understanding of a stage helps to throw light on what happens in the next stage. According to Alhassan (2000), it is good to look at a child as the child he is and the adolescent he will be. It is also good to look at the adolescent as the adolescent he is and the child he was.


Let us go on with our discussion.
Generally, when we refer to a child or any human organism as growing, we mean that such organism is becoming larger or heavier. Physical growth can be measured in terms of height (meters and centimeters) and in terms of weight (kilogrammes).
In effect, growth can be either horizontal or vertical. Physical growth involves stages or epochs. These stages or epochs can be gradual, continuous but not uniform. They include the pre-natal stage, the infancy stage, the childhood stage, the adolescence, the adult and the senescence. The concept of development refers to changes in structure and function. This means that development includes growth and the ability to see the organism in the performance of certain functions. Development is the progress an organism makes towards maturity. It then means that from the very beginning of life up to old age and death, human beings are subjected to many internal and external influences. You need to remember that psychologists usually see development as the process that leads to greater strength and stability.


It is time to stretch your legs and hands. So, take 5 minutes to do that. Let us now carry-on with our discussion.

3.4 Principles of Growth and Development

The principles of growth and development are:

1. Development ill an organism is for the most part orderly and proceeds on the same order for all children. For example, all fetuses turn their heads before they turn their hands. Every child sits before standing, babbles before talking, is dependent before being independent. 
2.  Growth and development are continuous. Growth may be continuous but not always smooth and gradual. There are spurts in physical growth and psychological functions. Let us cite some examples: abrupt or sudden increases in height or development of genital organ during pre-adolescence, sharp rises in vocabulary during childhood,sudden improvement in problem solving ability during middle and later adolescence. 
3. There are critical periods for certain organs. If anything interferes with the development of an organ at that particular time, it results in permanent deficiency or malfunctioning. For example,  certain organs such as the heart, the kidneys, the eyes, and the fingers have critical periods. If during their development, any thing happens to them, if affects these organs permanently. Eric Erikson, a psychologist (we will discuss more on him) postulates that if a child of 1 fails to learn to trust people, he may never trust people throughout his life. 
4. The basic personality of any individual is set during the first years of his life. Well adjusted babies develop this trait often during the first years of their lives and grow to be well adjusted adults. 

4.0 CONCLUSION

In this unit you have learnt the concept of learning and the relationship between maturation and learning. You also have learned the concept of growth and development as well as the principles of growth and development. You have learnt that the .concept of maturation has some indirect relationship with learning. Both learning and maturation depend on change of function. You will have seen that psychologists usually see development as the process of greater strength and stability. All aspects of growth are inter- related. The different aspects of growth such as physical, mental, social and emotional are inter-related because all these are taking place in one individual.

UNDERSTANDING SOME IMPORTANT FACTORS IN PERSON PERCEPTION AND IMPRESSION FORMATION

1.0 INTRODUCTION

In the last unit, we discussed impression formation. The unit also served to introduce us to other units in this course. You can now state the general principles of impression formation. You can also describe the type of information that you may use. We are now ready to discuss another interesting unit: understanding some important factors in person perception and impression formation. We will now consider person perception: impression formation. Let us take a look at what other content you should learn in this unit as specified in the objectives below.

2.0 OBJECTIVES

By the end of this unit, you should be able to:

1. describe person perception; 
2. identify important factors in person perception; and 
3. explain the most important aspects of impression. 

3.0 MAIN CONTENT

3.1 Person Perception

While perception implies the use of direct sensory information, person perception is concerned with the process by which impressions, opinions, and feelings about other persons are formed. Often an opinion about another person is not based on direct information but on statements by others or knowledge of the person, received from other sources. It is important for you to note that opinions, feelings, and impressions are rather on subjective processes, and inferences drawn on the basis of such subjective judgments go to constitute what person perception is all about.

 SELF-ASSESSMENT EXERCISE 1

State the opinions you have of the Librarian at your study center.

Let us go on with our discussion.

There are three sources in forming impressions of personality which are stimulus information, perceiver variables, and impressions of stimulus person. Stimulus information comprises of the physical appearance of the person, and his overt verbal and nonverbal behaviour. Perceiver variables consist of the perceiver's feelings and cognitions towards stimulus, his self- concept, and his implicit personality theory and stereotype. The last source consists of perception of causality, intent, justifiability, attribution of personality traits and other cognitions towards the stimulus person.

As you can see from the list of the factors above, most of these sources apart from the source of stimulus information belong to subjective judgment of the perceiver. There are however the following modes of perceiving others, viz:
a. From the point of view of the outward appearance and other superficial characteristics of the person.
b. From the point of view of central traits of the person, for example, aggressive, shy, and so on.
c. From the point of view of a cluster of congruous traits of the person, for example strong and bold, polite and kind, and so on. 

d. From the point of view of a variety of traits not necessarily congruous of the person, for example, polite but cruel, kind but aggressive, and so on.
The above modes of person perception will be clear if we consider the following factors influencing person perception in the next section of our discussion.

3.2 Important Factors in Person Perception

a. Verbal Cues: In a study conducted by Asch (1986), subjects who were all college students, were asked to write a brief characterisation of the person for whom the following traits were given, for example, energetic, assured, talkative, cold, ironical, impulsive, and persuasive. In spite of the paucity of information, all subjects readily accepted the task of completing the sketch of the person. Their responses showed significant differences in making use of the traits, though they were all given the same list of traits. Some perceivers saw the hypothetical person as cold, inquisitive and ironical, others perceived him as energetic and assured, and some perceived him as talkative, and persuasive. In all cases, there was one predominant trait that characterized the hypothetical person. There was also evidence that new traits were invented, and ascribed to the person. b. Non-Verbal Cues: As a source of impression formation,


In another experiment, a group of children were taught the same lesson by a ‘popular teacher’ who was instructed to make as many ‘mistakes’ in teaching as possible, and by another 'unpopular teacher’ who was-instructed to give a ‘copy-book lesson’. A post- text was given to the children asking them to rate the teaching of the two teachers, and it was found that the children rated the ‘popular’ teacher who made mistakes during teaching as a ‘better’ teacher than the other who made no mistakes at all during teaching. It is obvious from such findings that individual biases towards the other person had influenced their perception of the teaching methods of the two different teachers. Many studies have shown that perceivers like persons they assume to be more similar to themselves than persons towards whom they feel neutral or whom they dislike. Remember that no hard and fast generalisation can be made from either of these opposite types of evidence.


Sometimes, preferences are shown on the basis of similarity, for example, successful teachers tend to perceive the teaching profession as the only honest profession worth doing; they even marry within their profession. There are cases when an individual who is withdrawn and shy, and knows that he is not rewarded by others for being so, tends to admire one who is opposite, that is talkative, self-confident, and-persuasive. It is to be noted that in the latter case, the preferences are based on compatibility and admiration, and admiration, we all know, arises from one's accepted knowledge or belief of one’s inferiority in some respect. You must also remember that one’s self-concept influences one's person perception.

 SELF-ASSESSMENT EXERCISE 2

Distinguished between stimulus information and perceiver’s variables. 

You should commend yourself for actively participating in our discussion. Let us go on.
3.3 The Most Important Aspect of Impression Evaluation The most important and powerful aspect of first impression is ‘evaluation.’ Do we like or dislike a person? Put more formally, the evaluative dimension is the most important of a small number of basic dimensions that organize our unified impressions of other people.


This point was shown in a study by Osgood (1957) using a measurement procedure called the semantic differential. In this study, participants were given a list of trait pairs and asked to indicate which trait more closely described particular persons and objects. The list consists of such trait pairs as happy- sad, good- bad, strong- weak, and warm-cold. It is important for you to no note that these underlying dimensions accounted for most of the ratings:, potency (strong-weak), and activity (active-passive). Once we know that someone rate ‘mother’ as very good, moderately, strong, and somewhat passive, we learn little more about these perceptions of ‘mother’ by asking for additional ratings. It is to be noted that evaluation is the main dimension that underlines perceptions; potency and activity play lesser roles.

Positively Bias

A general evaluative bias in person perception is to evaluate people positively; a phenomenon termed the positively bias. (Sear, 1983a). Let us cite an example to enhance your level of understanding. In one study, students rated 97% of their professors in college favorably (that is above ‘average’ on a rating scale), despite all the mixed experiences students have in their college classes (Sear, 1983a).
There is a hypothesis about why people are evaluated so favorably. It has been suggested that people feel better when they are surrounded by good things, pleasant experiences, nice people, good weather, and so on. There is a special positively bias in people’s evaluation of others, which Sears describes as the person-positively bias. People feel more similar to other people than they do to impersonal objects and therefore extend to them a more generous evaluation.

Negativity Effect

During impression formation, we tend to pay special attention to negative information. And when we come to form an overall impression of the person, that negative information is weighed more heavily. That is, a negative trait affects an impression more than a positive trait, everything else being equal. This has been called the negativity effect. The main explanation for this effect is based on the figure-ground principle. As just noted, positive evaluations of other people are much more common than negative evaluations. Negative traits, which are more unusual, are therefore more distinctive. People may simply pay more attention to those negative qualities and give them more weight.

It is important for you to note that the impact of negative information depends in part on what kind of judgment is being made about a person. The negativity bias is very strong for moral traits. Thus, if a person engages in dishonest behaviour that is assumed to be very informative about the person’s underlying morality. Positive behaviours, in contrast, are perceived to be performed by both moral and immoral persons.

Emotional Information

As it is true for negative information, perceivers notice emotionally charged information and make great use of it in their judgments about others. That is we infer what people are like from the emotions they express. In fact, emotional information is one of the most difficult sources of information to ignore when perceiving others.

4.0 CONCLUSION

In this unit, you have learnt person perception. You have therefore learnt important factors in person perception. In addition you have learnt the most important aspects of impressions: evaluation, positively bias, negativity effect and emotional information.

5.0 SUMMARY

1. . What you have learnt in this unit concerns person perception: impression formation. 
2.  You also learnt important factors in person perception. 
3. The most important aspects of impressions were learnt. 
4. You have therefore learnt the process of putting together information about people. 

6.0 TUTOR-MARKED ASSIGNMENT

1. Describe three sources in forming impressions of personality

 2. State 4 modes of perceiving others.

PERCEPTION: A BASIC PROCESS

1.0 INTRODUCTION

In the last unit, we discussed application of psychology to policing. The unit also served to introduce us to other units in this course. You can now identity groups of citizens with whom the police interact. In addition, you can explain the advantages and disadvantages of a psychologist serving as consultant. Time is now ripe for you to study another interesting and relevant unit: perception: a basic process. We will now consider what is meant by perception. Let us take a close look at what other content you should learn in this unit as specified in the objectives below:

2.0 OBJECTIVES

By the end of this unit, you should be able to:

1. define the concept of perception; and 
2. identify the factors affecting perception 

3.0 MAIN CONTENT

3.1 Concept of Perception

Perception is a-psychological operation that is basic to the determination of terminal human behaviour. It is important for you to note that without any satisfactory perception of this precise nature of the stimulus objects or things, there cannot be accurate cognition. Without Cognition, there can be no learning. It is therefore likely .that wrong percepts may lead to wrong or mistaken concepts, and hence the psychology of perception becomes so
basic a topic in any introductory text of educational psychology. In addition, the psychology of perception and attention are closely interlinked and the understanding of their functioning becomes very relevant considered from the teacher’s point of view.

Perception implies the psychological process occurring in the brains of the organisms. This leads to the organization and interpretation-of sensory information received from the stimulus or stimuli. Perception mechanisms include analysis, synthesis, and integration of sensory information. When several individuals confront an object or thing in their environment, the input of information that impinges their respective sense organs, for example, eyes, ears, and so on, is the same for every individual, though they perceive differently (Mukherjee, 1978).

3.2 Factors Affecting Perception

Stimulus Configuration Factors Gestalt school of psychology, a school of the psychology of perception, originating from Germany, has made a significant contribution in showing how different configurations of the stimuli in the environment lead to easier perception. The following are some of the important factors influencing perception:


i. Grouping of the Stimuli: When many stimuli of different types are presented to the individuals, it is found that grouping of the stimuli aids perception. For example in classroom teaching, the children will perceive better if the materials to be learned are presented in some well organized groups of similar types, shape or cases, and categories.

ii. Similarity of the Stimuli: Similar stimuli elements will be more easily perceived than dissimilar ones. In the teaching of mathematics, it will help if the mathematics teacher can classify the
problems of a mathematics exercise into sets of similar problems.

iii. Proximity of the Stimuli: If the stimuli elements are in close proximity to one another, the perception becomes an easier process than when they are remotely associated In blackboard presentation of any teaching materials, it is a bad habit, if one aspect of the information is written in one comer of the board, and another aspect in another comer of the board. Attention and Perception

Human perception is a selective process. We cannot attend to more than one thing at a time and perceive all at the same time. For example when you are listening to a person talking to you, you do not attend to any other person talking at the same time.

You tend to select that stimulus information in which you are interested or directed to attend. The unattended messages tend to be filtered out, and the model of perception represented in Figure I explains this point. If teaching can be made interesting then there is no reason why the children in the classroom should fail to attend. It is true that none of us can keep attention fixed at a thing or object for longer than a few. A simple experiment will show the validity of the above statement.

SELF-ASSESSMENT EXERCISE 2

When you are reading this unit, take a pencil in your hand and hold it a foot away from you, trying to keep your attention on it for as long a time as you possibly can. During this period of your voluntary attention, you will soon find so many different things or thoughts crossing your mind. Since without attention, meaningful perception may not be achieved, it is now necessary to consider the ways and means which would facilitate attention of the children. Of the various factors facilitating attention of individuals, the following maybe cited.


a. Novelty of the Stimulus: A novel situation or stimulus will at once draw the attention of the person confronted with such a situation.
b. Repetition of the Stimulus: A stimulus word or sentence or figure
will be attended t to if the same is repeated frequently.
c. Intensity of the Stimulus: A high pitched sound or a visual stimulus with a high intensity of illumination will be more attractive for attention than either a low pitched sound or a less illuminated visual stimulus.
d. Size of the Stimulus: If the visual stimulus is large and clear, then it will facilitate attention of the onlookers.
e. Contrasting Stimulus: If the stimuli appear in contrast with some other stimuli at the same time, then the contrasting features of the stimuli would very likely attract the attention of the subjects. The importance of the above factors in securing attention of human beings has long been recognized in the fields of commercial advertisement in the press or on television.

Each advertiser makes use of one or more features of the stimuli to secure attention of his potential buyers. It is also true that many aspects of our day to day perception take place without our being aware of the presence of the stimuli in our environment.

This is so evident when we recall that signboard or that particular advertisement on the screen or magazine which says: ‘Don’t buy our product’, etc. Here we notice how a subtle and contrasting message was deliberately put in so that our attention is automatically directed to the message. This is so because our normal expectation about all commercial advertisements lies in the presence of a message exactly opposite in character where we expect to see or hear: ‘Buy our product because it is so and so, etc’.


If commercial advertisers can make use of these important psychological findings to draw the attention of their customers, then there is no reason why the teachers should fail to secure the attention of even the most inattentive pupils of their classes. Blackboard diagrams, writings, teacher's utterances and so on, during the imparting of lessons, can at random make use of any or all of the above features to keep their pupils interested and attentive during the lesson hours.

Personality Factors

Besides the above factors affecting perception, there are other factors which differ from individual to individual, and these influence individual perception to a considerable extent. For example, individual’s interests, values, and cultural backgrounds. Their experiences in life also differ, and these experiences generate expectations among them. It is for these reasons that we should consider each of these factors separately, viz:

i. Learning Style and Perception: Some individuals are reflective in their learning style, and they take a much longer time to perceive a stimulus or a stimulus pattern. They are usually more accurate in
their recall of the perceived stimuli, but if the stimuli are presented only for a short while then these individuals are likely to miss out a lot of the details of the stimulus though recalling with accuracy the part of the stimulus situation reflected over. Contrasted with these individuals are those who are called ‘impulsive’ in their learning style. These individuals are quicker in their perception though they are generally inaccurate in their later reproductions of the stimulus situations. Reflective pupils learn well if the teacher is patient with them. They are usually good in mathematics and problem solving types of subjects, while the impulsive ones are those who need special care especially if the topic of learning is complex, that is, problem solving.

ii. Motivation and Perception: Individuals perceive things according to their motivation and needs. Children who are motivated to learn will perceive more easily the lesson materials than those who are not so motivated to learn.

iii. Interests, Values and Perception: Individuals tend to perceive according to their interests and values. We frequently come across children who do not seem to bother with what goes on during
teaching. It may be that such children do not seem to possess ~e relevant interests or values with the topic of the lessons in the classrooms. There is therefore the need to modify the interests of
such children.

iv. Culture and Perception: Individuals are influenced by their respective culture in their perception. In teaching a group of students coming from various cultures, great care ought to be taken by the
teachers in their teaching and dealing with the various expectations of these children till they settle down accepting the norms of the country.

v. Experience and Perception: There is evidence that, we tend to perceive according to our experience, as we tend to select from a host of competing stimuli only those which satisfy our experience.

4.0 CONCLUSION

In this unit you have learnt what perception is; you have therefore learnt factors affecting perception. You have also learnt stimulus configuration factors, attention factors, and personality factors.

5.0 SUMMARY 

1. What you have learnt in this unit concerns the process of perception. 
2. It can be said that perception is due to the organization of the sensory information of the data from the stimulus objects.
3. The model explaining perception mechanism shows why individuals differ in perception even when confronted with the same stimulus at the same time
4. Besides, there are various factors that tend to influence perception, for example, Gestalt factors of stimulus configurations, factors of attention, and personality factors.

6.0 TUTOR – MARKED ASSIGNMENT

1. a. Define perception.
b. List the stimulus configuration factors.
c. List any 4 attention factors affecting perception.

JUVENILE DELINQUENCY

1.0 INTRODUCTION

In the last unit, we discussed socialization. In addition, the unit served to introduce us to other units in this course. You can now define socialization, identify and discuss the agents of socialization, and specify the values of interpersonal relationships. It is now time for us to discuss a very relevant and useful unit: juvenile delinquency. Let us take a look at what other content you should learn in this unit as specified in the objectives below.

2.0 OBJECTIVES

At the end of this unit, you should be able to:
define the concept of juvenile delinquency;
identify the places where delinquent personality operates; and
describe how the situation of juvenile delinquency may be remedied.

3.0 MAIN CONTENT

3.1 Concept of Delinquency

By legal definition, the juvenile delinquent is neither a neglected youngster nor a young criminal but one who occupies instead some twilight zone between the two. According to the law, if a young lawbreaker is legally defined as a juvenile delinquent, he cannot be charged with crime or treated as a criminal. Like the neglected and dependent child, he becomes a ward of the state. Sometimes, as in the case of murder, the young lawbreaker is

charged with a crime, tried and punished in the regular courts. For most other offences, however, the law requires that an offender under a certain age be adjudged delinquent and not criminal. On the face of it, the concept of juvenile delinquency may be said to be one of pro-criminality, the youthful violator in adult law is regarded as pre-criminal and as someone not only in need of rehabilitation but likely to be amenable to it. The incorrigible child, even though he violates an adult law, is also regarded as probably pre-criminal. The breakdown of parental authority is by itself considered ominous. The concept of juvenile delinquency automatically places the 17-year-old habitual committer of crime in the same legal category of responsibility with the 10-year-old child who steals a tyre as an escapade. Care must be taken to ensure that the concept of juvenile delinquency does not blur our perception of the distinction between delinquent youths and those who are, to all intents and purposes youthful criminals.


The special importance which delinquency has acquired in relevant years in the public mind may be traceable to a growing conviction that delinquent behaviour patterns are spreading among young people formerly relatively immune to them. Children who pickpocket with a view to buying sweets, or anything else are delinquents. Unlicensed schoolboys and undergraduate students riding automobile machines and or driving cars are delinquents. Vibrant Lagos youths who found the wild afternoon bar beach sun in 1985 a perfect rendezvous for their adventure when they were supposed to be in school or at work are delinquents. As Omotunde (1985:6) reveals, alcohol was unabashedly consumed and assorted weeds freely puffed by the youths. Such was the situation in July, 1.985 when a news crew of the Nigerian Television Authority (NTA) recorded the level of juvenile moral degeneration as was often exhibited at the Lagos bar beach. It was intended for a documentary, but a one-.minute clip during the evening network news was enough to cause a stir in the then Lagos State Government of Governor Mudashiru who swiftly set up a 4-member tribunal to probe what later became commonly known as the ‘bar beach show of shame’ and other issues relating to juvenile delinquency tribunal. It is important for you to note that its findings revealed that many of the principal actors were mainly school drop-outs.

3.2 Places where Delinquent Personality Operates

There are certain conditions in some places that make it more likely that the delinquent learning and the development of the delinquent personality will operate. Amongst such places and conditions are:

=The Family: Dacey (1989 cited in Alhassan, 2000) writes that the family is, and for millennia has been the social group that has the most influence on individual behaviour. Negative feelings within the family or the sudden alteration of family life can create disturbances that lead to juvenile delinquency. Burt (1925) in his book, The young delinquent, opined that the most favorable condition associated with delinquent acts is ‘a defected home discipline’.

I want you to note that discipline in such a home may be too strict, too lenient or worst of all, alternating between strictness and leniency. Merrill (1947) reports ‘good’ discipline in 15% of the delinquent homes and 63% of the non-delinquent homes. The Gluecks (1950) report ‘lax’ discipline in 57% of the delinquent cases and 12% of the non-delinquent ones. In deeper analysis, the Gluecks found that the fathers typically used physical punishment as a method of control in 68% of the delinquent cases, they used reasoning as a method of control in 11 % of the former as and in 24% of the latter.


So many things may happen within the family: It is through the family that the child most directly comes into contact with the value conflicts that exist in society. Not uncommon are the parents whose own overwhelming drive for success is all too obvious. Children who experience unhappy home lives, rejection by parents and inferiority complex are usually delinquent. Let us note that conflicts within the family, parental rejection, delinquent parents who take to alcoholism and lack of parental supervision of their children could easily bring about delinquency in children.

In addition, the size of the family, which is usually large in African societies, the emotional climate of the home caused by parental coldness and lack of any appreciable degree of freedom could bring about delinquency in children. Delinquency rates has been found to be high in homes broken by death, divorce, desertion or prison terms, and in homes where there is lack of emotional security.


The Peer Group: Juvenile gangs recruit, stimulate, and teach delinquents. Shaw and Mckay (1961) and the Gluecks (1950) and others have concluded that delinquency is largely a gang operation. Of 5,480 offenders, Shaw found that only 18% had committed their delinquency alone, 30% had a single companion, 27% had three or more. 89% of those charged with theft had at least one accomplice. Note that the gang contributes to delinquency rates in several connected ways.
The adolescent tends to want to conform to the ways of his peers. Because delinquent gangs are organized groups, they are in a particularly good position to exercise pressure for conformity.
Delinquent gangs provide ready antisocial channels for the energies and the normal and special personality needs of the adolescent.

It is to be noted that a gang can provide security, recognition, affection, and new experience when these are not provided by the family or elsewhere in society.


The Mass Media: The mass media are a key factor in the generation of delinquency. Radio, television, films, comic books, and newspapers contribute to delinquency by glorifying, overemphasizing and giving instruction in crime. It is important for you to note that this is one of the theories of delinquency causation that has attracted the most popular support from the public.
I am sure you are eager to know what the public reaction is against the mass media. Among the charges against the mass media are that they stimulate the juvenile appetite for adventure; glorify the criminal; impart knowledge of criminal techniques; and overemphasize the extent of criminal life in our society.


Children tend to remember good or bad acts learnt in movies more easily. We know that motion pictures can affect attitude towards social groups. Children who watch a sex act in a film tend to imitate such action. And this is seen as an aspect of delinquency. In a highly delinquent area, newspapers, which are sensational and which glorify various crimes and offences are usually in great demand. It is not therefore surprising that Lagos Weekend, Africa’s largest-circulation week-end daily, is printed and published in Lagos and not in Lokoja.

SELF-ASSESSMENT EXERCISE 1

Take a close look at your immediate community. Are there delinquent gangs there? How do they operate?

Let us continue our discussion by looking at what we may do to sufficiently reduce the incidence of delinquency.

3.3 Remediation

Note that preventive measures are more reassuring. To prevent delinquency, it becomes necessary to deal with both personality factors and environmental influences, especially those coming from home, intimate associates and the community. Creating a wholesome environment and eliminating undesirable influences are two important phases of a constructive preventive programme. For instance, the Lagos state Government in 1985 accepted the recommendation of the Lagos Bar Beach Juvenile Delinquency Tribunal and banned the sale of cigarettes and alcohol to persons under 18 years while the doors of hotels and pub houses were shut .against them. Police patrol at the bar beach was made more effective at all times so as to rid the resort of malingering and criminals while the government stopped further approval of beer parlours and liquor sales points within school vicinities. The principal actors among the youths were sent to approved schools and foster homes as applicable where they can be conditioned to grow to become useful citizens.


We must embark on a genuine and sustained reconstruction of the Nigerian society. There are several ways that schools and teachers can facilitate the instruction of Nigerian youths and aid them in the solution of their personal problems.

Effort to lead juvenile gangs and clubs into socially acceptable .avenue of behaviour must be embarked upon on a sustained basis. The government should make provision for social services agency that would give adequate and continuous attention to family.

4.0 CONCLUSION

In this unit you have learnt maladjustment. You have therefore learnt the concept of delinquency. In addition, you have learnt where delinquent personality operates and remediation strategies that may be employed.

5.0 SUMMARY

1. What you have learnt in this unit concerns maladjustment. 
2.  You also learnt concept of delinquency. 
3. The family, the peer group, and the mass media are among the factors that generate delinquency.
4. . Towards solving this problem, the school and teachers have been caned upon to be alert to the symptoms of the delinquent-prone such as extreme restlessness, hostility, truancy, and any apparent lack of moral standards, .amongst others. 
5.  The government should make provision for social service agency that would give adequate and continuous attention to family situations and parent education. 

6.0 TUTOR-MARKED ASSIGNMENT

1. a. Complete this statement:
‘For preadolescents and adolescents, the law requires that an offender under a certain age be adjudged……...…and not………….. b. Among the places and conditions where the delinquent personality operates are:
c. State any three (3) ways in which the gang contributes to
delinquency rates in Nigeria.

SOCIALISATION

1.0 INTRODUCTION

In the last unit, we discussed the problem of deception. Also, the unit served to introduce us to other units in this course. You can now identify channels of communication, explain deceptive non-verbal cues, and list factors influencing deception attempts. .Time is now ripe for us to discuss another interesting and relevant unit: socialization. We will now consider a significant process. Let us take a look at other content you should learn in this unit as specified in the objectives below.

2.0 OBJECTIVES

At the end of this unit, you should be able to:
define socializing;
identify socializing agents; and
specify the values of interpersonal relationships.

3.0 MAIN CONTENT

3.1 Concept of Socialization

At birth, the human baby is entirely dependent on others. It is subject to certain biological pressures such as hunger, thirst, and the need to eliminate waste. This is referred to as physiological needs in psychology. The human baby has no means of avoiding these tensions and may even be unaware of the precise cause of the discomfort. The mother waits upon its needs, communicates in an elementary way, and allays fear. Early in this process, an incipient social relationship is established between the baby and its mother, when the former cries and the latter responds.


The human being, though born with the potential for social life, must nevertheless undergo a long and often arduous process of socialization. He must learn first to live with others and then to participate in his society in satisfying and rewarding ways. This by no means requires the slavish acquisition of conventional values, it does require, however, that some ethics of self-discipline and self-respect be transmitted, not merely for the sake of the social order but for the sake of individual happiness(Alhassan, 2000:180).


For any society to survive, it is necessary, to transmit to all new members the system of shared meanings, language, customs, values, ideas and material goods that are called culture. Socialization refers to the process of growing up into a human being, a process which necessitates contact with other people. It is through this process that the growing child acquires the language and standards of the social group into which it has been born. Research studies indicate that deprivation of human contact in early life inhibits the development of normal social responses. Note that all human beings, except those born with severe physical handicaps, have the inborn capacity to become fully mature members of society but, in order for this capacity to be realized, the child has to have adequate social relationships with others. It is to be noted that social behaviour in humans is not inborn. In a very important sense, we have to “learn” to be human beings. Ogburn and Nimkoff (1964) describe socialization as a process whereby the individual becomes a person.

SELF-ASSESSMENT EXERCISE 1

Will you say that social behaviour in human beings is inherited? Think very well about this. Respond now. Let us continue our discussion.
According to some psychologists, socialization includes the following aspects:
1. Imitation, identification, and role learning.
2. Acquiring internal controls or conscience, the self-concept; and social roles.
3. Development of various behaviour systems of dependency, aggression, and social affiliations.
4. The relation of the social structure to the processes of socialization, and to their effects (Mukherjee, 1978).

It is important for you to note that the term socialization is broad enough to cover all types of learning. In brief, these include the following:
1. Fundamental psychomotor skills, for example, walking.
2. The communication skills, for example, the ability to use a language. 3. Acquiring to use a language.
4. Other patterns of behaviour expected of an adult, for example,
independence from the mother and development of an awareness of
and control over self.
5. Social skills, for example, the art of conducting oneself among a group of strangers.
6. Ideas, attitudes and values either of the dominant group in society. 7. Occupational skills, for example, the ability to teach in a secondary school.
8. Ideas regarding specific status, for example, the rights and obligations of a husband (Datta, 1986:55).

SELF-ASSESSMENT EXERCISE 2

Will you say socialization and learning are one and the same process? Think before you respond.
Let us go on with our discussion.

3.2 Socializing Agents

The first point you must note in this section is that socialization is not accomplished, willy-nilly, in accordance with personal tastes. Every society has developed specific ways and means of accomplishing it. It may well be that probably all institutions are pertinent to the socialization processes because in all, new members are to be taught the do’s and don’ts of the established order. Obviously, some of them are more important than others to the individual’s induction into the value of his society. The major socializing agents are:


a. The Family: Everywhere, the family plays a central role in socializing the child. Typically, parenting includes a major responsibility for socialization. It is in the family that the child is

born, it is there he spends his early years and learns his first language. The family is the single most important agency for the inculcation of these basic social values and character traits, which make .for the child’s eventual responsible participation in the life of society. It is important for you to note that the recent history of the family represents a gradual but inexorable loss of function and importance in the larger community, but the job of child rearing still belongs to it. The family is of course responsible for the physical and material care of the young ones, but to it is also entrusted their moral
education. When things go wrong, as in juvenile delinquency, common sense tends to place the onus squarely upon the family and to look for shortcomings in the home. The ultimate origin of personality  and character is traced to the dynamics of the parent-child relation, and early childhood experiences within the home is seen as the most important single factor in formation of basic adult attitudes and behaviour. Because family life revolves around basic needs and satisfactions, both
physical and emotional, parents are in a position to inflict painful deprivations and thereby exercise considerable influence in moulding their children.
b. The School: Beginning with nursery school, the family now relinquishes the child to other people and other more impersonal institutions for a good part of the day and for almost the entire period of youthful dependence. The relinquishing of the family’s educative
role to the school is most important during adolescence and early adulthood, when the problem of relating to society and to people outside the family becomes acute. There are teachers at all levels of
the educational systems, and there are all those who are involved in the production of books, magazines, newspapers and television programmes all contributing individually and severally to the socialization process.
c. The Peer Group: Although relationship with parents and the school is important to the child, it is not the only influence in the socialization process. In recent years, psychologists have become
interested in peer relationships. Peers are children of roughly the same age who share similar interests. Children all over the world form peer groups. The young spend most of their time with one
another, and this strengthens their tendency to the approval of their peers at least as much as that of their family. When family ideas are in sharp conflict with peer group ideas, this creates tension between parents and children and tends to reduce the effectiveness of parental control.
The interrelatedness of age-mates in peer groups has come to have a new significance in modem society. Where the family is the important unit of social participation, relation cuts across the
generations. A peer group shelters and protects its members. It gives them psychological sustenance by meeting emotional needs of affection, understanding and acceptance. It invests individuals with
specific status. Since it comprises a small number of persons of equal rank, a peer group can operate as a medium of communication. In all these, it is not surprising that a peer group provides effective
learning situations. It transmits the culture of society in a diluted form, it teaches certain roles and social expectations, and conditions the attitudes and sentiments of its members. Datta (1986) observes that in Africa, much of the peer group socialization was achieved traditionally through the age set system where it was prevalent, though l in most other societies, peers had considerable influence on shaping the behaviour of young adolescents.
d. The Mass Media: The mass media print and electronic are playing an increasingly important role in the socialization process. One index of this is the increasing numbers of newspapers, magazines,
periodicals, and comic booklets that seem to be enjoying increasing patronage. The influence of radio is most pervasive, especially after the introduction of the battery-operated set. The radio has now
penetrated remote corners of every country in Africa. It is cheap to operate, and programmes in many indigenous languages are available. Hachten (1971) reported that the number of transmitters in
the whole of Africa jumped to 370 in 1964 from 151 in 1955. During the same period, the number of radio receivers increased from 350,000 to about 12 million. We can rightly say that the expansion of broadcasting is a measure of its popularity as a source of information. Remember that religious authorities have responsibilities for certain aspects of socialization. So do many others. You deserve commendation for active participation in our discussion. Now, we must go on.

3.3 Sociometry

Successful school work depends, among other things, on such characteristics as the pupil’s personal adjustment, attitudes, and social or group skills. It is therefore important that teachers know how to measure and interpret these personal and social factors and to use the test results in planning classroom activities. Sociometry is the study of patterns of interrelationship existing in a group of people. Essentially, from the measure of interrelationships it is possible to draw up a chart that will give a pictorial representation of some aspects of interpersonal relations. The teacher could generate sociometric data by asking the pupils different questions: for example, the teacher can ask the children to ‘list the person you would like to invite to your birthday party; ‘list the person you would like to sit next to you in class; whom do you prefer as the class game’s master’. The children may be requested to make a single choice or two or three choices. The teacher obtains different kinds of information about the pupil’s preferences from these differently focused questions. For purpose of illustration, suppose we ask twelve children, ‘Whom would you like to sit next to in class?’


Each child is allowed two choices. The teacher charts the answers she receives on a specially constructed table. The teacher then transfers the information from her table to a sociogram

4.0 CONCLUSION

In this unit, yon have learnt significant processes. You have therefore learnt the concept of socialization. In addition, you have learnt agents of socialization and sociometry.

5.0 SUMMARY

What you have learnt in this unit concerns a significant process. You also learnt concept of socialization. In addition, you learnt major socialization agent: the family, for school, the peer group and the mass media. Sociometry is the study of patterns of interrelationship existing in a group of people.

6.0 TUTOR-MARKED ASSIGNMENT 

1.  How will you define socialization? 
2.  List 4 socializing agents? 
3. State 3 types of learning covered by socialization?