Writers like to fancy ourselves as psychological explorers. We love delving into the human psyche in an effort to turn up another way of looking at an old theme or idea. Sadly, when we reference old ideas, we sometimes get it all bungled up. So, because I love you all, and because your bungled messes annoy me, I've gathered a few psychological ideas, or theories if you'd rather, that every writer should be familiar with.
Placebo Effect
A placebo is a “treatment” with no medicinal value and no pharmacological effects. When administered in an orthodox medical context, they have been shown to “cure” and give relief from many different illnesses including: allergies, asthma, cancer, cerebral infarction, depression, diabetes, epilepsy, insomnia, neurosis, skin diseases, ulcers, and warts.
Which Personality?
Schizophrenia comes in many forms – not just the onset of multiple personalities. Catatonic schizophrenics often adapt odd, stationary poses for long periods of time. Paranoid schizophrenics have delusions of control, grandeur, and persecution, and are suspicious of everything around them. Disorganized schizophrenics manifest bizarre thoughts and language and have sudden inappropriate emotional outbursts.
Psycho (Cue movie music)
As writers, we cast many a villain as the blood thirsty psychopath. Clinically, psychopaths have specific diagnostic criteria.
A) Psychopaths show a disregard for, and violation of, the rights of others. They often have a history of being difficult, delinquent, or dangerous.
B) They fail to conform to social norms with respect to lawful behaviors (repeatedly performing acts that are grounds for arrest, imprisonment, and serious jail time). This includes lying, stealing, and cheating.
C) They are always deceitful, as indicated by repeated lying, use of aliases, or conning others for personal profit or pleasure.
D) They are impulsive and fail to plan ahead.
E) They show irritability and aggressiveness, as indicated by repeated physical fights or assaults. They cannot keep still.
F) They manifest a reckless disregard for the physical and psychological safety of others.
G) They are consistently irresponsible as illustrated by their repeated failure to maintain consistent work behavior or to honor financial obligations.
H) They show a lack of remorse. They are indifferent to, or rationalize, having hurt, mistreated, or stolen from another.
Signal Detection Theory
This is used when psychologists want to measure the way we make decisions under conditions of uncertainty. People have to decide whether or not they have detected a stimulus, which depends onboth their sense organs and their expectancy about the stimulus as well as their motivation to be accurate. Or to put it in writer terms: This is the science behind cause and effect. The biological “why” people act a certain way toward certain events.
Hallucinations
Hallucinations are the perception of something that is not there. It involves sensing something while physically awake and conscious that does not exist: a sensation without stimulus. They are known to be associated with sleep deprivation, certain drug use, mental illness, and very specific neurological diseases. Auditory hallucinations occur mostly when the person is alone. They can hear voices, and sometimes music.
Delusions
A delusion is a fixed, persistent, false belief with no basis in reality. A person with delusions often manifests complete certainty and absolute conviction about their beliefs. Delusions aren’t just about ideas. A person can be deluded about physical sensations as well, they can find cool objects to be burning hot and for certain foods to taste entirely different than what anyone else will experience. Clinically, there are five distinct types of delusion:
A) Erotomanic – They believe another person is seriously in love with them. It is often a famous person. While many with this delusion keep it secret, others may expend a great deal of energy trying to contact their delusional lover via emails, visits, and stalking them.
B) Grandiose – These delusions manifest when a person believes (with no evidence) that they are special – they have amazing abilities or have made a vital discovery. Often the delusions are religious and those with the disorder believe they have a unique and privileged relationship with “God.”
C) Jealous – This is the strong but unfounded belief that a partner is unfaithful. Bits of “evidence” are put forward and the person may hire a private detective, attempt to imprison their partner, as well as physically and verbally attack them.
D) Persecutory – This is the belief that someone or some group is conspiring against them. They are often angry and resentful, with deep feelings of injustice. It is the most common type of all the delusionary disorders.
E) Somatic – This is the delusion that one’s own body is strange and is not functioning properly. Things smell, taste, feel, sound, look odd to them. Often, they believe it is the presence of some bug or parasite that is affecting a specific part of their body.
The Rorschach Inkblot Test
The most well-known version of the test comprises ten separate cards of symmetrical inkblots, half colored, half monochrome. The tester gives the person a card at a time and asks them to say what they see. This is repeated. Testers note what is said, how long the person spends looking at each card, which way they hold it, etc. Here are a few typical interpretations:
Frequent responses to small, clearly defined parts of inkblot patters: Obsessional personality with perfectionism and meticulousness
Frequently sees moving animals: Impulsive, demanding immediate gratification
Responses often purely determined by color alone: Emotionally uncontrolled; explosive
Often sees small, passive animals: Passive, dependent personality and attitudes
Tendency to see maps: Guarded and evasive
Often sees facial masks: Reluctant to show the real self
The Good Samaritan
One study identified specific individuals well known for their altruistic acts. The search was to find what they had in common. It showed the most critical life history factor was a traumatic experience or early loss (such as the death of a parent) with the immediate near-simultaneous exposure to the rescuer. The study seemed to suggest that later altruism served as a way to deal with painful feelings of dependency and with feelings of anger and anxiety about loss.
Heuristics
The word itself means to discover. It is used in psychology to describe a method that people use to try and solve problems. Heuristics are “rules of thumb,” sometimes constructed with algorithms which are complicated, logical, procedurally driven ways to solve problems. Heuristics are simple, efficient rules, hard-wired by evolutionary processes or learned. Here are a few examples:
Representative Heuristic: This is the assumption that typical members of a group or category are encountered most frequently without regard to population status.
Availability Heuristic: People remember events or concrete examples more vividly and so overemphasize their importance or probability of happening again over other less memorable events.
Anchoring Heuristic: The cognitive bias that describes the common human tendency to rely too heavily on one trait or piece of information when making decisions
Freudian Theory
Sigmund Freud was one of the most original thinkers of the 19th and 20th centuries. He changed the way we think and talk about ourselves. Freudian theories make a lot of assumptions, but here are the basics:
Behavior is a result of battles and compromises among powerful, often unconscious motives, drives and needs.
Behavior can reflect a motive in a very subtle or disguised way.
The same behavior can reflect different motives at different times or in different people.
People may be more or less aware of the forces guiding their behavior and the conflicts driving them.
Behavior is governed by an energy system, with a relatively fixed amount of energy available at any one time.
The goal of behavior is pleasure (reduction of tension, release of energy).
People are driven primarily by sexual and aggressive instincts.
The expression of these drives can conflict with the demands of society – so the energy that would be released in the fulfillment of these drives must find other channels of release.
There is both a life (eros) and death (thantanos) instinct.
Writers like to fancy ourselves as psychological explorers. We love delving into the human psyche in an effort to turn up another way of looking at an old theme or idea. Sadly, when we reference old ideas, we sometimes get it all bungled up. So, because I love you all, and because your bungled messes annoy me, I've gathered a few psychological ideas, or theories if you'd rather, that every writer should be familiar with.
Which Personality?
Psycho (Cue movie music)
Hallucinations
Delusions
A) Erotomanic – They believe another person is seriously in love with them. It is often a famous person. While many with this delusion keep it secret, others may expend a great deal of energy trying to contact their delusional lover via emails, visits, and stalking them.
B) Grandiose – These delusions manifest when a person believes (with no evidence) that they are special – they have amazing abilities or have made a vital discovery. Often the delusions are religious and those with the disorder believe they have a unique and privileged relationship with “God.”
C) Jealous – This is the strong but unfounded belief that a partner is unfaithful. Bits of “evidence” are put forward and the person may hire a private detective, attempt to imprison their partner, as well as physically and verbally attack them.
D) Persecutory – This is the belief that someone or some group is conspiring against them. They are often angry and resentful, with deep feelings of injustice. It is the most common type of all the delusionary disorders.
E) Somatic – This is the delusion that one’s own body is strange and is not functioning properly. Things smell, taste, feel, sound, look odd to them. Often, they believe it is the presence of some bug or parasite that is affecting a specific part of their body.
Heuristics
Representative Heuristic: This is the assumption that typical members of a group or category are encountered most frequently without regard to population status.
Availability Heuristic: People remember events or concrete examples more vividly and so overemphasize their importance or probability of happening again over other less memorable events.
Anchoring Heuristic: The cognitive bias that describes the common human tendency to rely too heavily on one trait or piece of information when making decisions
Freudian Theory