Chapter 33 Chapter 19 Psychology Today

Although many in the city think that generalizations are narrow-minded, our appropriate behavior in dealing with people is largely derived from our general assumptions about others.If we sat next to a lady we hadn't met at dinner and learned that she was a pastor of a Presbyterian church and not the author of some unapproved sex-laden autobiography of a celebrity, well, we talked to her must be different.Generalized expectations are often simplistic and inaccurate, but they are necessary assumptions for some people.Without these expectations, we behave like a Yanomamo recently escaped from the Amazon rainforest.

So what goes through your mind when you hear that the stranger sitting at the next table is a psychologist? For most people, this probably means that he or she must have a special eye for human nature, and they specialize in dealing with sick patients.And you've read a lot about psychology by now, and you must have corrected a lot of general misconceptions.You know, the word "psychologist" has more than one meaning, but a very wide range of professions, many of which have nothing to do with a unique vision of human asexuality, and many psychologists are scientists, not healers .There is no generalization, no single image that can contain the skillful and ingenious activities of modern psychologists in their varied work, as the following paragraphs show:

—A man in a white coat bent over the operating table with a scalpel and slowly cut open an Australian kangaroo, hoping to find tiny adrenal glands in its body.This male rat had just died after hours of non-stop copulation; males of this species die after five to 12 hours of frenzied sexual activity, which they only do two weeks out of the year.Examination of the adrenal glands of some of these mice led to an explanation: The length of daylight and average temperatures during the breeding season trigger periods of hyperactive adrenal gland activity in male mice, which in turn triggers prolonged periods of intense mating activity that end in death.The study adds new evidence to the body of knowledge that seasons are thought to have an impact on behavior in mice and humans.

--Two social psychologists hypothesize that the romantic relationships a person experiences in adulthood are modeled on his or her childhood attachments to their parents.They designed a multiple questionnaire, each of which identified the child-parent attachment style and the adult romantic relationships he or she experienced.The researchers designed a small survey using a questionnaire.When they analyzed the answers statistically, they found significant correlations between child-parent attachment styles and being in romantic relationships.This hypothesis was thus confirmed. —a woman with wires tied to her temples sits in front of a video screen as the names of men flash across the screen, one after the other.Nearby, a researcher watched and recorded her brain waves as they appeared on another video screen.He saw normal peaks and troughs—until a flash of a woman's name caused the peak to rise sharply for a moment, indicating a small surprise.Researchers are studying the correlation of brain wave shape and amplitude with the perception of emotional stimuli, one of many steps toward understanding the brain's electrified basis of thought and emotion.

—Ducks were swimming around in a pond on a winter day, and two warmly dressed researchers were standing 30 yards away, one of them throwing crumbs into the water every five seconds, the other Bit throws crumbs into the water every 10 seconds.After a few days of feeding like this, there were twice as many ducks on the side where the crumbs were thrown every 5 seconds.But a few days later, the researchers made some changes: the researcher who fed every 10 seconds threw twice as large crumbs.At first, the ducks ran to the original place as before, and more than half of the ducks liked the side where they threw more frequently, but after 5 minutes, they re-selected their positions, and the ducks on both sides accounted for half of each.The researchers believe this is evidence of a complex innate foraging strategy, with ducks not only considering the frequency of throwing food, but also the average amount of food.The study adds to the knowledge that counts and quantities are expressed non-verbally in the brains of both animals and humans.

-- A team of researchers carefully placed tiny microphones inside the ear canal of a volunteer and seated him in the middle of a ring structure with six speakers at various heights.Then, one after another, the researchers sent white noise (a broad-spectrum murmur) through the speakers, rotating the device 15 degrees at a time, until sounds were being sent from about 144 positions.Volunteers indicate the direction and height of the speaker by passing the angle at a time.Later, the researchers used recordings of microphone lifts to send the voices to the volunteers through headphones instead of speakers.The volunteer could pick out the apparent direction of the sound source with almost as perfect an accuracy as when it was actually played.The experiment also adds to human knowledge of how the mind determines the direction of a sound source based on differences in the time it takes for a sound to reach the ear.

- A group of researchers investigated the use of biofeedback to reduce tension headaches by inducing facial muscle relaxation.They divided subjects into two groups, one group was given biofeedback signals showing when their facial muscles were relaxing, and the other group was given fake biofeedback signals indicating that their facial muscles were relaxing when they were actually relaxed. nervous.Relaxing the facial muscles is supposed to relieve the headache, while tensing the facial muscles can make it worse.However, both groups experienced less headaches due to biofeedback.The researchers concluded that biofeedback data, whether true or false, gave subjects a strong sense of "efficacy," or the ability to exercise control.It is the enhanced sense of efficacy, rather than the degree of muscle relaxation, that reduces and alleviates the frequency and intensity of headaches.

To this jumble of scenes we can add to what we have already seen—from a psychotherapist leading a patient to rediscover his unrealistic ideals through the Socratic method, to a From a developmental psychologist recording the eye movements of a baby as it watches pictures constantly flashing across a screen, to a neuropsychologist injecting adrenaline into a mouse that has learned to navigate a maze to see how the hormone works From affecting its memory, to the steps of a cognitive scientist's effort to program thousands of computers, faced with hundreds of sentences, that would learn language like a baby.

In addition to all this, there are many special interests and activities of psychologists which we have not had time to explore, many of which have considerable relevance to everyday life.Here are a few examples: – Some are investigating the psychology of love and mating selection.For a while this was a fairly hot area of ​​research, then it was sidelined because it was too "soft".More recently, however, there has been a resurgence of love research based on sophisticated statistical analyzes of survey data and interviews.We just looked at an example: a study linking adult romantic styles to child-parent attachment.Here's another example: As we've seen, some early research showed that people tend to fall in love with someone whose personality complements their own ("Opposites attract," is the folk saying.) However, more recently, two The researchers used extremely detailed questionnaires and careful analysis to show that "high self-control people" (some people who are very sensitive to their own behavior) tend to fall in love with people who have the same behavior and interests as themselves, while "low self-control people" But they tend to fall in love with others based on likes and dislikes and two-way upbringing.

—Several research groups have conducted long-term longitudinal studies of people suffering from recurrent bouts of depression.The research team tracked events and changes in the lives of its subjects, linking these to emotional states.Their recent findings reinforce the importance of the "repression theory" of repression, particularly the effects of childhood abuse, family conflict, marital abuse, and other trauma, and the inverse of compensatory factors such as parenting. effect. ——The nature of intelligence has been extensively studied for decades, however, some researchers have now proposed a new concept: intelligence is neither an overall intellectual ability nor a collection of related abilities, but a set of Different processes and strategies, they may operate at different levels in the same person.Howard Gardner of Harvard University said that everyone has seven different intelligences: language ability, logic-mathematical ability, spatial ability, physical movement ability, musical ability, interpersonal relationship ability and interpersonal ability.Research data from Robert J. Sternberg at Yale University show that there are three layers to the intellectual structure: the mind's knowledge of its own capabilities, its use of its accumulated experience, and its assessment of the current situation.

-Many researchers are investigating the sources of gender role behavior and sexual preferences at a much deeper level than previously possible.Some focus on parental influence on brain development, others on genetic abnormalities.Still others focus on family influences, while others emphasize cultural factors.Each group saw its factors as the most influential, however, an emerging view was that in each case everything was involved, to varying degrees.In any human history, the specific interplay is what determines the outcome. —The nature of consciousness is perhaps the deepest mystery in psychology, yet it has long been brushed aside, either because it is impossible to understand or because the question is unimportant.Recently, some researchers believe that this is a crucial question, and a question that can be answered.Francis Crick proposed that the continuous and semi-oscillatory firing of a group of neurons induces a temporal unification of neural activity in many parts of the brain.This form of self-imposed nature is the basis of consciousness.Philip Johnson-Laird likened consciousness to a computer's "operating system," a set of instructions that directs and controls information in whatever program it is.Gerald Edelman believes that low levels of consciousness arise from an interaction between the part of the brain that deals with internal physiological drives and the part that processes information from the outside world. (One possible explanation is that one part of the brain is hungry, another part sees food, and the final "aha" is consciousness.) Higher levels of consciousness, in turn, arise from language and concept formation in the brain The interplay of parts, which can name things and fit them into spheres, distracts the mind from immediate things and thus generates awareness of its own mind. It is such a difficult task to form a typical image of a psychologist's particular interests and activities.But can't we at least consider the typical psychologist as a person?no.Psychologists come in both men and women, in different sizes, heights, colours, ages and levels of education and status. Many people think of a psychologist as being white, male, a "doctor" and, as has been said, necessarily possessing a unique view of human nature and treating many mentally ill people.It is well known that these last two skills, involving insight and therapy, qualify only about half of highly trained psychologists. And the first adjective, white, makes a lot of sense: less than two percent of all doctoral-level psychologists hired are black, less than two percent are Hispanic, and less than one hundred percent are Hispanic. Just over nine out of ten people are Asian. (The situation is not so good for blacks. In 1975 they received 3.8 percent of doctorates in psychology, and in 1990 it was 3.5 percent. Clearly, black Ph.D. Employment opportunities for psychologists are so scarce that there has been no relative increase in doctorate degrees in the field, nor has there been an increase in the distribution of employment positions. Some leaders in the profession are aware of the problem but can do nothing about it. Hispanics and Asians fared much better. Hispanics increased from 1.2 percent of new doctorates in 1975 to 2.9 percent in 1990; 1.1 grew to 2.6.) The second adjective, masculine, used to be true, but not long ago. In 1910, only 10 percent of doctoral psychologists were women; by 1938, that number had become 22 percent.By 1990, it had become forty percent.And, since women now hold three out of five psychology doctorates, they will soon be in the majority.This growth is largely due to growth in clinical psychology, a career that has historically been largely open to women.Academic psychologists have not, and for decades male psychologists have kept female psychologists out of academic positions on the grounds that, once they have children, they will, within a few years, Or abandon their research for life.Correspondingly, male psychologists write more research papers and hold almost all high-level academic and research positions.It is only in relatively recent years that women's names appear in some research papers as well as men's, yet women still do not occupy prominent positions in important psychology departments. The term "doctor" is another misnomer.Indeed, three-quarters of the APA's 100,800 members and an even higher percentage of the APA (an organization we'll get to shortly) have doctorates, or in a few cases All have a doctorate in psychology, or a doctorate in education.However, there are about 150,000 people with a master's or bachelor's degree in psychology, most of whom are outside the APA and APA.They do testing, counseling, psychotherapy, and do some low-level psychology work in factories, kindergartens, schools, clinics, government agencies, and private businesses, and are registered as psychologists by the Census Bureau. To many people, "psychologist" means "professor," and in the early part of this century many psychologists were indeed academics, since they earned their living mainly in academic institutions.Today, only about one-third of doctoral-level members of the American Psychological Association and the American Psychological Association are professor-level researchers, while about half are clinicians in private practice or employed by some clinics, hospitals, and other organizations. Twelve percent work in factories, government agencies, and other services, and the rest work in schools and elsewhere. All this is to say that there are various types of psychologists, some so different from others that they seem to have nothing to do with each other except in the name of the general class. Psychologists and their activities are diverse, as are their interests: although called a science, it is too unusual to be defined or described except in the broadest terms. What we've seen above and what we've seen in previous chapters is evidence of this chaos and variety.Yet to appreciate in greater detail what a varied and chaotic science psychology has become, one need only turn over a few volumes of the Annals of Psychology.The annual yearbook contains about 20 chapters, some reviewing recent work in areas central to psychology such as perception, reasoning, and motor skill acquisition, and others dealing with more esoteric and far-flung topics such as brain dopamine and reward, Physiology of hearing, social and community involvement, hemibrain symmetry, psychology of music, and psychology of religion.Within five or six years, the Yearbook has covered more than 100 different fields, each of which has its subfields, and any subfield may occupy a researcher's entire time and energy. What science is so untidy, so multifarious, so disorganized, to be called a science?Have we any reason to believe that what it says about human nature and the human mind is scientific truth? A century ago, William James, after wittily spelling out what psychology was at the time, sadly said that it was not yet a science, but only "the hope of a science."We have seen how he described it: A string of superficial facts; a little chitchat and bickering about some ideas; some classifications and generalizations at a mere descriptive level; a strong bias that we have different states of mind, that our brains use These states are fixed; however, there is no law like physics, no hypothesis from which we can deduce results. Contrast this claim with what is happening in psychology today: there has been an enormous proliferation of facts, not superficial but subject to sophisticated statistical analysis; Testable explanations and theories, not just opinions; there are also a large number of classifications and generalizations at the theoretical level, and a large number of rules and hypotheses about states of mind and their relationship to brain phenomena, with possible consequences , and often can be inferred and verified through causality.Psychology has long since grown beyond the promise of a science and into the reality of a science. However, this is a science unlike most in that it is complex and complex. In the natural sciences, knowledge is accumulated slowly and progresses toward a deeper understanding of nature.The theory of relativity didn't overthrow Newtonian physics, it just absorbed it and surpassed it to deal with some phenomena that Newton didn't see.Modern evolution doesn't overthrow Darwinism, it just adds more details, exceptions, and complications that explain evidence that Darwin didn't understand.Psychology, in turn, has produced many ad hoc doctrines which have either since been disproved, or which have been shown to apply only to such a limited field of phenomena as to provide a basis for larger and more inclusive theories.Behaviorism is a good example. Furthermore, psychology is full of what Jerome Cagan called "unstable thoughts"—concepts and theoretical accounts that do not refer to a fixed and unchanging reality, but are merely subjective and mutable.Many phenomena in psychology deal with the meaning of certain phenomena to humans, unlike many phenomena in physics that only occur in the physical world; two psychologists using the same word may be talking about completely different things.Kegan recently looked back at some of his previous writing and "realized, what embarrassed me, was that ideas like maturity, memory, and the connectivity of emotions and habits, I always thought they had fixed meanings" .Today, he sees, these ideas, and many others in psychology, can mean different things depending on how a researcher gathers data.One person's definition of fear and his work on the concept refers to a set of physiological phenomena, while another considers fear to be an inner feeling experienced by his subjects when they feel fear.However, the two sets of data do not share common boundaries, and physical signs are often absent in a person who feels fear, and emotions are not found in a person who exhibits their physical signs.The truth of the scientific laws supposed to be made about fear depends on what one means by the word. Also, unlike physics, psychology has many laws that are only true in the culture in which the observation takes place.In recent years, psychologists have become interested in the cross-cultural validity of some of the laws of this science and have found a number of laws that appear to be globally consistent, including Piaget's observations on developmental stages, children's acquisition of elements of language order, the spontaneous human tendency to like to categorize, the tendency for society to muddle through, and other observations.However, they also found that many were valid only in cultural contexts from which these laws were derived, or similar cultural contexts, in which masculinity, femininity, love and jealousy were defined and developed, tendencies towards conformity to the majority and submission to authority, The use of logic in reasoning, the development of kinship and belonging. All of this is not to say that psychology isn't a science.However, this is not a science with a coherent and comprehensive theory, it is an intellectual and scientific junk sale. Thirty years ago, when the cognitive revolution broke through the closed doors of behaviorism, the possibilities seemed exciting and inspiring at first, but confusing and disturbing on closer inspection.David L. Krantz of Lake Forest University has described the beginnings of psychology and what he saw later: When I first learned about psychology, I was thrilled by its broad scope and variety... I paid only a little attention, and most of the time, its introductory texts were not related to each other.In fact, the fact that they don't cover each other just accentuates the novelty of discovery. Later, in graduate school, the excitement generated by such diversity is offset by the ever-increasing emphasis on specialization and the pressure to immerse yourself in only one or two chapters.I've also become more and more aware that diversity in psychology can often be a negative, an indicator of incoherence, or worse, a litmus test for a "fake science"...   The same goes for professional life.Psychology's exciting diversity remains skeptical, and communication between the professions is difficult and sometimes non-existent.With the advent of the information explosion and the continual incorporation of new concerns into various disciplines, the sense of isolation between investigators and conceptual systems has been increasing. Like Krantz, many psychologists are troubled by the variety and incoherence of the field.George Miller derisively called it "the Mental Menagerie".However, zoos still at least contain and control their animals, and in today's psychology, many people have a tendency to flee.A number of physiological psychologists have moved to biology departments, and some university cognitive scientists have moved away from psychology, starting their own departments.Some social psychologists transfer to clinical departments and business schools. A recent review article in The American Psychologist predicts that within the next 50 years, the major fields of study in psychology will break up, acquire separate identities, and create their own departments at universities; psychology Learning is rightly seen as a temporary stage in the development of the behavioral sciences. Others believe that some new concept, doctrine, or metaphor will and must be found to unify the semiautonomous profession of psychology.Raymond Fowler, executive vice president of the American Psychological Association, said: "We must persist in the search for a 'grand unifying theory'. The answer to the problem of diversity cannot be further differentiation." In recent years, a series of theories Scientists have done this in several issues of New Perspectives in Psychology, saying that a new and unifying metaphor or concept is desperately needed and sure to emerge. However, there is another point of view: no single theory is possible, nor is there any need for such a unified theory.Sigmund Koch, who spent decades trying to look at the larger problems of the field, said: "The incoherent problems of psychology are ultimately (should) to be recognized in its place by words like that." The same has been said by others who have studied these matters carefully.In summarizing the comprehensive history of American psychology, Ernest Hilgard said that a unified psychological science was perhaps more an aesthetic ideal than a practical goal, "Psychology can be seen as There are many large families of psychology, which can only be unified through social practice and the branch structure of the university.” David Krantz said, we expect that the branch of psychology may become a member of a closely related family, but, A more realistic model might be a patchy federation, or state-provinces of different republics and peoples, bound together by some common interest, but speaking different languages ​​and living in different worlds , each member is busy with his own business. There are good reasons to doubt that there can be any single theory that can both explain the action of neurotransmitters and crack a code; process.An all-inclusive theory was possible in psychology only when we knew so little, and it is no longer possible. Whether or not the predictions that the science will disintegrate come true, there is a schism that has emerged more recently—an organizational split between academics and scientists, and between clinicians and practitioners. The split between academic and applied psychologists is nothing new in the American Psychological Association.This association was established 100 years ago as an intellectual association, and its members were mainly school teachers and researchers.Applied psychologists have been looked down upon from the very beginning and are rarely chosen for important positions.Their values ​​and goals are considered corrupt, commercial, unscientific and generally filthy.John B. Watson was kicked out of the academy for pornography, but the American Psychological Association ignored him for decades because he sold his skills to the advertising world. Clinicians are viewed as inferior by academic researchers.At the annual meeting of the American Psychological Association in 1917, a small group—then a small number in all—distraught and feeling their interests were being neglected decided to form their own organization, the American Clinical Association of Psychologists.The association slowly grew, and the American Psychological Association took action.It created its own clinical divisions, announced its willingness to accept for membership any member of the American Association of Clinical Psychologists, and modified its procedures with the aim of advancing psychology as a science and Treat it as a profession.It worked: the defectors went home, and the American Association of Clinical Psychologists disbanded. Similar incidents were repeated as the number of clinical and applied psychologists in the American Psychological Association increased.Each time dissatisfied people reorganized into their own organization, the APA further modified its structure to keep them, or to get them back.However, it has been impossible to truly reconcile the interests and worldviews of academic researchers and clinical psychologists.In "The American Psychologist" in 1984, a psychologist borrowed the concept of C. P. Snow and wrote sadly that "the two cultures of psychology" are absolutely incompatible and full of hostility. , and are alienated from each other. What makes this serious is money.Third-party payment for clinical services, made possible through health insurance in the 1970s, began to shrink in the 1980s as a result of Reagan administration policies and the emergence of health maintenance organizations.Clinicians in the APA—by this time they constituted a majority—demanded that the organization accelerate its political activities and raise its profile.This shocked academic researchers.They worried that the American Psychological Association, a historically scientific organization, would become a professional association, with its own monetary and political goals, and quickly become dominated by medical practitioners. In the mid-1980s, the executive directors of the American Psychological Association tried to prevent scientists from leaving the meeting. They devised reorganization methods to protect their interests, but all plans were rejected by the APA Congress.Seeing that a crisis was about to emerge, the congress agreed on a final plan for the reorganization of the miscellaneous quilt, and the members of both sides were not satisfied.The restructuring plan was put to members for approval in 1988, but was rejected by an almost two-to-one vote. This is a decisive event. At the American Psychological Association's annual meeting in Atlanta in 1988, former presidents of the association and prominent academic researchers, including Vonbert Bandura, Kenneth Clark, and Jerome Cagan , George Miller, and Martin Seligman, held an executive meeting in a hotel room.In a spirit of rebellion and defiance, they announced the formation of a new organization, the American Psychological Association, primarily for academic and scientific psychologists.Over the next few weeks, hundreds of scientists resigned from the APA and joined the APA, and hundreds more joined the Society but retained their old memberships.Within a year, the APA had grown to 6,500 members, growing to 13,000 by 1992.It is now smaller than the American Psychological Association, and always has been much smaller, but it is growing, and its leaders project a potential membership of around 30,000. Today, the APA and APA no longer attack each other in public, just as some divorced couples strike a tentative pact for the benefit of their children.Representatives from both societies have held consultations to find possible collaborations.The American Psychological Association even offered to publish a new journal of the American Psychological Association, Psychological Science, although the American Psychological Association chose another publisher, but its past president, Charles Kiesler, gave the American Psychological Association a new journal. The association wrote a letter of thanks.The two organizations do compete to attract more graduate students and new Ph.D. holders, but today, members of the American Psychological Association think it is wise to belong to both organizations.As things stand, the APA continues to grow and serve the scientific public.The American Psychological Association also grows each year and always has a much larger proportion of clinical-professional membership, but it will continue to have many academic-scientific members for whom it publishes, and in Washington and other Regions defend their interests. If all this is confusing, how could it be any other way?In psychology, nothing is simple and nothing is clear, and the field is a good reflection of the messy, complex human mind it studies. · One in six scientists with a doctorate in the United States is a psychologist. • Knowledge of psychology has become essential to the proper functioning of our schools, factories, clinics, and mental institutions, as well as our military forces.All will be enhanced as research leads to a better understanding of human nature. • Unlike many other sciences, basic research in psychology does not produce a marketable product, nor does it serve itself.It must be funded largely by the federal government in the public interest. So how much federal funding for psychology research is appropriate? $20 billion a year? 10 billion? 5 billion? The actual figure: just under $500 million. Psychology research currently receives less than one-ninth of the federal funding of the natural sciences, one-eleventh of the physiology and agricultural sciences, and actually only two percent of federal funding for scientific research.That's a little more than the cost of the two-spaceship program, and a little more than half the cost of a stealth bomber. (Private foundations, another important source of funding for psychology research, contribute about $30 million, less than one-tenth of federal funding.) The American Psychological Association and the American Psychological Association regularly send representatives to Capitol Hill to plead for more funding, but they encounter significant obstacles there.Most federal funding for psychological research comes from the Alcohol, Drug Abuse, and Health Care Administration and the National Institutes of Health, to a lesser extent from some branches of the Department of Defense, still less from the National Science Foundation, and other sporadic Funding comes from other agencies.Representatives of the two societies would thus have to make their claims before a series of committees and subcommittees, which would spread the risk, but would mean having to go to war here and there without any overall high level of funding. In the early decades, psychological research was very simple, just like Thorndike made a maze with broken boards, and then bought a few mice and a few dogs to solve the problem. At that time, the cost was not a problem at all. .However, modern surveys, microelectrode scanning equipment, mainframe computers, and longitudinal surveys conducted by teams of professionals require considerable expense.Still, psychological research pales in comparison to research on new weapons and space travel.然而，我们这个酷爱心理学，并极需要对它的了解，以及它所能带来的益处的国家，却只为它花费年度预算的百分之一的二十五分之一。 今天，我们会对罗马人摇头，他们花费巨额的资金建造城墙，修建道路和水渠，却没有努力研究土生罗马人不断下降的生育力和生产率。人们不禁怀疑，未来的动物会不会在看到我们这个世界的废墟时摇头哀叹，我们花了这么多的钱用在那么多的事情中，却不肯花钱研究人类的天性，因为它可能就是我们得以生存下去的关键。 政府不仅在对心理学研究的资助当中十分吝啬，它还干扰甚至禁止某些研究，有时候是出于可佩服的理由，有时候却很不光彩。 如我们在前面已经看到过的，在60年代民运扩张期间，公共卫生服务处采纳了一些涉及生物医学研究的规定，1971年，卫生、教育和福利局把这些规定扩展到所有有关人类行为的研究中。这些规定尽管不是法律，但它们起着法律条款的作用，可以限制联邦政府对不服从这些规定的单位进行资助。关键的条款要求研究者在进行任何实验过程以前，必须获取受试者在了解情况以后的同意。这种对人权值得赞扬的延伸如果严格实施，会使掩蔽心理学研究或者实验者目标的潜藏不可能进行。甚至要求掩蔽的、相对无害的实验也不可能进行了。 经过数年痛苦的抗议，对社会心理学研究实施的扼杀性条款在1981年大抵就不再起作用了，从这以后，掩蔽性研究又一次能够进行了。可是，控制仍然十分严格，很多有可能会产生有价值成果的研究再没有人去设想，也没有人去试。如普林斯顿大学的爱德华·E·琼斯所言，哪怕在这些要求不再生效以后，“这些条款和机构复审委员会仍然在对我们的思想产生深刻影响。你根本就不会去考虑有可能遇到阻力的实验——人们不可能去想攻克一个问题，因为它需要某种程度的掩蔽，而这又会制造与机构复审委员会之间的麻烦。整条研究线都被扼杀在摇篮之中。” 对研究活动进行的另一项更为严重的干扰是，管理部门会因为政治原因而阻止发放资助金，如在1991年的一次行动，美国心理学家协会的执行董事刘易斯·利普西德称它为“来自最高管理层对研究进行的、创造历史的'镇压'”。 尽管那些调查者都是社会学家，但他们的项目对心理学家也有很大的兴趣，对社会心理学项目发生的事情，也可能很容易地发生在心理学的许多研究项目中。国会山的北卡罗莱那大学的理查德·阿德里和罗纳德·莱因德法斯计划进行对7－12年级的2．4万名少年进行一项调查，经过其父母同意之后，决定对他们问一些问题，以了解其性行为。这会得出阻止少年怀孕、防范艾滋病和其它性传播疾病的有价值的知识。 阿德里和莱因德法斯的提案已成功通过同级复审过程，并得到国立儿童卫生及人类发展研究院的资助批准。接着，卫生及人类服务处（国立儿童卫生及人类发展研究院是其下属机构之一）的秘书长路易斯·沙利文博士在一次保守的电视谈话中被问及这次调查活动。他宣称不知道细节情况，可是，加利福尼亚的一位共和党员，众议员威廉·登尼梅亚公布了调查中的一些提问，因而引起了好几个保守组织成员对卫生及人类服务处的抗议浪潮。沙利文秘书长的应答是不考虑儿童卫生及人类发展研究院的科学家们的意见，并取消资助。刘易斯·利普西德指出，艾滋病现已出现在20岁左右的男女人群之中，因而，他们一定是在少年时期就已经染病，而这项调查有可能得出一些情况，引导我们采取防范性的教育及社会措施。可是，我们再也不可能知道这样一项调查可能取得了什么益处。 阻止社会科学研究的另一个极端的企图却失败了，至少是暂时失败了。众议员登尼梅亚因为他成功扼杀了少年性生活调查而沾沾自喜，进而提出了对1991年的一项法案的修正案，要求重新授权国立卫生研究院，使其有权禁止卫生及人类服务处进行或者支持任何全国性的人类性行为调查。哪怕在一个智力保守的时代，这对众议院来说也是要求太多了，因而以283票对137票否决了这项提案。不过，仍然有137名众议员投了赞成票，这使人感到震惊。国会如果稍为偏向登尼梅亚一边，就有可能扼杀心理学研究，而受害的却是整个国家。 为公平起见，我们得说明，有些想阻挡心理学研究的企图不是来自政府中的保守党，而是来自自由党，特别是来自政府之外激进的反传统团体。 其中的一支力量是“动物权利”运动，其成员最近几年竟诉诸暴力活动，他们冲入医学及心理学实验室，拆毁设备，销毁记录，有时候还带走动物。众议员和参议院都已经提出了议案，以通过联邦政府惩处偷窃或者破坏研究机构的行为，但是，在动物权利组织的游说下，这些议案都没有通过。 研究者们回答说，每一种动物都是以别的生物为代价求得自己的生存的，许多动物是靠吃别的有感情的动物为生的。人类利用其它动物作为食品，也用作实验受试者，以增大人类生存的机会，这比鹰、鹫、蜥蜴或者狮子的行为没有什么更不道德的。至于用动物进行研究的残酷性，威廉·格里诺（他显示，在一种更丰富的环境里发育的老鼠，其长出的大脑比在一个单调的环境中生长的老鼠的大脑量大得多）说，尽管研究会在一些动物身上引起疼痛，可是，“要说实验室条件很残酷，或者甚至说对大部分实验动物而言不是很舒适的话，这与实情不符。”他指出，不仅联邦法律定出了关养和照顾的具体条款，而且还要对每一种利用脊椎动物进行的实验进行复审，可是，“只有很差的科学才会去引发动物疼痛”，因为这会产生痛苦，而这痛苦又会有好多种生理影响，因而使实验结果不纯。因为这个原因，以及研究者的人性的感觉，他说，大多数动物实验根本不会引起明显的疼痛。在那些可能会引发疼痛的情况里，研究者们会使用麻醉剂。 有一种心理学研究一直受到少数民族、激进分子和其它自由人士长达二十多年的攻击，这就是心理能力中的基因差异研究。阿瑟·詹森、H·J·艾森克和菲利普·拉什顿都曾想办法通过统计分析寻找黑人在大多数心理测试中表现都很差的基因原因。因为他们进行的劳动，他们被控诉为种族歧视分子，被学生社团围攻，也受到其他同事的谴责，这些同事不仅不同意他们的发现——他们有权利这样想——而且认为这样的研究在社会上是有害的，应该加以阻止，甚至禁止。 对研究进行的这样一些干扰，在如今这个校园里充满“政治态度”的时代里越来越常见，越来越有害。一件值得注意的案子最近发生在德拉华大学。心理学家琳达·哥特弗莱德森一直在进行一些研究，以显示，智力测试中的差别在劳动操作中显示了比大部分理论家所想的情形大得多的差别。她的研究一直得到保守和颇有争议的“先锋基金”的同意和资助，可是，她的一些论文也通过了同级复审过程，并在有名望的科学期刊上得到发表。 哥特弗莱德森拥有自由主义者的名望。她曾在和平工作团中工作过，在贫民窟里教过书，并在一篇期刊文章里公开宣称，一个人的社会及道德价值并不是其智力水平的函数。可是，她认为，不对一些工人的智力水平进行合适的考虑就把他们分配到一些工作上去，这对社会是有害的，这个观点被一些教研室同事和学生认为是明目张胆的种族歧视。当教研究室成员向大学领导正式提出抗议时，哥特弗莱德森的系主任，这位以前曾高度赞扬她的工作的人给她定了很差的评定，一个教师提拔委员会阻挡她很有希望的提升，教师研究委员会催促该大学更多地拒绝先锋基金的资助，而大学领导们同意了，并削减了哥特弗莱德森的研究资助。 可是，哥特弗莱德森奋力反抗，她请求美国大学教授协会提出抗议，因为她的学术自由受到了侵犯。美国大学教授协会真的提出了抗议，经过长时间的准备和1991年6月的一次听证会后，一位仲裁人驳回了该大学不接受先锋基金的决定，而哥特弗莱德森经过两年为自己继续进行并不受人欢迎的研究的斗争以后，重新回到了自己的研究领域里。 受不受欢迎并不是对真理的检验，研究的合法性并不是由其社会影响决定的，学术自由并不意味着只有探索政治上是正确的一些课题的自由。被认为在政治上不正确的一些研究也许的确被认明是无价值和甚至是有害的——或许也会增加我们对人类的理解，导致对人类生存状态的改善。我们知道，1909年，当弗洛伊德在克拉克大学讲课时，威尔·米切尔这位杰出的医生和将心理学应用于医学的先锋人物却把它称作一个“肮脏下流的家伙”。一所加拿大大学的教务长说，弗洛伊德似乎是在宣扬“回到原始状态”。这些杰出人物离他的工作太近了，无法看出它在未来的价值；我们对哥特弗莱德森的工作离得也太近了，不知道它是否会增加人类的知识，也不知道它会给社会带来损害还是益处。尽管如此，想阻止哥特弗莱德森进行自己的研究工作的企图，比苏利文取消对少年性生活进行的调查和登尼梅亚众议员禁止卫生及人类服务处进行或资助性调查的企图一样好不到哪里去。 我们的旅行使我们在思维的未知领域里走了多远？ 一位在没有图标的大地上摸索前进的人，在看到远处的海洋时会知道，他已经到达了遥远的海岸，即他长途跋涉的终结处。可对于我们来说，没有这样一些遥远的海岸。在科学当中，对真实本质的了解从来就没有一个有限的总量可以知道。我们无法知道向旅途的终结处走了多远，因为根本就没有一个终结。就跟其它所有的科学门类一样，心理学在回答问题的时候只会发现有更多详细的、深刻的问题可以提出来。 不过，我们已经走得足够远了，可以回答许久以前的希腊哲学家和从那以后的其他思想家们提出的一些经典问题了。 对他们提出的一些有关灵魂本质问题的答案，思维和肉体的双重本质以及思维和肉体相互作用的一些方式，现在都包含在我们对现实世界化学和电子现象的理解之中，这些现象在多种层面上发生，以有组织的形式表现出来，产生了我们称作思维的东西。这些现象的水平和组织形式为： －－在最低水平上，即在10埃范围内（1米的十亿分之一）；神经传递器分子，它们以阵发的形式从启动神经元的突触小泡中向它和另外一个神经元的树突之间的间隙里发射。 －－更大几个数量级（数量级涵盖一个约10倍大小的范围）：突触间隙，约1微米（1米的百万分之一）宽，神经传递器分子在这个间隙之间跳跃着，把传递神经元上的信息传送到接受神经元上； ——更高两个数量级：神经元，约100微米，或者1米的万分之一长，被发送出来的脉冲沿着轴索前进，然后在这里被送到连接神经元上； ——再高一个数量级：少数一些连接的神经元按顺序发射的最简单的电路，长约1毫米，产生对比如有方向的视觉刺激有反应的基本反应； －－再高一到两个数量级：1厘米到10厘米长的电路，由几百万连接的神经元构成－硬件（或者更准确地说是湿件），程序就在这里面运行，我们会体验到心理地图、思想和语言； ——最后，另一个更高的数量级：整个在中枢神经系统，长约1米，上述一切都在这里面以各自的组织水平发生。 简单地说，思维就是编程信息的流动，数十亿神经现象有组织的模式使这种流动成为可能。 知觉、记忆、思想、性格和自我是思维的工作程序，它们吸取并利用信息和以突触连接的形式存储在大脑电路中的经验，从而以一种或另一种形式对刺激产生反应。（少数一些哲学心理学家仍然赞同一种大脑现象和来自其中并与之平衡的心理附带现象的二元论，可是，由于大脑死亡时附带现象也不再存在，因此，这个学说与传统的思维－肉体二元论相差无几。） 天生资质与后天培养这个古老的问题——本世纪早期一般是遗传论，后来改为行为主义回答——最近以相互影响说加以回答了。许多种证据显示，天生的倾向，即进化的产物，通过经验得以发育和成型，而经验是通过天生的资质进行感知和解释的。 同一个答案也适用于人的思想从哪里来这个古老的问题：人的思想是经过固定的神经倾向过滤和塑造后，通过经验和学习得来的结果。语言获取就是一个很好的例子。儿童的大脑具有一些特别的区域，能够在很少帮助的情况下将相关联的物体组成抽象的范畴。当固定的线路有缺陷时，学习就很困难或者不可能。一个语言能力天生很差的人不能处理困难的抽象问题，不管他或者她具有多少经验。 我们还看到，也不需要重述，现代心理学对其它某些古老问题的解答：知觉如何工作；思维如何解决问题；我们是如何推理，如何经常无效地推理；如何及什么时候行动是由情绪、有意识的判断和这两者的互相影响决定的；自私或者利他主义的、敌意或者友好的行为模式是如何从家庭和社会经验中潜伏的倾向中构成的。 然而，其它一些问题，却是视觉研究者和立视图的发明人贝拉·朱莱茨所说的“富余问题”。不了解这些问题并不会妨碍科学进程，也不会影响日常的研究工作，因此，回答这些问题是不必要的，而大多数心理学家也相应地忽略了这些问题。意识的本质就是这样一个问题。它的使用或者在人类心理学中的作用尚不清楚，而大多数研究者，包括认知心理学家，都忽略了它，并在自己的研究中绕道而行。可是，如我们在上面看到的，意识现在又得到很多人的重新关注，这表明，当心理学更深入地进入认知过程时，意识不再是一个富余问题。你可能还想得起来，乌尔里奇·莱塞说过，大多数复杂的计算机在很多重要的方面都不及最一般的人类，正是因为它没有对自己作为一个存在物的意识。 就连自由和意志这两个几十年内在心理学中再也找不到的概念，现在也回到前台了。行为主义者把它们当作唯心主义的错觉而扫除出门，认知心理学家回避了这个问题，因为一种自由意志的行动好像是一种没有理由的动作——这个概念被赶出了科学的大门。可是，认知心理学家一直不能够绕开或者忽视选择——如果人们坚持认为过去和当前的力量决定一个人选择的东西的话，这就是一个毫无意义的概念，但又是一个不可回避然而可以观察到的现象。 菲利普·约翰逊－莱尔德认为，思维的操作系统可以在一种自我反射的方式下运行，可以检查它自己的思想和行为，有目的地评估不同行动和可能行动的结果，决定哪些是最好的，并有意地选择来实现它。当我们不追求这个过程时，我们会选择不那么有意识的理由——即斯宾诺莎叫做人类枷锁的状态。当我们在自我反射和评估的基础上进行选择时，我们就接近了人类的自由。 阿尔伯特·班杜拉在他的“自我功效”学说中也得出了类似的结论。他说，自由不应该消极地看作是外部强制力的缺失，而应该积极地看做自我影响的行使： 人类通过操纵符号和参与反射性思想的能力，就可以生成新的思想和创造性的行动，以超越他们过去的经验……通过（自我调节）的行使，他们会积极地确定其情形的本质和他们会变成的东西。 从这以后我们往哪里去呢？ 《心理学年鉴》的每一期都满是对这个领域未来的预测和预告。其中大部分都认为，在很多地方，心理学正打破以前未知的领域，正在进入没有想象到的知识王国，过去的宽泛和粗浅的阐述正在退步，让位给了狭小、具体和可检测的学说。这有可能就是心理学将会沿着它向前发展的道路，除非突然冒出了一位心理生活当中的牛顿，它可以看到拱形的法则，将这个特殊领域里的一些现象统领起来。 还有一种可能是，未来的许多发现跟在过去一样会对人类极为有用，从不起眼的芝麻小事到极可能带来重大后果的大问题——从对儿童教育和记忆力提高的改善，到比如对教育系统的重大改善，以及种族歧视和民族仇恨的消除。 最后，在比以前广泛得多的范围内，心理学肯定会满足最为纯洁和最为人道的欲望，即理解的愿望。阿尔伯特·爱因斯坦曾说：“世界上最无法理解的东西就是，这个世界是可以理解的。”可是，心理学如今却证明这位巨人是错误的。它在使我们对于这个世界的理解易于理解。