GEORGIA RULE: RACHEL WILCOX
3 Erich Fromm George Kelly B.F. Skinner OUTLINE 8 Background of Rachel Wilcox Fromm Biography Theory
Relation to Rachel Kelly Skinner 8 RACHEL WILCOX Mother sent her to Idaho from California for the summer to live with her grandmother, Georgia because she is out of control. Her mother is an alcoholic and they have a poor relationship. Georgia has specific rules and doesnt adjust her rules for anyone. Rachel is a troubled teen who gets in a lot of trouble. She was molested by her step-father at 12, he stopped at 14 when her friend threatened to kill him. He bought her a mustang so she would start again, so she crashed it. While being molested she didnt like the sex, but liked when he held her because she felt loved and wanted. Her step-father took away her capability to know what is right and what is wrong. She doesnt know the true meaning of love. 4 Erich Fromm: Brief Biography
1 Born March 23rd, 1900 in Frankfurt, Germany Humanistic psychoanalyst Described parents and self as neurotic Married his own analyst Had an affair with Horney Died in 1980 in Switzerland Fromms Basic Assumptions
In order to understand a personspersonality, one first needs tounderstand their history People have been torn away fromprehistoric union with nature We then acquired the ability to reasonas a result of the human dilemma causedby being torn away from our union withnature Human Needs To be a healthy individual, one needs to be ableto unite with the world and be able to relate tothese human needs in order to find answers totheir existence. Relatedness: the drive for union with anotherperson Transcendence: the desire to rise above apassive and accidental existence by destroyingor creating Rootedness: feel at home in the world, feelingeither a sense of belonging or fixation Sense of Identity: awareness as a separateentity Frame Orientation: how we find our way in theworld The Burden of Freedom When children move further away from theirmothers as they become more independent theyface a burden of freedom. 3 mechanisms of escape Authoritarianism: give up independence infused with something or someone else to acquire strength the person is lacking Destructiveness: destroying people and objects to restore a lost feeling of power Conformity: surrender own identity,meet wishes of others Character Orientation
Productive Orientation: move closer to self- realization or positive freedom (only healthyorientation) Non-productive Orientation: fail to move closerto self-realization or positive freedom Receptive: source of all good lies outside themselves and only way to relate to the world is through receiving things such as love, knowledge, or material possessions Exploitive: take aggressively, egocentric, conceited, seducing, etc. Marketing: change constantly Hoarding: save what is already obtained Personality Disorders
Unhealthy personalities, 3 severe personalitydisorders Necrophilia: attraction to death Malignant Narcissism: interest in own body Incestuous Symbiosis: dependence on mother Fromm and Rachel Human needs
Relatedness: Rachel drove for union with another person. This was shown when she wants to be held by Dr. Simon Ward, her boss. It is also revealed when she is with Harlan. Rootedness: Rachel is fixated. She cant move away from the past. By the end of the movie she feels at home in the world Frame of Orientation:Rachel is crazy and unreasonable. Rachel does not relate to all the human needs, according to Fromm lack of satisfaction from any of these results in insanity Burden of Freedom Three Mechanisms of Escape
Authoritarianism: Unite with Powerful Partner Masochism- feeling of weakness, needs to connect with another person Conformity Rachel surrenders her individuality by meeting the wishes of others Character Orientation
The Nonproductive Orientation Receptive:Rachels only way of relating to theworld is through receiving love and materialpossessions Exploitive: Rachel is aggressive, seductive andarrogant. Rachel does not wait for things tohappen, she takes what she wants George Kelly Biography
Born in 1905 in Kansas Both of his parents were well educatedand helped in formal education of him He attended four different high schoolswithin four years At age 13 was sent away to school inWichita Graduated from Friends University andPark College with a Bachelors degree inPhysics and Mathematics. Then later wenton to study educational sociology in at theUniversity ofKansas and later studiedpsychology at the State University of Iowa During World War II, entered the navy asan aviation psychologist Was an engineer before becoming aclinical psychologist In 1955 published The Psychology ofPersonal Construct Went on to teach and lecture at variousuniversities across the globe He was elected President of the ClinicalDivision and also of the ConsultingDivision of the American PsychologicalAssociation Died March 6, 1967 before he couldcomplete the revisions of the personalconstruct theory 5 Constructive Alternativism
Constructive Alternativism is how the events thatguide are interpretations today are subject tochange. He strongly believed thatinterpretations onlyhave meaning in their time. What is valid at one time may be invalid atanother However not everyone is willing to except newthingsand thus find restructuring to bedisturbing Basic Postulate Peoples behaviours (thoughts and actions) aredirected by the way they see the future. People are frustrated by their view of the futurenot by their past. 2 What is a Construct? Is your view about the world as it wasexperienced and how you will continue toperceive it in the future 6 Kellys theories are based on the fact that ordinary people are scientists too. The 11 Corollaries The Construction Corollary-we constructanticipations using our past experiences The Experience Corollary- when things donthappen the way they have in the past we need toreconstruct The Dichotomy Corollary- place templates on theworld as they guide perceptions and behaviours The Organization Corollary- constructs areconnected; some are underneath others ie. livingthings vs. non-living things The Range Corollary- not every construct isuseful for everything. And what might be narrowfor one person could be broad for another The Modulation Corollary- Some are permeable(open to increased range) where others areimpermeable - Dilation may occur, where you broaden therange of your constructs or Constriction, where you narrow the range of yourconstructs The 11 Corollaries The Choice Corollary- choose what to do based onwhat we anticipate will improve ourunderstanding and thus are ability to anticipate. The Individuality Corollary- since we all havedifferent experiences, everyones construct ofreality is different The Commonality Corollary- just because wereall different doesnt mean we cant be similar- ifwe have similar experiences we will have similarconstructs; we actually spend a great deal of timevalidating from other people. The Fragmentation Corollary- we can beinconsistent within ourselves; rare for a person tohave it all together we all have different rolesthat we play in life The Sociality Corollary- even if you are not reallysimilar to another person you can still relate tothem (important part of role playing, sincewhenever you play a role you either play it withor to someone. Thus you need to relate to them) Psychological Disorders
Psychological Disorder - "Any personalconstruction which is used repeatedly in spite ofconsistent invalidation." The behaviours andthoughts of neurosis, depression, paranoia,schizophrenia, etc., are all examples. used role playing to help reconstruct Kelly and Rachel The 11 Corollaries
Construction Corollary : Rachel anticipates that since she was molested by a father figure, all father figures are the same Experience Corollary : Rachel had to reconstruct her view of father figures when Simon rejected her offer Dichotomy Corollary : movie clip anybody can do anything to anyone, you can only survive Modulation Corollary : Rachel constricted her construct of father figures Choice Corollary Rachel believes that no matter what happens to you, you can only suppress those things that have happened to you in order to move on Fragmentation Corollary Rachel has lied so much, that she can barely tell the difference between the truth and a lie Kelly and Rachel Psychological Disorder
According to Kelly, Rachel would not have a psychological disorder because when her construct of father figures was tested, she reconstructed it to fit the new experience Also when Rachel moved in with her Grandmother, her construct of mother figures had to change Based on Kellys theory, Rachel could not have a psychological disorder B.F. Skinner Biography Born on March 20, 1904, in Susquehanna,Pennsylvania. First born of two children. Skinner feltthat his brother was loved more by bothparents, but he did not feel unloved. He grew up in a good upper-middle-classhome. He attended Hamilton College located inClinton, New York to pursue a bachelorsdegree in English to become a writer. His brother died. Once he failed at becoming a writer hewas determined to become abehaviourist. 1931, graduated with a PhD fromHarvard in psychology. He then got married to Yvonne Blue andthey had 2 daughters. 1938, he published his first book, TheBehaviour of Organisms. 1945, he wrote Walden Two, a novel. Itwas published in 1948. He wrote many important books onbehaviour while he was retired. He died on August 18, 1990 of leukemia. 7 Classical Conditioning
A conditioned response: a conditioned stimulus ispaired with an unconditioned stimulus and is repeatedseveral times until the conditioned stimulus wouldbring about the unconditioned stimulus. Operant Conditioning most human behaviours, according to skinner, are learnedthrough this. The chances that behaviour will be repeated if it isimmediately reinforced by the environment. Most of the time, the behaviour that we want repeated is toodifficult to produce without being shaped by theenvironment first. Reinforcement has 2 effects: strengthening a behaviour andreward. Positive Reinforcement: a stimulus that increases the likelihood of a behaviour reoccurring and thus produces a beneficial environmental condition. Negative Reinforcement: removing an aversive stimulus will increase the likelihood that the earlier behaviour will reoccur; this reduces or avoids a harmful environmental condition. Punishment: introducing an aversive stimulus. This does notstrengthen nor weaken the response. In simple terms,punishment is used to prevent someone from acting in acertain way. An example of punishment would be tellingsomeone to put soap in their mouth for using improperwords such as cursing. human behaviour and personality are influenced by 3 forces
Natural Selection Cultural Evolution/Practices Individuals history of reinforcement Inner States Skinner believed that behaviour must be explainedwith observations. He did not however reject the factthat inner states (such as love) do exist. Self awareness: Skinner believed that people have aconsciousness and are aware of their consciousness. Anexample of this would be they are aware of theirenvironment and are aware of the fact that they are apart of that environment. Drives: Drives simply refer to the effects of deprivationand satiation and to the corresponding probability thatthe organism will respond. Emotions: Behaviour must not be credited to emotions.Skinner accounted for emotions by the possibility ofsurvival and reinforcement. Purpose and intention: physically felt stimuli within aperson and not a rational explanation that are to blamefor someones behaviour. Skinner said to not creditbehaviour to these. Complex Behaviour Higher Mental Processes: Human thought can beanalyzed as long as it does not resort to the mind. Some examples of human thought that can beanalyzed and do not take place inside the mind are:thinking, problem solving, and reminiscing (these areknown as covert behaviours) Creativity: creativity is compared to naturalselection. Creativity is what occurs when random orunintended behaviours just so happen to berewarded. Unconscious Behaviour:behaviours are consideredto be unconscious when it has been covered upbecause of punishment, causing a person not to thinkabout it. Dreams: where behaviours can be expressed withoutbeing punished. Complex Behaviour Contd
Social Behaviour: Skinner believed that individualsbehave and that groups do not. People also formgroups because they are rewarded for it. There are 3 reasons that people remain in a group: Someone remains in a group that is abusing thembecause they are being reinforced to do so. People do not intend to leave a group. The reward is given to an individual being abusedintermittently. This causes the abuse to beintermittent as well and the person to getrewarded every now and then. Control of Human Behaviour
A persons behaviours are controlled by theirenvironments possible events (not by free will), whichin turn can be established by society, another person,or by oneself. Social Control: people act to form groups because thebehaviour can be reinforcing.Groups control thepeople within it by having written or unwritten rules,laws, or customs. Self-control: this is done through manipulating thevariables in ones environment. These variableshowever are outside of the individual (this is for thereason that when people control their own behaviour,they are instilling the same variables that they wouldwhen trying to control another persons behaviour). The Unhealthy Personality
Counteracting Strategies: escape, revolt, passiveresistance. Inappropriate Behaviours: these form fromcounteracting strategies and failure of self-control. Types of inappropriate behaviours: excessively vigorous behaviour excessively restrained behaviour blocking out reality defective self-knowledge (claiming to be something you are not) self punishment Skinner and Rachel Classical Conditioning: Rachels Grandmother conditionsher to believe that when saying Georgia Rule she has donesomething wrong. Operant conditioning Positive reinforcement: Punishment: Rachels forced to hold a bar of soap in her mouth as a punishment for her behaviour (movie clip) Inner states Self-awareness: Rachel is aware of herself and that she is a member of her family. Drives: movie clip (boat scene). After Harlan touches Rachel she has to get the fulfillment of touching him. Complex Behaviour Unconscious behaviour:Rachel is sent to live with her Grandmother for the summer. She sees this as punishment and covers up the reason why. Higher mental processes: reminisces about being molested. Creativity: she finds a way to get what she wants and thinks of sceme(scandalous) Skinner and Rachel contd
Social Behaviour: reward is given to Rachel intermittently by her step father. She is given 2 cars through out them movie. Control of human behaviour: Skinner would saythat Rachel does not determine her own behaviours,rather the environment she is in and her experiences inlife are the determinants of how she behaves. The unhealthy personality Counteracting Strategies: Rachel escapes by going to her Grandmothers for the summer. Inappropriate Behaviours: Rachels failure of self-control. Types of inappropriate behaviours: Blocking out reality: Theres nothing you can do, you just have to move past it Self punishment: Rachel punishes herself by continuing to allow her step father to molest her and not seek help to prevent it. Any Questions or Comments References Psychoanalytic electronic publishing. Erich Fromm. Retrieved on November 8, from Feist, J. & Feist, G.J. (2006). Theories of personality.New York, New York:McGraw-Hill Company. The internet movie database, Georgia rule. Retrieved November 8, 2007 fromlery&path_key= &seq=14. The internet movie database, Georgia rule. Retrieved November 8, 2007 fromlery&path_key= &seq=32 Personal construct psychology, George Kelly. Retrieved on November 15, 2007 from Boeree, G.C. (2006). George Kelly. Retrieved on November 8, 2007 from NNDB, B.F. Skinner. Retrieved on November 8, 2007 from Release Info. net Georgia Rule. Retrieved on November 8, 2007 from