UNIVERSITATEA BABEŞ-BOLYAI CLUJ-NAPOCA

FACULTATEA DE LITERE
DEPARTAMENTUL DE LIMBI STRĂINE SPECIALIZATE

LIMBA ENGLEZĂ
- CURS PRACTIC LIMBAJ
SPECIALIZAT

2016/2017

Asist.univ.dr. CAMELIA-DANIELA TEGLAŞ

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UNIVERSITATEA “BABEŞ-BOLYAI” CLUJ-NAPOCA
FACULTATEA DE LITERE
DEPARTAMENTUL DE LIMBI STRĂINE SPECIALIZATE
Asist. univ. dr. CAMELIA-DANIELA TEGLAŞ
cameliateglas@gmail.com

Study Pack for Students in Psychology and

Education Sciences
2016-2017

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I. Informaţii generale

Date de identificare a cursului

Date de contact ale titularului de curs:

Nume: Teglaş Camelia-Daniela Limba engleza-curs practic limbaj specializat

Birou: Cab.10, DLSS, Horea nr.7 LLU0011; LLU0012
Telefon: 0264/530724 Anul I, sem.1 si 2
E-mail: cameliateglas@gmail.com Curs obligatoriu
Consultaţii:

Condiţionări şi cunoştinţe prerechizite

Cursul este conditionat de deţinerea de cunoştinţe de limba engleză care situeaza studentul la
nivel B1, conform grilei de autoevaluare a Cadrului comun european de referinta a limbilor:
Trebuie avut în vedere faptul că înscrierea la examenul de licenţa la finalul ciclului
bachelor este conditionat de susţinerea şi promovarea unui test de competenţa
lingvistică într-o limba de circulaţie internaţională.

Nota Punctaj TCL in niveluri

10.00 Nivel C2
9.00 - 9.99 Nivel C1
7.00 - 8.99 Nivel B2
5.00 - 6.99 Nivel B1
3.00 - 4.99 Nivel A2
1.00 - 2.99 Nivel A1
0.00 - 0.99 ‒

Descrierea cursului
Este un curs cu obiective specifice care vizează achiziţia de cunoştinţe şi dezvoltarea deprinderilor de
limbă străină ca instrument de formare şi informare academică şi profesională. Tipologia
programului de învăţare are în vedere crearea unui profil de utilizator cu competenţe axate pe
studiul limbajelor de specialitate. În acest sens, studenţii îşi vor dezvolta capacitatea de
conştientizare a stării actuale a cunoştinţelor şi deprinderilor, se vor deprinde să-şi fixeze obiective
reale şi realiste, să-şi selecteze în mod autonom materialele şi să se autoevalueze.

Organizarea temelor în cadrul cursului

Suportul de curs este structurat în “units”, fiecare unitate fiind împărțită în secțiuni ce vizează
dezvoltarea celor patru competențe lingvistice: citire, scriere, vorbire, ascultare. Textele sunt alese
astfel încât să acopere domenii precum psihologia, pedagogia și psihopedagogia specială iar prin
intermediul activităților aferente fiecărei unități se au în vedere următoarele obiective:
- Cunoaşterea şi înţelegerea aprofundată a contextelor şi rolurilor, precum şi a conceptelor, metodelor
şi a discursului/limbajului specific diverselor situaţii de comunicare profesională în mediul academic
de limba engleză, cu accent pe situaţia retorică, formele de comunicare scrisă şi orală, etapele
procesului de scriere şi produsele scrisului academic, precum şi pe deontologia profesională.
- Transferul conceptelor învăţate în activităţi de receptare a textului scris şi de producere vizând
etapele procesului de scriere, organizarea şi dezvoltarea ideilor, structura textului şi strategiile de
comunicare verbală orală şi scrisă la standarde specifice limbii engleze specializate pentru discursul
ştiinţific.
- Elaborarea unor lucrări scrise şi prezentări orale originale care să utilizeze principiile şi tehnicile de
redactare consacrate în mediul academic, cu accent pe genurile predilecte din psihologie şi ştiinţele
educaţiei.
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Formatul şi tipul activităţilor implicate de curs
Cursul este organizat în doua module, corespunzând celor doua semestre de studiu. Activităţile
presupuse de acest curs vor consta în mare parte în studiu şi exerciţii individuale, la care se adaugă
întâlnirile săptămânale cu profesorul. Ele sunt destinate soluţionării, nemediate, a oricăror nelămuriri
de conţinut sau a celor privind sarcinile individuale.

Materiale bibliografice obligatorii

 1.Side, Richard – Wellman, Guy: Grammar & Vocabulary For Cambridge Advanced and
Proficiency, Longman, 2002
 2. Prodromou, L., Grammar and Vocabulary for Cambridge First, Pearson Longman, 2012
 3. Teglaş, Camelia, English Study Pack for Students in Psychology and Education Sciences,
2016
 4. Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English, Longman, 2003
 5. http://granturi.ubbcluj.ro/autodidact
 6. http://www.cambridgeenglish.org/
 7. http://owl.english.purdue.edu/
 8. http://www.psychologytoday.com
 9. http: www. edarticle.com
 10. http.www.simplypsychology.org

Materiale şi instrumente necesare pentru curs

Derularea activităţilor prevăzute necesită accesul studenţilor la următoarele resurse:
- calculator conectat la internet (pentru a putea accesa bazele de date și resursele electronice
suplimentare)
- acces la resursele bibliografice (ex: abonament la Biblioteca British Council)
- acces la echipamente de fotocopiere

Calendarul cursului

MODULE 1/ sem.1
Curs 1/2016
Introduction; The Skill and Practice of Reading; Listening Strategies
Psychology in a Nutshell
Short History of Psychology
Branches of Psychology
Social Psychology

Curs 2/2016
Human Relationships
Brain and Behaviour
Sleep and Dreaming
Education: Pestalozzi, Father of Modern Pedagogy
Special Education: Autism and Communication

Politica de evaluare şi notare

Evaluarea finală se va realiza pe baza unui examen scris desfăşurat în sesiunea de la finele
semestrului 1, respectiv un test complex la finele semestrului 2.
Testul de la finele semestrului 1 este impartit in doua sectiuni - I. Reading Comprehension (7
puncte) si II. Writing (3 puncte).

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 Exercitiile de intelegere a textului vor respecta tipologia celor din suportul de curs – gapped
text, unfinished sentences, synonymy, true/false statements, iar la sectiunea II, studentii vor
elabora un paragraf de opinie pe o tema de specialitate.
Testul de la finele semestrului 2 vizeaza testarea celor 4 competente lingvistice: scriere, citire,
ascultare, vorbire. Este un test pe limbaj academic de specialitate impartit in 2 probe – scrisa
si orala. Proba scrisa cuprinde: Listening Comprehension – exercitii de comprehensiune a
textului ascultat; Reading Comprehension – gapped text, unfinished sentences, synonymy,
true/false statements; Writing – redactarea unui eseu argumentativ. Proba orala presupune
examinarea competentei de vorbire in conversatie si exprimare pe o tema de specialitate.
Fiecare competenta se noteaza de la 0 la 10, nota finala fiind obtinuta din media celor 4 note.

Elemente de deontologie academică

În caz de fraudă sau plagiat, vezi poziţia UBB.

Studenţi cu dizabilităţi
Titularul cursului îşi exprima disponibilitatea, în limita constrângerilor tehnice si de timp, de a adapta
conţinutul şi metodelor de transmitere a informaţiilor precum şi modalităţile de evaluare (examen
oral, examen on line etc) în funcţie de tipul dizabilităţii cursantului. Altfel spus, avem în vedere, ca o
prioritate, facilitarea accesului egal al tuturor cursanţilor la activităţile didactice si de evaluare.

Strategii de studiu recomandate

Date fiind caracteristicile învăţământului la distanţă, se recomandă studenţilor o planificare foarte
riguroasă a secvenţelor de studiu individual, coroborată cu secvenţe de dialog, mediate de reţeaua net,
cu titularul de disciplină. Lectura fiecărui modul şi rezolvarea la timp a lucrărilor de evaluare
garantează nivele înalte de înţelegere a conţinutului tematic şi totodată sporesc şansele promovării cu
succes a acestei discipline.

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UNIT 1 - INTRODUCTION
The Reading Process
Though reading is often considered a passive skill, research in the field of psycholinguistics has
demonstrated that it is actually a highly complex process of interaction between the reader and text.

For example, it has been shown that the reader does not decode the
text in his first language in an orderly, linear fashion, word after word, but rather his eyes move
rapidly over the page, going forward and backward as he perceives meaningful groups of words and
relates these to the non-verbal information at his disposal (that is, to his knowledge of the world and
topic of the written text), thereby deriving meaning from the text.

Reading thus can be seen as the processing of information. The reader brings to the text his own
store of information deriving from his native culture, education, personal experience, and, normally
some specific knowledge of the written text. At the same time, the reader possesses a linguistic
competence, including knowledge of words, of how these words are deployed according to the
linguistic system in order to form sentences, and the rhetorical pattern and linguistic conventions
which characterize different types of text.

Furthermore, in an ideal situation, the reader approaches a text with a genuine motivation to read and
a reading purpose. Whatever the text, he will also have some expectations or predictions regarding
its content and how the text is likely to be organized depending on its genre. As he reads, these
predictions are confirmed or not confirmed by the text. Depending of his reason for reading, he will
use one or more specific strategies.

Reading strategies
When we read in our own language we use – often unconsciously – a variety of reading strategies and
techniques depending on the text and our reason for reading. There are four principal “styles” of
reading:
Skimming involves moving your eyes rapidly over the page or pages in order to get a general idea of
what the text is about, focusing on certain key words or phrases.
Scanning, instead, is a strategy we use when we seek specific pieces of information in a text, such as
names, dates, statistics, or whether a particular topic is treated. Here our expectations are heightened
by our awareness of certain lexical fields or other textural features which are likely to signal the
presence of the information we are looking for.
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Intensive reading is the style we use when we wish to have a very clear and complete understanding
of the written text. This implies a careful de-codification of the writer’s discourse, usually with the
aim of comprehending not only the literal meaning of the text, but also the writer’s deeper purpose,
his position or other eventual text subtleties.
Extensive reading is the term we use to describe the strategies called into play when we read longer
texts either for pleasure or for information, and may involve all the strategies previously mentioned,
which the reader applies according to the individual text and his interest in its various parts.
Thus, the reading style we apply to any given text should be a function of the type and content of the
text on the one hand, and our reading purpose on the other. It is important to use these strategies
appropriately and flexibly: obviously not all texts need to be read intensively, though language
learners often apply only this strategy to texts in foreign languages. In reading English for academic
purposes, for example, it will often suffice to have a general idea of whether certain information is
contained in an article and, if so, where, so that it might be consulted at a later date. On the other
hand, information which is of interest may be located quickly and selected passages focused upon for
the purpose of extracting and annotating specific information.
(Source: Adapted from Jordan, R.R, Academic Writing Course, Longman Publishing Group, 2004)

The “word cloud” below contains the keywords of the text. Use them to write down the
main ideas.

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“If we were supposed to talk more than we listen, we would have two tongues and one ear.”
Mark Twain
The Listening Process (Adapted from http://www.nclrc.org/)

Language learning depends on listening. Listening provides the aural input that serves as the basis for
language acquisition and enables learners to interact in spoken communication.

With the help of language instructors, students learn how they can adjust their listening behaviour to
deal with a variety of situations, types of input, and listening purposes, develop a set of listening
strategies and match appropriate strategies to each listening situation.
Listening Strategies
Listening strategies are techniques or activities that contribute directly to the comprehension and
recall of listening input. Listening strategies can be classified by how the listener processes the input.

Top-down strategies (listening for the main idea, predicting, drawing inferences, summarizing )
are listener based; the listener taps into background knowledge of the topic, the situation or context,
the type of text, and the language. This background knowledge activates a set of expectations that
help the listener to interpret what is heard and anticipate what will come next.

Bottom-up strategies (listening for specific details, recognizing cognates, recognizing word-order
patterns) are text based; the listener relies on the language in the message, that is, the combination of
sounds, words, and grammar that creates meaning.
Strategic listeners also use meta-cognitive strategies to plan, monitor, and evaluate their listening.
 They plan by deciding which listening strategies will serve best in a particular situation.
 They monitor their comprehension and the effectiveness of the selected strategies.
 They evaluate by determining whether they have achieved their listening comprehension
goals and whether the combination of listening strategies selected was an effective one.

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UNIT 2: PSYCHOLOGY IN A NUTSHELL

psychology (n.)
1650s, "study of the soul," from Modern Latin psychologia, probably coined mid-16c. in
Germany by Melanchthon from Latinized form of Greek psykhe- "breath, spirit, soul" (see
psyche) + logia "study of" (see -logy). Meaning "study of the mind" first recorded 1748, from
Christian Wolff's "Psychologia empirica" (1732); main modern behavioral sense is from early
1890s.
(Source: Online Etymology Dictionary www.etymonline.com)

Etymology according to Wikipedia

The word psychology derives from Greek roots meaning study of the psyche, or soul (ψυχή psukhē,
"breath, spirit, soul" and -λογία -logia, "study of" or "research").
(Source: Adapted from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychology)

Definitions according to Wikipedia

The Latin word psychologia was first used by the Croatian humanist and Latinist Marko Marulić in
his book, Psichiologia de ratione animae humanae in the late 15th century or early 16th century. The
earliest known reference to the word psychology in English was by Steven Blankaart in 1694 in The
Physical Dictionary which refers to "Anatomy, which treats the Body, and Psychology, which treats
of the Soul."
In 1890, William James defined psychology as "the science of mental life, both of its phenomena and
their conditions". This definition enjoyed widespread currency for decades. However, this meaning
was contested, notably by radical behaviourists such as John Watson, who in his 1913 manifesto
defined the discipline of psychology as the acquisition of information useful to the control of
behaviour. Also since James defined it, the term more strongly connotes techniques of scientific
experimentation.
(Source: Adapted from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychology)

Listen to the talk. What does the lecturer say about psychology? Tick the best choice.
a. It is about the mind _____
b. It is about behaviour _____
c. It is about philosophy ____
d. It is impossible to define ____
(Source: Adapted from Short, J., English for Psychology in Higher Education Studies, 2010, Garnet Publishing)

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 Psychology is the study of the mind, along with such aspects of
mind as perception, cognition, emotion, and behaviour. In some ways, it has
only been around since the late 1800's, when people like Wilhelm Wundt,
William James, and Sigmund Freud separated it from its various mother
disciplines such as biology, philosophy, and medicine. But in other ways, it has
been around as long as human beings have been discussing human beings. I
Specialist
suspect that cavemen and cavewomen probably sat around the fire talking about Vocabulary
the same things we do: How come their kids are weird, why can't men and behaviour
women get along better, what's with those folks from the next valley, how come cognition
old Zook hasn't been the same since that rock hit him, and what do dreams really discipline
mean. emotion
empirical
Today, psychology tries to be a science. Science is the effort to study a subject
experiment
with an explicit promise to think as logically and stick to the empirical facts as
lobotomize
tightly as is humanly possible. Other sciences - chemistry, physics, biology, etc.
- have had great success this way. Our cave-person ancestors would be
astounded at our understanding of the world around us! But the subject matter of
psychology (and the other human sciences) is harder to pin down. We human
beings are not as cooperative as some green goo in a test tube! It is a nearly
impossible situation: To study the very thing that studies, to research the
researcher, to psychoanalyse the psychoanalyst.
So, as you will see, we still have a long way to go in psychology. We have a
large collection of theories about this part of being human or that part; we have a mind
lot of experiments and other studies about one particular detail of life or another; perception
we have many therapeutic techniques that sometimes work, and sometimes psychology
don't. But there is a steady progress that is easy to see for those of us with, say, a research
half century of life behind us. We are a bit like medicine in that regard: Don't science
forget that it wasn't really that long ago when we didn't have vaccines for simple theory
childhood diseases, or anaesthesia for operations; heart attacks and cancer were therapeutic
things people simply died of, as opposed to things that many people survive; and techniques
mental patients were people we just locked away or lobotomized!
Some day -- sooner rather than later, I think -- we will have the same kinds of Phrases
understanding of the human mind as we are quickly developing of the human to be astounded at
to die of
body. The nice thing is you and I can participate in this process!
to lock away
Source: Adapted from: General Psychology by Dr. C. George Boeree Shippensburg University
http://webspace.ship.edu/cgboer/genpsy.html to pin down
to stick to

Unusual words
Zook
goo

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VOCABULARY ACTIVITIES
Word charts, like the oval diagram below, help students condense and organize data about multiple
traits, facts or attributes associated to a single topic.
A. These definitions, as they appear in the Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English, fit the
words in the chart below. Match them with the words by writing the corresponding letter next to them,
according to the model.

Model: EMOTION = J. a strong human feeling such as love, hate or anger

A. the process of knowing, understanding, and learning something

B. an area of knowledge or teaching that is studied at a university
C. the thing that a person or an animal does
D. based on scientific testing or practical experience, not on ideas
E. a scientific test done to find out how something reacts under certain conditions, or to find out if a
particular idea is true; a process in which you test a new idea or method to see if it is useful or
effective
F. serious study of a subject, in order to discover new facts or test new ideas
G. knowledge about the world, especially based on examining, testing, and proving facts
H. an idea or set of ideas that is intended to explain something about life or the world, especially an
idea that has not yet been proven to be true
I. to remove surgically part of someone’s brain in order to treat their mental problems
J. a strong human feeling such as love, hate or anger

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When we describe things we sometimes need to define them as well, especially in academic writing,
so that is perfectly clear what we mean. We may also need to give examples of what we define, and to
classify.

Simple Definitions
In the Merriam Webster Dictionary we find:
psychology = the science or study of the mind and behavior
the way a person or group thinks
According to the Oxford Dictionary, psychology is defined as:
1. The scientific study of the human mind and its functions, especially those affecting behaviour in a
given context.
2. The mental characteristics or attitude of a person or group

Note: behaviour - British English

behavior - American English
If we look in a dictionary for the word hospital we may find:
hospital = a large building where sick or injured people receive medical treatment.
More formally in writing we would put:
A hospital is a large building where sick or injured people receive medical treatment.
Study these other examples.
A psychiatrist is a doctor who is trained in the treatment of mental illness.
Steel is a strong metal which can be shaped easily.
Who is used for persons, which is used for inanimate objects and animals, where is used for
places.
Complete the following sentences in the same way as the examples above.
a. A college ________________ students receive higher or professional education.
b. A dentist _________________ treats people’s teeth.
c. Steel _____________________ is produced from iron and carbon.
2. Join pairs of sentences by using relative clauses.
e.g. Bronze is an alloy. It is produced from copper and tin.
Bronze is an alloy which is produced from copper and tin.

The sentences below have been mixed up. Join the 8 sentences on the left with the
correct ones from the 10 on the right. Use the appropriate relative pronoun.

1. An engineer is a person a. It produces electricity

2. A microscope is an instrument b. He studies the way in which industry and trade produce
and use wealth.
3. A generator is a machine c. He treats the diseases of animals.
4. A botanist is a person d. It makes distant objects appear nearer and larger.
5. A square is a geometric figure e. He designs machines, buildings or public works.
6. A cucumber is a vegetable f. It gives information on subjects in alphabetical order
7. An economist is a person g. He studies plants
i. It is long and round with a dark green skin and light green
watery flesh
j. It has four equal sides and four right angles
Academic Definitions
Look at the following definition:
Plastics are compounds made with long chains of carbon atoms. In full the definition would be
Plastics are compounds which are made with long chains of carbon atoms.
Often subjects, particularly academic subjects, omit the wh- word in the following way:
Criminology is the study of crime (or illegal acts).
Psychiatry is the study and treatment of mental illness.
Politics is the science of government.
Botany is the science of the structure of plants.

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Write out definitions of the subjects given below.
Use the notes given next to each subject; write in the same style as above.

1. Demography – study – population growth and its structure.

2. Zoology – science – structure, forms and distribution of animals.
3. Biology – science – physical life of animals and plants

…………………………………………………………………...............................................

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………

Academic subjects may be more cautiously defined, thus:

Geography may be defined as the science of the earth’s surface.
Linguistics may be defined as the science of language.
Psychology may be defined as the science of the mind or of mental states and processes.

Write out definitions of the following subjects in the same way as above.
1. Sociology – science – nature and growth of society and social behaviour.
2. Theology – study – religious beliefs and theories
3. Astronomy – science – sun, moon, stars and planets

…………………………………………………………………...............................................

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………

Extended Definitions

It is possible for academic subjects to be defined more specifically. Normally, this can only be done
if more information is given.

Look at the following example (branch has the meaning of division).

Psychology may be defined as the branch of biological science which studies the phenomena of
conscious life and behaviour. (Definition from 1990)
Psychology may be defined as the branch of science which studies all forms of human and animal
behaviour. (Adapted from Collins English Dictionary, 2003)

Write out definitions of the following subjects in the same way as above.
1. Criminal psychology – psychology – investigates the psychology of crime and the criminal.
2. Chemistry – science – deals with the composition and behaviour of substances.
3. Social economics – economics – is concerned with the measurement, causes and consequences
of social problems.

…………………………………………………………………...............................................

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………
……………………………………………………………………………………………………………

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A definition may be extended in order to be more precise and/or to give more information about the
subject. Look carefully at the following examples.

Sociology may be defined as the branch of science which studies the development and
principles of social organization. It is concerned with group behaviour as distinct from the
behaviour of individuals in the group.
Econometrics may be defined as the branch of economics which applies mathematical and
statistical techniques to economic problems. It is concerned with testing the validity of
economic theories and providing means of making quantitative predictions.

Listen to the final part of the lecture in which you will hear a definition of psychology
and some examples. Use the knowledge you gained and write a definition of psychology.

…………………………………………………………………...............................................

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………

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UNIT 3: A SHORT HISTORY OF PSYCHOLOGY

LISTENING ACTIVITIES

Making the most of lectures

During a lecture you should predict and produce. Listen carefully while the lecturer is speaking and take
notes.

Choose the best way to record information from a lecture.

Advantages and disadvantages Two-column table

Cause and effect Spidergram

Classification and definition Tree diagram/ Spidergram

Comparison and contrast Two-column table

Facts and figures Table

Sequence of events Timeline

Stages of a process Flow chart

Question and answer Headings and notes

Study the notes below and try to reconstruct the lecture. Listen to the audio file and check.

435 BCE - Alcameon - optic nerve/ brain→ nervous system → body

129 AD - Galen - cerebro-spinal fluid (brain + nervous system)

1515 - 1564 - Versalius - full anatomy

1690 - Locke - perception from sensory experiences

1758 - 1828 - Gall - neuropsychology

1879 - Wundt - lab research

physical + reflection → psychotherapy

15
 While the subject of psychology in today’s modern world does reflect the discipline’s rich
and colourful history, its origins however differ quite considerably from the contemporary notions of
the field. In order to fully understand what psychology is all about, it is important to first go back into
its history and explore its origins. How did this discipline originate? When did it originate?

Contemporary psychology deals with a vast range of topics, while at the same time looks into human
behavioural patterns and mental processes from the cultural level to the neural level. Psychologists
study all matters pertaining to human mental issues that begin right from birth and continue up until the
death of the person. So, by gaining full understanding of the history of psychology, you will be able to
better understand how the individual topics are studied and what has been learnt so far.

Questions put forward during the Formation of Psychology

Right from the very beginning, the study of psychology has been faced with a number of difficult
questions. The first question of how is psychology defined established it as a separate science, separate
from philosophy and physiology. Other additional questions that psychologists were also faced with
throughout the history of the subject were: What issues and topics should the subject of psychology deal
with? What methods of research should be used when studying psychology? Should research be used in
order to influence education, public policy and other aspects of human behaviour? Is psychology a
science? Should psychology focus on internal mental processes or on observable behaviours?

The Emergence of Psychology: Physiology and Philosophy

While psychology did not really emerge as a separate science until the latter half of the 19th century, its
initial history can be traced right back to the ancient Greeks. During the 1600’s, the famous French
philosopher, Rene Descartes, introduced the concept of dualism, which stressed on the fact that the
body and the mind were basically two separate entities that interacted together to form the normal
human experience. Many of the other issues that are still debated by psychologists today, like relative
contributions of nature vs. nurture, are deep rooted in these early philosophical concepts. So why is
psychology different from philosophy? While many of the early philosophers relied heavily on methods
like logic and observation, the psychologists of today tend to use methods to study and come to
conclusions about the human behaviour and thought. Physiology also made large contributions towards
the eventual emergence of psychology as a science. Early physiology research on behaviour and brain
had a very dramatic impact on psychology as it is today, ultimately leading to the application of many
scientific methodologies that study the human behaviour and thought.

Psychology as a Separate Scientific Discipline

During the mid 19th century, Wilhelm Wundt, a German physiologist started using scientific research
methods to look into reaction times. His works outlined many of the most important connections
between physiology and psychology. So what were Wundt’s views on psychology? He looked upon the
subject as a study of the human consciousness and even sought to apply certain experimental methods in
order to study the internal mental processes. While this process today is known as introspection and is
considered to be highly unscientific and unreliable, in those days it helped set the stage for all the future
experimental methods. And although his influence began to dwindle in the years to come, this impact on
the subject is definitely unquestionable.
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The First School of Thought

One of Wundt’s most famous students, Edward B Titchener, went on to become one of the founders of
psychology’s very first school of thought. According to structuralism, the human consciousness can be
broken down into small parts. Using introspection, trained students attempted to break down reactions
and responses to the most basic of all perceptions and sensations. Though structuralism is notable
because of its emphasis on scientific research methods, it is considered to be unreliable, subjective and
limiting today. When Titchener died, the concept of structuralism also died with him.

Functionalism

Psychology really flourished in America in the 19th century. William James came out on top as the
leading American psychologist during this period and his principles of psychology made him the Father
of American Psychology. His ideas and concepts served as the foundation for a new school of thought,
which was known as functionalism. Functionalism focused on how the human behaviour works towards
helping people comfortably in their respective environments. Functionalists use methods like direct
observation. The functionalists however stressed on the fact that consciousness is an ever changing and
more continuous process. Although functionalism is no longer considered to be a school of thought, it
however did go on to influence the next generation of psychologists.

Sigmund Freud

Up until this point, psychology tended to stress more on the conscious human experience. However,
Sigmund Freud, the famous Austrian physician changed the whole face of psychology in such a
dramatic way by putting forward a theory of personality that stressed on the importance of the
unconscious mind. His work with patients suffering from mental ailments like hysteria led him to
believe that our early childhood experiences as well as our unconscious impulses contribute greatly
towards the development of our adult behaviours and personalities. According to him, psychological
disorders are basically the result of unconscious conflicts that take place within us, and that become
unbalanced or extreme. His theory had a huge impact on the 20th century psychology, influencing the
mental well being as well as many other fields like literature, art and popular culture. Although many of
his concepts are looked upon with scepticism today, his influence on modern psychology cannot be
questioned.

The Emergence of Behaviourism

Psychology evolved dramatically during the 20th century and another school of thought known as
behaviourism became dominant. Behaviourism was a very big change from all of the previous
theoretical perspectives, and rejected emphasis on the conscious as well as the unconscious mind.
Instead it strove to make the discipline a more scientific one by stressing on observable behaviour.

Behaviour stresses on the fact that the subject matter of psychology is basically the behaviour of a
human being. The impact of this school of thought was enormous and it dominated the scene for almost
50 years. Even though it eventually lost its importance, the basic principles of behaviourism are still
used today. Therapeutic methods like token economies and behavioural modification are often used to
help kids overcome maladaptive behaviours and to learn new skills. Conditioning is used in most
situations ranging from education to parenting.

17
The Third Force or Humanistic Psychology

Although behaviourism and psychoanalysis dominated the first half of the 20th century, a new school
of thought, known to us as humanistic psychology emerged during the latter half of the 20th century.
Referred to most as the ‘Third Force’ in psychology, this theoretical concept lays emphasis on
conscious experiences.

Cognitivism

In psychology, cognitivism is a theoretical framework for understanding the mind that gained
credence in the 1950s. The movement was a response to behaviourism which, cognitivists said,
neglected to explain cognition. Cognitive psychology derived its name from the Latin
cognoscere, referring to knowing and information, thus cognitive psychology is an
information-processing psychology derived in part from earlier traditions of the investigation
of thought and problem solving.

Behaviourists acknowledged the existence of thinking, but identified it as a behaviour.

Cognitivists argued that the way people think impacts their behaviour and therefore cannot be a
behaviour in and of itself. Cognitivists later argued that thinking is so essential to psychology
that the study of thinking should become its own field. However, cognitivists typically
presuppose a specific form of mental activity, of the kind advanced by computationalism.

Psychology as it is Today

As you may have already noticed the discipline of psychology has seen enormous change and growth
since its early beginnings with Wundt. The story certainly does not end right here. Psychology has since
continued to change and evolve and new perspectives and ideas have been introduced. Recent
psychological research focuses on many aspects of the human behaviour and experience, right from
impact of cultural and social factors to biological influences on human behaviour.

Today, most of the psychologists don’t identify themselves with a single school of thought. Instead,
they prefer focusing on certain specialty perspectives or areas, often drawing conclusions from a wide
range of theoretical backgrounds. This contemporary approach has contributed new theories and ideas
that still continue to shape the future of psychology.

Adapted from: Natasha Bantwal, Published: 1/27/2008, http://www.buzzle.com/articles/brief-history-of-psychology.html

18
VERB FORMATION

The following chart shows the positive, negative and interrogative (question) forms of all the
principle tenses in English with a brief description of the principle usage.
TENSE POSITIVE NEGATIVE QUESTION USE

They don't
I play tennis Does she know
Simple Present (do not) work Habitual activities - States
on Mondays. him?
in New York.

She went to They didn't

Where did she Actions happening at a defined
Simple Past Paris last (did not)
get that hat? moment in the past.
week. drive to work.

I'll (will)
He will not Decisions made at the moment
meet you at Will they visit
Simple Future (won’t) be about the future, future
the airport us soon?
able to come. predictions, future promises
tomorrow.

They aren't
He's (is) Actions happening at the present
Present (are not) What are you
working at moment. Near future intention
Continuous coming this doing?
the moment. and scheduling.
evening.

He wasn't
I was
(was not) What were you Interrupted past action, action
watching TV
Past Continuous working doing when I happening at a specific moment in
when you
when she called? time in the past.
called.
arrived.

They will not

I'll (will) be What will you
(won't) be
Future cooking be doing next Future action at a specific
living in Paris
Continuous dinner when week at this moment in the future.
this time next
you arrive. time?
year.

He's (is) They're (are)

Future with going to fly not going to Where are you
Future intent or planned action
Going to to Boston invite the going to stay?
next week. Browns.

19
 1) To express an action that was
begun in the past and continues
I've (have)
She hasn't How long have into the present.
seen Mick
Present Perfect (has not) been you worked at 2) To express an action that
three times
to New York. Smith's? happened in the Unspecified past.
this week.
3) To express a recent action that
has a present effect.
She hadn't
I'd (had) Had you ever
(had not)
already eaten seen such a To express an action that happens
Past Perfect been to Rome
before they crazy lady before another action in the past.
before that
came. before that?
trip.
She will not
We'll (will) How long will
(won’t) have To express what will have
have lived you have lived
finished her happened or how long something
Future Perfect here for in France by
homework by will have happened up to a certain
twenty years the end of next
the time we point in the future.
by 2005. year?
arrive.
She's (has) They haven't How long have To express the duration of a
Present Perfect been waiting (have not) you been continuous activity begun in the
Continuous for over three been studying working on that past and continuing into the
hours. for long. problem? present.
She'd (had) I hadn't (had
How long had
been waiting not) been
you been To express the duration of a
Past Perfect for three sleeping for
playing tennis continuous activity begun before
Continuous hours when long when I
when she another activity in the past.
he finally heard the
arrived?
arrived. doorbell ring.
He'll (will)
She will not
have been How long will
(won’t) have To express the duration of an
Future Perfect sleeping for a you have been
been working activity up to a point of time in
Continuous few hours by driving by 6
for long by 5 the future.
the time we o'clock?
o'clock.
arrive.

Source: http://esl.about.com/library/grammar

LANGUAGE FOCUS: Several verbs in the text above are written in italics. Organize them
in the table according to their tenses.

PRESENT SIMPLE
PAST SIMPLE
PRESENT PERFECT
PAST PERFECT
FUTURE

20
Academic textual functions, such as reporting, are signalled by characteristic language uses of tense
and aspect. When reporting findings or significant aspects of people’s work, we use The Present
Simple. The Past Simple is used when referring to the procedures used in individual studies.

A. Read the following excerpts from two research reports and fill in with the appropriate form
of the verb in brackets, according to the academic textual functions used in each of them.

Mood disorders (to affect _1) around forty four million Americans each year. The two most common
mental disorders (to be _2) depression and bipolar disease. There are several factors which researchers
(to believe_3) contribute to mental disorders. Some researchers (to think _4) that the most severe
mood disorders (to be caused_5) by imbalances in the brain’s chemical activity. Researchers also (to
assume _6) the environment can play a part in mood disorders and it may run in families. Some mood
disorders (to prove _7) to be easier to diagnose due to the symptoms that the patient (to display _8),
while others may be a little more difficult and (to require_9) more testing due to the mood disorder
going unrecognized. The good news (to be_10) that with the proper medication and psychotherapy a
person afflicted with a mood disorder can go on and live a productive life.
(Source: Adapted from: http://www.freeonlineresearchpapers.com/diagnosing-mental-disorders)

The most famous experiment Milgram (to conduct _1) was also his most controversial. The issue (to
deal _2) with the people's right to know on what he/she is being studied. On the surface, the
experiment (to look _3) legit and totally scientific. Two people (to be brought _4) in at a time and
each would draw from a hat. One would be the teacher, one the learner. After going over exactly how
the shock treatment (to work _5), the teacher (to go _6) to his control panel and the learner (to be
hooked up _7) to electrodes. The teacher would first read lists of paired words then (to ask _8) the
learner to pair up the now separated words. For each wrong answer the learner (to give _9), an
increasing dose of electricity (to be given _10).
(Source: Adapted from: http://www.free-researchpapers.com/dbs/b11/smu317.shtml)

B. Identify the tenses of the verbs underlined in the following fragment and match them to the
uses suggested in the table below:

The research of consciousness, or states of awareness, has provided numerous interesting and
influential studies. Sleep, dreams, and hypnosis are states of awareness that have intrigued
psychologists because they relate to the quality of psychological interaction with the environment.
States of awareness change constantly, which produces changes in behaviour. Studies in this area
have made great contributions to the understanding of psychology. Researchers pursuing answers
about states of awareness discovered Rapid Eye Movement sleep and how it relates to dreaming.
Rosalind Cartwright, a leading researcher in this area, takes the study of consciousness to another
level by suggesting that people may be able to control what they dream about. Many psychologists
have theorized about why people dream. Sigmund Freud believed that dreams were windows to your
unconscious; that your greatest unfulfilled wishes and fears would be expressed symbolically in your
dreams. Freud's view has been highly influential, and psychotherapists still use dream interpretation
during therapy.
(Source: Adapted from: http://www.free-researchpapers.com/dbs/b6/pnl224.shtml)

USE TENSE VERBS

Habitual activities - States
An action that was begun in the
past and continues into the
present/ An action that
happened in the unspecified
past/ A recent action that has a
present effect.
Actions that happened at a
defined moment in the past.
21
UNIT 4 : BRANCHES OF PSYCHOLOGY

Psychology is a huge topic and conveying the depth and breadth of the subject can be difficult. As a
result, a number of different fields of psychology have emerged to deal with specific subtopics within
the study of the mind, brain and behaviour.
The following are just some of the major fields of psychology.

LISTENING ACTIVITIES

A. Listen carefully to the lecture and complete the tree diagram above with other pieces of
information you consider relevant.

B. Listen again and fill in the gaps with the missing information.

1. Social psychology is applied in _______________ planning.

2. In the ______________ world, social psychologists carry out surveys.
3. Organizational psychology focuses on group ______________ and how people are motivated at
work.
4. Neuropsychology can have an _____________ in the commercial world.
5. Educational psychology is __________ linked to developmental psychology.
6. Personality psychology __________ on analyzing the behaviour of individuals.
7. Counsellors help healthy people to manage ____________ stressful situations.

22
SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY, according to psychologist Gordon Allport, is a discipline that uses
scientific methods "to understand and explain how the thought, feeling and behaviour of individuals
are influenced by the actual, imagined or implied presence of other human beings" (1985).
Social psychology looks at a wide range of social topics, including group behaviour, social
perception, leadership, nonverbal behaviour, conformity, aggression, and prejudice. It is important to
note that social psychology is not just about looking at social influences. Social perception and social
interaction are also vital to understanding social behaviour. [...] Social psychology is often confused
with folk wisdom, personality psychology, and sociology. What makes social psychology different?
Unlike folk wisdom, which relies on anecdotal observations and subjective interpretation, social
psychology employs scientific methods and the empirical study of social phenomena.
Researchers do not just make guesses or assumptions about how people behave; they devise and carry
out experiments that help point out relationships between different variables.
While personality psychology focuses on individual traits, characteristics and thoughts, social
psychology is focused on situations. Social psychologists are interested in the impact that the social
environment and group interactions have on attitudes and behaviours.
Finally, it is important to distinguish between social psychology and sociology. While there are many
similarities between the two, sociology tends to looks at social behaviour and influences at a very
broad-based level. Sociologists are interested in the institutions and cultures that influence how people
behave. Psychologists instead focus on situational variables that affect social behaviour. While
psychology and sociology both study similar topics, they are looking at these topics from different
perspectives.
(Retrieved from: http://psychology.about.com/od/socialpsychology/f/socialpsych.htm)

NEUROPSYCHOLOGY studies the structure and function of the brain as they relate to specific
psychological processes and behaviours. It is an experimental field of psychology that aims to
understand how behaviour and cognition are influenced by brain functioning and is concerned with
the diagnosis and treatment of behavioural and cognitive effects of neurological disorders. Whereas
classical neurology focuses on the physiology of the nervous system and classical psychology is
largely divorced from it, neuropsychology seeks to discover how the brain correlates with the mind. It
thus shares concepts and concerns with neuropsychiatry and with behavioural neurology in general. It
is scientific in its approach, making use of neuroscience, and shares an information processing view of
the mind with cognitive psychology and cognitive science.
Neuropsychology is a relatively new discipline within the field of psychology. There is much debate
as to when societies started considering the functions of different organs. For many centuries, the
brain was thought useless, and was often discarded during burial processes and autopsies. As the field
of medicine developed its understanding of human anatomy and physiology different theories were
developed as to why the body functioned the way it did. Many times, bodily functions were
approached from a religious point of view and abnormalities were blamed on bad spirits and the gods.
The brain has not always been considered the centre of the functioning body. It has taken hundreds of
years to develop our understanding of the brain and how it affects our behaviours.
(Retrieved from: http://psychology.about.com)

DEVELOPMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY is a scientific approach which aims to explain how children

and adults change over time.
A significant proportion of theories within this discipline focus upon development during childhood,
as this is the period during an individual's lifespan when the most change occurs.
Developmental psychologists study a wide range of theoretical areas, such as biological, social,
emotion, and cognitive processes. [...]To describe development it is necessary to focus both on typical

23
patterns of change (normative development) and on individual variations in patterns of change (i.e.
idiographic development).Normative development is typically viewed as a continual and cumulative
process. However, it should be noted that people can change if important aspects of one's life change.
This capacity for change is called plasticity.[...] When trying to explain development, it is important
to consider the relative contribution of both nature and nurture. Nature refers to the process of
biological maturation inheritance and maturation. Nurture refers to the impact of the environment,
which involves the process of learning through experiences.[...]Developmental psychology as a
discipline did not exist before the industrial revolution when the need for an educated workforce led
to the social construction of childhood as a distinct stage in a person's life. [...]However, the
emergence of developmental psychology as a specific discipline can be traced back to 1882 when
Wilhelm Preyer (a German physiologist) published a book entitled The Mind of the Child. [...] During
the 1900s three key figures have dominated the field with their extensive theories of human
development, namely Jean Piaget, Leg Vygotsky, and John Bowlby.
(Adapted from: McLeod, S. A. (2012). Developmental Psychology. Retrieved from www.simplypsychology.org/developmental-
psychology.html)

PERSONALITY PSYCHOLOGY is one of the largest and most popular branches of psychology.
Psychologists strive to understand how personality develops as well as how it influences the way we
think and behave. This area of psychology seeks to understand personality and how it varies among
individuals as well as how people are similar in terms of personality.
While there is no single agreed upon definition of personality, it is often thought of as something that
arises from within the individual and remains fairly consistent throughout life. It encompasses all of
the thoughts, behaviour patterns, and social attitudes that impact how we view ourselves and what we
believe about others and the world around us.
Understanding personality allows psychologists to predict how people will respond in certain
situations and the sorts of things they prefer and value.
In order to understand how researchers study personality psychology, it is important to become
familiar with some of the most influential personality theories, namely the trait theories, the
psychoanalytic theories and the humanistic theories.
Personality psychologists not only study how personality develops - they are also interested in various
problems that may arise. A personality disorder is a chronic and pervasive mental disorder that affects
thoughts, behaviours, and interpersonal functioning. The DSM-5 currently lists 10 different
personality disorders.
In order to study and measure personality, psychologists have developed a number of different
personality tests, assessments, and inventories. Many of these tests are widely used in a variety of
settings.
(Retrieved from http://psychology.about.com/od/personalitydevelopment/p/personality.htm)

CLINICAL PSYCHOLOGY is concerned with the assessment, diagnosis, treatment, and prevention
of mental disorders. While professionals in this field often work in medical settings, clinical
psychologists are not medical doctors and do not prescribe medications in most states.
Clinical psychologists often work in hospitals, private practice, or academic settings. Clinicians are
trained in a range of techniques and theoretical approaches. Some specialize in treating certain
psychological disorders, while others work with clients suffering from a wide variety of problems.
Clinical psychologists treat some of the most severe psychiatric disorders such as schizophrenia and
depression
In addition to working with clients, clinical psychologists have to keep detailed records of client
assessment, diagnosis, therapeutic goals and treatment notes. These records help clinicians and clients
track progress and are often needed for billing and insurance purposes.
Counselling psychologists help people of all ages deal with emotional, social, developmental, and
other life concerns. These professionals use a variety of strategies to help people manage behavioural
issues, cope with stress, alleviate anxiety and distress, and deal with the issues associated with
psychological disorders.
(Retrieved from http://psychology.about.com/od/psychologycareerprofiles/p/clinicalpsych.htm)

24
LANGUAGE FOCUS: THE PASSIVE

FORMING THE PASSIVE

We form the passive using be in an appropriate tense or form + the past participle of a
transitive verb:
A small sum of money was stolen from the cash box.
They ought to have been punished more severely.
Having been beaten in the semi-final, she flew home the
next day.
• In spoken English, we sometimes use get instead of be in the passive:
They got told off for making so much noise.
However, get + -ed is more common with an active
meaning similar to 'become' in phrases like get dressed, get married, etc.
REASONS FOR USING THE PASSIVE
In English, the topic or subject matter is commonly at the beginning of the sentence,
and new information about the subject is normally at the end. In an active sentence, the
'agent' (the person or thing that performs the action) usually comes first and is the subject
of the sentence:

Subject (Agent) Action Result

Olympiakos scored the first goal.
This active sentence is principally about Olympiakos.
•In the passive, the result or thing affected by the action comes first and is the subject of
the sentence:
Subject (Result) Action Agent
The first goal was scored by Olympiakos.
This passive sentence is principally about the goal. We choose between active and passive
because of the topic we are talking about, especially when reporting information. An
English newspaper, assuming its readers are interested in the England football team,
makes the England team the topic. It is likely to report:
England have been beaten by Germany in a penalty shoot-out.
A German newspaper, more interested in their own national team, is likely to report:
Germany has beaten England in a penalty shoot-out.
(Source: Side, R. & Wellman, G. (2001), Grammar and Vocabulary for Cambridge Advanced and Proficiency. Longman

Finish each of the following sentences in such a way that it is as similar as possible to the
sentence before it.
a The car completely destroyed my motorbike.
My motorbike .....................................................

b The judge refused him permission to appeal against the decision.

He .......................................................................
c Blur have earned several million pounds from their new album.

Blur's new album ...............................................

d They suggested we try a new method of checking how much we were spending.
We ……………………………..

25
Prepositions after Passives There are only a few prepositions that can follow the passive verbs. The
most common is by. Other prepositions are with, and in. We use other prepositions when the meaning
requires them. e.g. Emphasis is placed on rote memorization.

Choose the preposition that best completes each sentence. Tick (√) the correct answer.
Model Five in ten toddlers are not read ………. regularly.

a for b by c to √ d with

1. The argument is centred ………. whether or not to encourage children to learn through experience.

a on b towards c of d about

2. The essay must be divided ………. three parts: introduction, body and conclusion.

a to b for c into d with

3. My attention was drawn ………. the pale little boy in the corner.

a with b to c for d on

4. The reading test was prepared ………. great patience.

a by b with c for d from

5. A storm of criticism has been levelled ………. the board of the school.

a against b towards c by d for

Structures with get and have – passive patterns The passive pattern means “arrange for
somebody else to do something” e.g. I’ll get the book brought to you, or “things that happen
to you” e.g. She’s had her computer stolen.

Fill each blank with a suitable word or phrase.

a The video machine is behaving strangely but we're __________________ fixed next week.

b The lights keep flickering: we must ____________________ to look at the wiring for us.

c Tom is not the easiest person to get on with; that's something you'll have ___________ to.

d I ________________________________car broken into the other day and the radio stolen.

e Elderly people can get _____________________ in by con men going from house to house.

26
UNIT 5: SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY
What Is Social Psychology?
What is it that shapes our attitudes? Why are some people such great leaders? How does prejudice
develop and how can we overcome it? These are just a few of the big questions of interest in the field
of social psychology.
Social psychology looks at a wide range of social topics, including group behaviour, social
perception, leadership, nonverbal behaviour, conformity, aggression, and prejudice. It is important to
note that social psychology is not just about looking at social influences. Social perception and social
interaction are also vital to understanding social behaviour.
History of Social Psychology
Early Influences
Aristotle believed that humans were naturally sociable, a necessity which allows us to live together
(an individual centred approach), whilst Plato felt that the state controlled the individual and
encouraged social responsibility through social context (a socio-centred approach).
Hegel (1770–1831) introduced the concept that society has inevitable links with the development of
the social mind. This led to the idea of a group mind, important in the study of social psychology.
Lazarus & Steinthal wrote about Anglo-European influences in 1860. “Volkerpsychologie” emerged,
which focused on the idea of a collective mind. It emphasized the notion that personality develops
because of cultural and community influences, especially through language, which is both a social
product of the community as well as a means of encouraging particular social thought in the
individual. Therefore Wundt (1900–1920) encouraged the methodological study of language and its
influence on the social being.
Early Texts
Texts focusing on social psychology first emerged at the start of the 20th century. The first notable
book in English was published by McDougall in 1908 (An Introduction to Social Psychology), which
included chapters on emotion and sentiment, morality, character and religion, quite different to those
incorporated in the field today. He believed that social behaviour was innate/instinctive and therefore
individual, hence his choice of topics. This belief is not the principle upheld in modern social
psychology, however.
Allport’s work (1924) underpins current thinking to a greater degree, as he acknowledged that social
behaviour results from interactions between people. He also took a methodological approach,
discussing actual research and emphasizing that the field was one of a “science … which studies the
behaviour of the individual in so far as his behaviour stimulates other individuals, or is itself a
reaction to this behaviour” (1942: p. 12). His book also dealt with topics still evident today, such as
emotion, conformity and the effects of an audience on others.
Murchison (1935) published The first handbook on social psychology was published by Murchison in
1935. Murphy & Murphy (1931/37) produced a book summarizing the findings of 1,000 studies in
social psychology. A text by Klineberg (1940) looked at the interaction between social context and
personality development by the 1950s a number of texts were available on the subject.
Early Experiments
There is some disagreement about the first true experiment, but the following are certainly among
some of the most important. Triplett (1898) applied the experimental method to investigate the
performance of cyclists and schoolchildren on how the presence of others influences overall
performance – thus how individual’s are affected and behave in the social context.
By 1935 the study of social norms had developed, looking at how individuals behave according to the
rules of society. This was conducted by Sherif (1935).
Lewin et al. then began experimental research into leadership and group processes by 1939, looking at
effective work ethics under different styles of leadership.
Later Developments
Much of the key research in social psychology developed following World War II, when people
became interested in the behaviour of individuals when grouped together and in social situations. Key
studies were carried out in several areas.

27
Some studies focused on how attitudes are formed, changed by the social context and measured to
ascertain whether change has occurred. Amongst some of the most famous work in social psychology
is that on obedience conducted by Milgram in his “electric shock” study, which looked at the role an
authority figure plays in shaping behaviour. Similarly, Zimbardo’s prison simulation notably
demonstrated conformity to given roles in the social world.
Wider topics then began to emerge, such as social perception, aggression, relationships, decision
making, pro social behaviour and attribution, many of which are central to today’s topics and will be
discussed throughout this website.
Thus the growth years of social psychology occurred during the decades following the 1940s.
(Adapted from: Social Psychology by Saul McLeod available at http://www.simplypsychology.org/social-psychology.html)

How Is Social Psychology Different From Other Disciplines?

It is important to understand how social psychology differs from other disciplines. Social psychology
is often confused with folk wisdom, personality psychology, and sociology. What makes social
psychology different? Unlike folk wisdom, which relies on anecdotal observations and subjective
interpretation, social psychology employs scientific methods and the empirical study of social
phenomena.
Researchers do not just make guesses or assumptions about how people behave; they devise and carry
out experiments that help point out relationships between different variables.
While personality psychology focuses on individual traits, characteristics and thoughts, social
psychology is focused on situations. Social psychologists are interested in the impact that the social
environment and group interactions have on attitudes and behaviours.
Finally, it is important to distinguish between social psychology and sociology. While there are many
similarities between the two, sociology tends to look at social behaviour and influences at a very
broad-based level. Sociologists are interested in the institutions and cultures that influence how people
behave. Psychologists instead focus on situational variables that affect social behaviour. While
psychology and sociology both study similar topics, they are looking at these topics from different
perspectives.
(Adapted from: http://psychology.about.com/od/socialpsychology/f/socialpsych.htm)

Social Psychology Key Figures

Gordon Allport
(1920) – Social Facilitation
Allport introduced the notion that the presence of others (the social group) can facilitate certain
behaviour. It was found that an audience would improve an actors’ performance in well learned/easy
tasks, but leads to a decrease in performance on newly learned/difficult tasks due to social inhibition.

Albert Bandura
(1963) - Social Learning Theory
Bandura introduced the notion that behaviour in the social world could be modelled. Three groups of
children watched a video where an adult was aggressive towards a ‘bobo doll’, and the adult was
either just seen to be doing this, was rewarded by another adult for their behaviour or were punished
for it. Children who had seen the adult rewarded were found to be more likely to copy such behaviour.
28
 Leon Festinger
(1950) – Cognitive Dissonance
Festinger, Schacter and Black brought the idea that when we hold beliefs, attitudes or cognitions
which are different, then we experience dissonance – this is an inconsistency that causes discomfort.
We are motivated to reduce this by either changing one of our thoughts, beliefs or attitudes or
selectively attending to information which supports one of our beliefs and ignores the other (selective
exposure hypothesis).
Dissonance occurs when there are difficult choices or decisions, or when people participate in
behaviour that is contrary to their attitude. Dissonance is thus brought about by effort justification
(when aiming to reach a modest goal), induced compliance (when people are forced to comply
contrary to their attitude) and free choice (when weighing up decisions).

Henri Tajfel
(1971) – Social Identity Theory
When divided into artificial (minimal) groups, prejudice results simply from the awareness that there
is an “out-group” (the other group). When the boys were asked to allocate points to others (which
might be converted into rewards) who were either part of their own group or the out-group, they
displayed a strong in-group preference. That is, they allocated more points on the set task to boys who
they believed to be in the same group as themselves. This can be accounted for by Tajfel & Turner’s
social identity theory, which states that individuals need to maintain a positive sense of personal and
social identity: this is partly achieved by emphasizing the desirability of one’s own group, focusing on
distinctions between other “lesser” groups.

Bernard Weiner
(1986) – Attribution theory
Weiner was interested in the attributions made for experiences of success and failure and introduced
the idea that we look for explanations of behaviour in the social world. He believed that these were
made based on three areas: locus, which could be internal or external; stability, which is whether the
cause is stable or changes over time: and controllability.

29
 Stanley Milgram
(1963) – Shock Experiment
Participants were told that they were taking part in a study on learning, but always acted as the teacher
when they were then responsible for going over paired associate learning tasks. When the learner (a
stooge) got the answer wrong, they were told by a scientist that they had to deliver an electric shock.
This did not actually happen, although the participant was unaware of this as they had themselves a
sample (real!) shock at the start of the experiment. They were encouraged to increase the voltage
given after each incorrect answer up to a maximum voltage, and it was found that all participants gave
shocks up to 300v, with 65 per cent reaching the highest level of 450v.
It seems that obedience is most likely to occur in an unfamiliar environment and in the presence of an
authority figure, especially when covert pressure is put upon people to obey. It is also possible that it
occurs because the participant felt that someone other than themselves was responsible for their
actions.

Philip Zimbardo
Haney, Banks, Zimbardo (1973) – Prison Study
Volunteers took part in a simulation where they were randomly assigned the role of a prisoner or
guard and taken to a converted university basement resembling a prison environment. There was some
basic loss of rights for the prisoners, who were unexpectedly arrested, given a uniform and an
identification number (they were therefore de-individuated).
The study showed that conformity to social roles occurred as part of the social interaction, as both
groups displayed more negative emotions and hostility and dehumanization became apparent.
Prisoners became passive, whilst the guards assumed an active, brutal and dominant role. Although
normative and informational social influence had a role to play here, de-individuation / the loss of a
sense of identity seemed most likely to lead to conformity.
Both this and Milgram’s study introduced the notion of social influence, and the ways in which this
could be observed/tested.

What is a stereotype?
A stereotype is “...a fixed, over generalized belief about a particular group or class of people.”
(Cardwell, 1996).
For example, a “hell's angel” biker dresses in leather.
One advantage of a stereotype is that it enables us to respond rapidly to situations because we may
have had a similar experience before.
One disadvantage is that it makes us ignore differences between individuals; therefore we think things
about people that might not be true (i.e. make generalizations).
The use of stereotypes is a major way in which we simplify our social world; since they reduce the
amount of processing (i.e. thinking) we have to do when we meet a new person.
By stereotyping we infer that a person has a whole range of characteristics and abilities that we
assume all members of that group have. Stereotypes lead to social categorization, which is one of the
reasons for prejudice attitudes (i.e. “them” and “us” mentality) which leads to in-groups and out-
30
groups. Most stereotypes probably tend to convey a negative impression. Positive examples would
include judges (the phrase “sober as a judge” would suggest this is a stereotype with a very
respectable set of characteristics), overweight people (who are often seen as “jolly”) and television
news readers (usually seen as highly dependable, respectable and impartial). Negative stereotypes
seem far more common, however.

What is an attitude?
An attitude is "a relatively enduring organization of beliefs, feelings, and behavioural tendencies
towards socially significant objects, groups, events or symbols" (Hogg, & Vaughan 2005, p. 150)
"..a psychological tendency that is expressed by evaluating a particular entity with some degree of
favour or disfavour" (Eagly, & Chaiken, 1993, p. 1)
Attitudes structure can be described in terms of three components.
Affective component: this involves a person’s feelings / emotions about the attitude object. For
example: “I am scared of spiders”.
Behavioural component: the way the attitude we have influences how we act or behave. For example:
“I will avoid spiders and scream if I see one”.
Cognitive component: this involves a person’s belief / knowledge about an attitude object. For
example: “I believe spiders are dangerous”.
This model is known as the ABC model of attitudes.

Summary Table

Key Features Methodology

 Social Roles  Lab Experiments

 Nurture  Field Experiments
 Conformity  Questionnaires
 Objective Measurement  Observations
 Nomothetic  Ethical Considerations

Basic Assumptions Areas of Application

 All behaviour occurs in a

 Social Influence: conformity, obedience
social context, even when nobody else
 Social Cognition: social
is physically present
identity, attitudes, stereotypes, attribution
 A major influence on
 Social Behaviour: discrimination, relationships,
people's behaviour, thought processes
pro-social
and emotions are other people and the
 Social Development: attachment, self-concept
society they have created

Strengths Limitations

 Scientific
 Ignores biology (e.g. testosterone)
 Emphasizes objective
 Underestimates individual differences
measurement
 Provides only 'superficial snapshots of social
 Many experiments to support
processes' (Hayes, 1995)
theories

(Adapted from: Social Psychology by Saul McLeod available at http://www.simplypsychology.org/social-psychology.html)

31
UNIT 6: HUMAN RELATIONSHIPS
People: Who Needs Them? by Gina Stepp

EXAMINING FRIENDSHIP AND OTHER

SOCIAL BONDS.
People are social beings. It’s an innate trait, undeniable and
inescapable, seated deep in the brain in a pair of little
almond-shaped structures called the amygdala. When these
are missing, human beings lose emotional feeling,
recognition of the emotional significance of family and
friends, and any concept of a social world. They may isolate
themselves, avoiding human contact; but there is no
loneliness, no sorrow, no tears, because they are unable to
comprehend the magnitude of their loss.
In contrast, healthy human beings—amygdala intact—crave human companionship. As much as our
inner cowboy might like the idea of riding off alone into the sunset, real people cannot thrive that way
and will eventually, in actual practice, make a confidant of their horse, car or any other possible stand-
in for a companion. This is not breaking news, of course. Even before the human need for social
bonds was taken up for study by various sciences, it had long been recognized as a fundamental truth
by writers and other observers of human nature. And yet the implications of this truth may sometimes
pass unappreciated.
“No man is an island, entire of itself,” wrote English renaissance poet John Donne around 1624;
“every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main; if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe
is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friends or of thine own were;
any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know
for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.” A priest as well as a poet, Donne is likely to have read some
of the ancient Hebrew writings preserved in the Bible, such as these words attributed to King
Solomon: “Whoever isolates himself seeks his own desire; he breaks out against all sound judgment”
(Proverbs 18:1, English Standard Version).
Even in modern Western society, branded as individualistic to its core, the imperative of social
connection is acknowledged in cultural works of all kinds: “People who need people,” wrote lyricist
Bob Merrill in 1964, “are the luckiest people in the world.” The song went on to focus mainly on
romantic relationships. But while romantic partners certainly qualify as “people who need people,”
they are not by any means the only people who do. We are all in the same boat—whether single,
married, old, young, male, female; regardless of race, culture, or any other delineation—human social
interaction is key to our survival.
But what is “social connection” anyway? How many and what kinds are important?
Before addressing these questions, it will be useful to define terms and sweep down some of the
popular-psychology (pop-psych) cobwebs that may obscure the view when it comes to understanding
the importance of social relationships.

SOCIAL ANIMAL OR LONE RANGER?

The simple word social can evoke a variety of images. Social psychologists use the word to describe
humans as beings that live in an organized, interdependent society. The term social skills describes a
person’s ability to maintain cooperative interpersonal relationships of any kind, whether they are
extremely close bonds or more casual ones. Social bond often refers specifically to friendships, but
from a broader perspective it describes the connection between individuals and their society.
Colloquially, however, social may have an entirely different connotation. At “a social,” we may chat
with people about things that don’t really seem to matter, and in doing so we may judge the
interaction to be shallow, unnecessary, frivolous. We may see some people flitting from conversation
to conversation and label them “social butterflies,” unable to sustain deep relationships. Or we may
32
see others who prefer to sit on the sidelines; we call them “wallflowers” and assume they have
negligible social skills.
Stereotypes such as these are by-products of what may be one of the heaviest of the cobwebs that
obscure an accurate understanding of human relationships, one that has always been a hot topic on
pop-psych bookshelves: personality typing. Especially popular with the general public are the
concepts of extraversion and introversion. These constructs engender passionate debate, with some
books extolling the virtues of extraversion while others counter that introversion is the more
enlightened state. How accurate are such depictions, and where do they come from? Years and years
of research, right?
Certainly a great number of studies have focused on extraverts and introverts, but researchers do not
use these terms in the way most people do. What many journalists who report on such studies fail to
realize is that before individuals are accepted as research subjects, they must score either very high or
very low on psychological tests for extraversion or introversion. Curt and Anne Bartol, both respected
psychologists, professors and authors of multiple criminal psychology textbooks, explain that
“usually, two out of every three people will score in the ‘average’ range on the extraversion
dimension, thus disqualifying them from studies based on extraversion and introversion. Roughly 16
percent of the population are extraverts, and another 16 percent introverts, and the remainder (68
percent) are ambiverts” (Criminal Behaviour: A Psychosocial Approach, emphasis added). In other
words, studies comparing introverts and extraverts examine people who tend toward the extremes—a
minority of the population. It may be tempting to think of extraversion and introversion as two sides
of a coin—that each of us is either one or the other—but this is simply not the case. The concept
should instead be viewed as a scale or spectrum containing a generous (and generally preferable)
middle ground.
Where does the pop-psych concept of introversion and extraversion come from, then? While it has
morphed somewhat since its inception, this either-or view of personality was initially developed
by Carl Jung, who along with Sigmund Freud and Alfred Adler is considered a father of modern
psychotherapy. To Jung the distinction was not about social inclinations, however. Rather it
concerned the direction in which one’s “psychic energy” flowed; introverts preferred to focus on such
things as their inner feelings, dreams and fantasies, while extraverts tended to focus on outward,
tangible realities—not just other people but things. Jung, who was undoubtedly intrigued by his own
dreams and visions, was also fascinated by mystical traditions—particularly those with heavy
symbolism such as Gnosticism, alchemy and Kabbalah. Shadows of these philosophies can be
recognized in his views on personality.
Following Jung’s typology to the letter, Katharine Cook Briggs (1875–1968), together with her
daughter, Isabel Briggs Myers (1897–1980), developed the now popular Myers-Briggs Type Indicator
(MBTI). Although neither was a psychologist, both have been described as keen “observers of human
behaviour.” Katharine had studied personalities by reading various biographies, so when she came
across Jung’s book Psychological Types in the 1920s, it resonated with her at such a level that she
brought it to her daughter’s attention, and the two women were motivated to develop a personality test
based on its principles. In 1943 the first version of the MBTI was published, and Myers in particular
worked over the next few decades to refine the test items in hopes of helping ordinary people identify
their Jungian personality type.
While the MBTI is perhaps the most widely administered personality test in popular circles today, it is
not as extensively used by psychologists and clinicians. To some degree this is because it is designed
specifically to apply Jung’s theories of psychological types—an approach not widely followed by
today’s mental health practitioners. Questions are structured for only yes or no answers, with no
degrees of choice available. This is because Jungian theory and the MBTI assume that people
gravitate toward one pole or the other on personality measures.
In contrast, personality tests such as the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire or the Minnesota
Multiphasic Personality Inventory gauge personality traits on continuums. Psychologists prefer these
tests over the MBTI because of their ability to measure what they purport to measure in mental health
assessments. And while many of these other tests also include scales to measure something called
“introversion” or “extraversion,” they do not use the terms in the Jungian sense.

33
With this background in mind as we explore the importance of social relationships, then, it seems that
the most helpful approach would be to avoid labelling ourselves and others with generally
misunderstood and misapplied terms such as these and to focus instead on the universally shared and
well-recognized human need to connect.

RECONSIDERING FRIENDSHIP
How important is our need for social bonds? So important that we come into the world with it, just as
we arrive with a need for food and water, clothing and shelter. If any of these requirements is missing,
we fail to thrive.
“Do not protect yourself by a fence, but rather by your friends.” (Czech proverb)
Naturally our first ties are typically with family members, but while these may be among our most
formative they are not the only relationships we will need over the course of our lives. Peer
relationships begin to have an influence on our development fairly early in childhood, and the pro-
social skills we develop during these years affect many measures of health and well-being in
adulthood. Studies across cultural contexts indicate that those who lack strong social networks are
more likely to succumb to (and have difficulty recovering from) mental and physical illness. As we
age, friends tend to outnumber family in these networks, giving them an ever more important role in
keeping us healthy.
But besides the benefits to physical, mental and emotional resilience conferred by a solid network of
supportive social bonds, friendships serve other important functions. In part, we learn about who we
are and who we hope to become through feedback from others. With some of these others, we will
have deep and lasting relationships. With some we’ll have more casual relationships. But the
importance of what we learn about ourselves from their feedback may have very little to do with the
perceived depth of the individual relationship. Even our most casual relationships are capable of
influencing us in surprisingly profound ways, as some researchers have found, and even in the
Internet age it seems that friendships remain very diverse and complex in the lives of most people.
In their effort to understand this complexity, British social researchers Liz Spencer and Ray Pahl
undertook a detailed analysis of the nature of friendship and its role in today’s society. Published in
2006 as Rethinking Friendship: Hidden Solidarities Today, the study mapped the “personal
communities” of men and women across different ages, life-course stages, and socio-economic and
ethnic backgrounds throughout Britain. The researchers looked for any existing patterns while also
observing the rich variety in the way people arrange their social worlds. Interestingly, rather than
bolstering fears that the Internet has weakened social ties and made face-to-face interaction obsolete,
they found that “there has not been a mass retreat from face-to-face sociability, and it seems that the
Internet is mainly used to complement and sustain existing relationships, rather than creating entirely
new personal networks.” In examining through in-depth interviews the kinds of relationships people
include in their personal communities, Spencer and Pahl observed that family and friends are not
necessarily distinct groups in the minds of most. Some friends may be valued as family, while some
family members may enjoy more of a friend-like status than others do. They also exposed a depth of
field in patterns of friend-making that makes it clear why terms such
as extraversion and introversion are woefully inadequate and even misleading when used to describe
human modes of social interaction.
“Without knowing something about the quality of different friendships, it is difficult to draw many
conclusions from the fact that some people include more than twenty friends [in their personal
community maps], others just one or two,” Spencer and Pahl observed. In fact, their study turned up at
least seven prominent forms of overall personal communities, eight types of friendships and four
kinds of friendship repertoires, a term intended to describe the roles people allow friends to play in
their personal community.
For instance, those with a basic friendship repertoire might look only to family members or a partner
for supportive, confiding relationships, or might prefer “to sort things out on their own.” They may
allow friends to play limited, casual roles, but they do not view friends as confidants or
support networks.

34
People with an intense repertoire define their personal community only by their closest, most complex
relationships. Their personal community map would not include any level of friendship beyond, for
instance, a best friend or soul mate-type friendship such as a partner or other important
family member.
In contrast, those with a focal repertoire would include both simple and complex friendships in their
personal community maps, although they would distinguish between a small core of soul mates or
confidants alongside a larger variety of associates and “fun” friends.
Last but by no means least (though they do not intend any of their categorizations to describe the full
limits of the nature of friendship) is what Spencer and Pahl term broad repertoires. Individuals with a
broad friendship repertoire would include both simple and complex friendships, much as those with a
focal repertoire might. However, their maps contain an even wider range of friendship types,
including representatives of almost all of the eight types of friends: associates, useful contacts, favour
friends, fun friends, helpmates, comforters, confidants and soul mates. “Friends play many different
roles and people with this kind of repertoire take their friendships very seriously,” observed Spencer
and Pahl. “They tend to appreciate the particular qualities of different kinds of friendship.”
While social commentators sometimes dismiss the importance of relationships based on sociability
and fun, Spencer and Pahl found that these relationships can be stress relievers, making important
contributions to emotional resilience. As one of their research subjects noted, “Because life is so
serious most of the time, … it is nice to meet people that you can relax with… . Nowadays everybody
works so hard and it’s so fast, that sometimes you just need to get away from it and have a really good
laugh together.”
This sentiment can actually claim empirical support, in the sense that persistently talking about a
problem (rumination) has been linked by researchers to unhappiness and even depression, and while it
can certainly help to share a problem with a friend, mulling over it incessantly has the opposite effect.
In addition to fuelling depression and impairing problem-solving abilities, rumination tends to wear
down the compassion of one’s social network, driving away even the closest of friends. Clearly,
considering this factor alone, it can be useful for a social support network to include some friends
with whom troubles can be shared and others who might serve as distractions.
Indeed, when Spencer and Pahl compared the results of mental-health and well-being measures to the
personal community structures of their subjects, they found some interesting patterns. Poor mental
health scores were clustered among those with very small personal communities as well as those
whose personal communities were fragile, whether due to family instability during childhood or
simply through failure to nurture friendships. Spencer and Pahl attribute this mental health pattern to
the fact that people with broader personal communities have a range of people to rely on for support.
On the other hand, people who have “all their eggs in one basket” are likely to find their entire world
rocked if their sole supportive relationship becomes unavailable.
Spencer and Pahl’s study is not simply one more proof that social relationships are essential to human
health. One of its most important contributions to our understanding of social bonds is the fact that
our connections are so richly diverse and our patterns of forming and maintaining them so individual
that labels such as “introvert” or “extravert,” or claims that the Internet spells the death of social
interaction, completely miss the point. As human beings, our need for social interaction is innate.
Introvert, extravert or ambivert, everybody needs a variety of bonds with other people in order to be
mentally, physically and emotionally healthy.
It would seem, then, that people who need people aren’t just the luckiest people in the world, or even
just the happiest people. They’re the only people. They are all of us.

SELECTED REFERENCES:
1 Curt R. Bartol and Anne M. Bartol, Criminal Behavior: A Psychosocial Approach, 8th edition (2008). 2 Daniel Goleman, Emotional
Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ, 10th anniversary ed. (1995, 2006). 3 David S. Nichols, Essentials of MMPI-2
Assessment (2001). 4Annie Murphy Paul, The Cult of Personality Testing: How Personality Tests Are Leading Us to Miseducate Our
Children, Mismanage Our Companies, and Misunderstand Ourselves (2004). 5Naomi L. Quenk, Essentials of Myers-Briggs Type Indicator
Assessment, 2nd ed. (2009). 6 Mary K. Rothbart, Becoming Who We Are: Temperament and Personality in Development (2011). 7 Liz
Spencer and Ray Pahl, Rethinking Friendship: Hidden Solidarities Today (2006). 8 Jane Waldfogel, What Children Need (2006).

(Adapted from: https://www.vision.org/visionmedia/social-relationships-introvert-vs-extrovert/50363.aspx)

35
VOCABULARY ACTIVITIES:

Choose the term from the list below that best completes each sentence. Write the correct term in the
space provided.

complementarity social psychology

ego-support value stimulation value
physical proximity utility value social cognition

1. An attraction between opposite types of people might develop due to the principle of
______________.
2. The field of _________________ studies how we perceive, store, and retrieve information about
social interactions.
3. The friends you study with have __________________because they help you to achieve your goal
of getting good grades.
4. The field of __________________studies how our thoughts, feelings, perceptions, and behaviours
are influenced by our interaction with others.
5. Your friend Margie is always there for you, in good times and bad. You appreciate Margie for her
_________________.
6. The closer the ____________________of two individuals, the more likely they are to become
friends.
7. A friend who is interesting or imaginative and who can introduce you to new ideas or experiences
has ________________________ .

WRITING:

Write a story about the conflicts that exist in a fictitious family due to generational
identity. The family should be an “extended family” made up of several generations.

36
UNIT 7: BRAIN AND BEHAVIOUR

Neuropsychology, a relatively new discipline within the field of psychology, is the branch
which is concerned with the study of the structure of the brain and the effect that stimuli may have on
the nervous system and behaviour. Neuropsychology is especially useful in the field of medicine; for
example, a neuropsychologist may analyze people's behaviour when they have taken specific drugs.

LISTENING ACTIVITIES
The lecture you are going to hear focuses on the problem of drug dependency amongst teenagers and
young people. Listen carefully and take notes. Organize your information in a spidergram.

- -

DRUG

DEPENDENCY

- -

37
ACADEMIC WRITING

Opinion Paragraph

The opinion paragraph starts with a clear and original view point or attitude about a topic. Never use
expressions such as “In my opinion” or “I think”. You should directly start on with your opinion as it
is a truth. Instead of saying, “In my opinion life is worth living fully.” just write, “Life is worth living
fully.” Convincing as well as persuasive styles should be the most common throughout the whole
paragraph. An opinion without clear and vigorous arguments that support and sustain it is not at all
inspiring for the reader. You should also bear in mind that arguments are not new opinions, but only
an attempt to support the opinion with the most appropriate evidence. Therefore you should be careful
about the way the topic sentence is managed and reinforced through logical, resistant and easy to
assimilate supporting details, namely arguments. Examples are the most helpful tools to clarify and
back up your arguments. They should be positive statements aiming at bringing about the reader’s
involvement and understanding.
The concluding sentence, on the other hand, should not raise a new opinion or present an open
statement. It should be cautiously dealt with in order to echo the whole paragraph or at least to
paraphrase the topic sentence.

WRITING ACTIVITIES
Look at the information you organized in the spidergram as well as at the brief notes above and write
an opinion paragraph entitled Teen Drug Abuse

38
READING COMPREHENSION:

Your Brain on Fiction

Amid the squawks and pings of our digital devices, the old-fashioned virtues of reading novels can
seem faded, even futile. But new support for the value of fiction is arriving from an unexpected
quarter: neuroscience. Brain scans are revealing what happens in our heads when we read a detailed
description, an evocative metaphor or an emotional exchange between characters. Stories, this
research is showing, stimulate the brain and even change how we act in life. Researchers have long
known that the “classical” language regions, like Broca’s area and Wernicke’s area, are involved in
how the brain interprets written words. What scientists have come to realize in the last few years is
that narratives activate many other parts of our brains as well, suggesting why the experience of
reading can feel so alive. Words like lavender, cinnamon and soap, for example, elicit a response not
only from the language-processing areas of our brains, but also those devoted to dealing with smells.

In a 2006 study published in the journal NeuroImage, researchers in Spain asked participants to read
words with strong odour associations, along with neutral words, while their brains were being scanned
by a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) machine. When subjects looked at the Spanish
words for perfume and coffee, their primary olfactory cortex lit up; when they saw the words that
mean chair and key, this region remained dark. The way the brain handles metaphors has also
received extensive study; some scientists have contended that figures of speech like “a rough day” are
so familiar that they are treated simply as words and no more. Last month, however, a team of
researchers from Emory University reported in Brain & Language that when subjects in their
laboratory read a metaphor involving texture, the sensory cortex, responsible for perceiving texture
through touch, became active. Metaphors like “The singer had a velvet voice” and “He had leathery
hands” roused the sensory cortex, while phrases matched for meaning, like “The singer had a pleasing
voice” and “He had strong hands,” did not. Researchers have discovered that words describing motion
also stimulate regions of the brain distinct from language-processing areas. In a study led by the
cognitive scientist Véronique Boulenger, of the Laboratory of Language Dynamics in France, the
brains of participants were scanned as they read sentences like “John grasped the object” and “Pablo
kicked the ball.” The scans revealed activity in the motor cortex, which coordinates the body’s
movements. What’s more, this activity was concentrated in one part of the motor cortex when the
movement described was arm-related and in another part when the movement concerned the leg.

The brain, it seems, does not make much of a distinction between reading about an experience and
encountering it in real life; in each case, the same neurological regions are stimulated. Keith Oatley,
an emeritus professor of cognitive psychology at the University of Toronto (and a published novelist),
has proposed that reading produces a vivid simulation of reality, one that “runs on minds of readers
just as computer simulations run on computers.” Fiction — with its redolent details, imaginative
metaphors and attentive descriptions of people and their actions — offers an especially rich replica.
Indeed, in one respect novels go beyond simulating reality to give readers an experience unavailable
off the page: the opportunity to enter fully into other people’s thoughts and feelings. The novel, of
course, is an unequalled medium for the exploration of human social and emotional life. And there is
evidence that just as the brain responds to depictions of smells and textures and movements as if they
were the real thing, so it treats the interactions among fictional characters as something like real-life
social encounters.

Raymond Mar, a psychologist at York University in Canada, performed an analysis of 86 fMRI

studies, published last year in the Annual Review of Psychology, and concluded that there was
39
substantial overlap in the brain networks used to understand stories and the networks used to navigate
interactions with other individuals — in particular, interactions in which we’re trying to figure out the
thoughts and feelings of others. Scientists call this capacity of the brain to construct a map of other
people’s intentions “theory of mind.” Narratives offer a unique opportunity to engage this capacity, as
we identify with characters’ longings and frustrations, guess at their hidden motives and track their
encounters with friends and enemies, neighbours and lovers.
It is an exercise that hones our real-life social skills, another body of research suggests. Dr. Oatley and
Dr. Mar, in collaboration with several other scientists, reported in two studies, published in 2006 and
2009, that individuals who frequently read fiction seem to be better able to understand other people,
empathize with them and see the world from their perspective. This relationship persisted even after
the researchers accounted for the possibility that more empathetic individuals might prefer reading
novels. A 2010 study by Dr. Mar found a similar result in preschool-age children: the more stories
they had read to them, the keener their theory of mind — an effect that was also produced by
watching movies but, curiously, not by watching television. (Dr. Mar has conjectured that because
children often watch TV alone, but go to the movies with their parents, they may experience more
“parent-children conversations about mental states” when it comes to films.) Fiction, Dr. Oatley notes,
“is a particularly useful simulation because negotiating the social world effectively is extremely
tricky, requiring us to weigh up myriad interacting instances of cause and effect. Just as computer
simulations can help us get to grips with complex problems such as flying a plane or forecasting the
weather, so novels, stories and dramas can help us understand the complexities of social life.”

These findings will affirm the experience of readers who have felt illuminated and instructed by a
novel, who have found themselves comparing a plucky young woman to Elizabeth Bennet or a
tiresome pedant to Edward Casaubon. Reading great literature, it has long been averred, enlarges and
improves us as human beings. Brain science shows this claim is truer than we imagined.

(Annie Murphy Paul is the author, most recently, of “Origins: How the Nine Months Before Birth Shape the Rest of Our Lives.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/18/opinion/sunday/the-neuroscience-of-your-brain-on-fiction.html?pagewanted=all)

TASK 1:
Which is the function of the text? Circle your option:

a) to criticize b) to inform c) to offer a personal opinion

TASK 2:
Choose the correct answer according to the text. Circle your option.

1. The researchers from Emory University studied

a. Broca’s area and Wernicke’s area
b. several regions of our brain
c. the language processing areas

2. The neurological regions stimulated by reality

a. differ considerably from those activated by reading
b. are slightly different from those activated by reading
c. are identical with those activated by reading

3. Reading literature
a. improves our understanding of social and emotional life
b. increases our motor development
c. decreases our social interaction

40
UNIT 8: SLEEP AND DREAMING
ACADEMIC SKILLS

The ability to summarise and paraphrase is an essential academic skill all students must develop.
What is a summary? A summary is a condensed version of the main ideas of all or part of a source
written in your own words.
Why do we write summaries? The goal of writing a summary is to offer as accurately as possible the
full sense of the original, but in a more condensed form.
How do we write summaries?

A. You are going to listen to a set of instructions for writing a good summary and then fill in the
blanks with the missing information. You will listen to the recording twice. 

Writing an effective summary requires that you:

Read with the Writer's Purpose in Mind
Read the article……… (1), making ………(2) notes or marks and looking only for what the ………(3)
is saying.
After you've finished………(4), write down in one ………(5) the point that is made about the subject.
Then look for the writer's ………(6) and underline it.

Underline with Summarizing in Mind

Once you clearly ………(7) the writer's major point (or purpose) for writing, read the article again.
Underline the ………(8) supporting the thesis; these should be words or phrases here and there rather
than complete sentences.
In addition, underline ………(9)transitional elements which show how parts are connected. Omit
specific details, examples, description, and ………(10) explanations.

Write, Revise, and Edit to Ensure the Accuracy and Correctness of Your Summary
Writing Your Summary
Now begin writing your summary. ………(11) with a sentence naming the writer and article title and
………(12) the essay's main idea. Then write your summary, omitting nothing important and striving
for overall ………(13) through appropriate transitions.
Be concise, using coordination and subordination to compress ideas.
Conclude with a final ……….(14) reflecting the significance of the article - not from your own point
of view but from the writer's.
Throughout the summary, do not ……(15) your own opinions or thoughts; instead summarise what
the writer has to say about the subject.

Revising Your Summary

After you've completed a draft, read your summary and check for ……….(16).
Keep in mind that a ………(17) should generally be no more than one-fourth the length of the
original. If your summary is too long, cut out words rather than ideas. Then look for non-………(18)
information and delete it.
Write another draft -- still a draft for revision - and ask someone to read it ………(19).

Editing Your Summary

Correct grammar, spelling, and ………(20) errors, looking particularly for those common in your
writing.
Write a clean draft and proofread for copying errors.
(Source: Adapted from http://leo.stcloudstate.edu/aca)

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 The Process of Sleep in Humans

Up to the 1950's sleep was regarded as a time when a person’s body and mind shut down for
the night. What we now know is that various parts of our brain are in fact very active throughout the
time we spend asleep. Time spent asleep is important with preparing us for the challenges of the next
day. Slowly, we are unravelling these secrets to what exactly goes on. Our brains contain very high
quantities of nerves, better known as neurons, to which signalling chemicals termed neurotransmitters
act to enable us to be asleep or awake. Neurotransmitters like norepinephrin and serotonin, released
from the brain stem between the lower brain and top of the spinal column, act to make certain sections
of our head fully functional whilst we are awake. When we begin to go to sleep there are other
neurons at the base of our brains that become active, switching off the activity of the neurons that
keep us awake. Throughout the day a chemical known as adenosine is believed to accumulate, it has
the effect of making people more and more tired. Once asleep, adenosine is known to be broken
down.
When asleep, people typically pass through five sleep stages. These sleep stages make up a
sleep cycle that is completed roughly every 90-110 minutes. Moving through all the stages from 1 to
REM is known to be in one single sleep cycle. Half of our sleep involves stage 2, 20% involves REM,
the other stages taking up the remaining 30% of our sleeping time. As the length of time we have been
asleep each night increases so does our time during each sleep cycle that we remain in REM, the deep
sleep stages of 3 and 4 reducing. To a certain extent whilst in REM our bodies are unable to regulate
their temperatures, unusually hot or cold temperatures can disturb this sleep stage. Losses in REM
time tend to involve the next sleep cycles REM being longer so as to regain what REM time was
previously lost.
Our bodies have a biological 24-hour time clock known as a circadian rhythm, with peaks of
sleepiness occurring every 12 hours i.e. usually at night and around mid-afternoon. Through
neurological and hormonal processes light appears to trigger people to remain awake, although light is
not always required to achieve this result, e.g. with night shift workers inverting their days work and
sleep periods. Increased time spent awake leads to a build-up of time that a person needs sleeping.
Whilst asleep it is believed that important restorative and adaptive bodily functions are in progress.
Long-term memory is reorganized, tissue is renewed or repaired, and the mind is rejuvenated.
Younger people tend to have a greater degree of deep sleep than the older population. 6-8 hours of
sleep per day is all that the average person requires.
(Source: http://www.healthguidance.org/authors/453/Alex-Rider)

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READING COMPREHENSION

Task 1: Which is the function of the text? Circle your option:

a) to criticize b) to inform c) to offer a personal opinion

Task 2: Choose the correct answer according to the text. Circle your option.
1. Our brains contain
a) considerable numbers of nerves
b) very low amounts of nerves
c) inconsiderable quantities of nerves

2. During REM sleep our bodies

a) can manage their temperatures
b) keep their temperatures stable
c) cannot control their temperatures

3. It is believed that while asleep

a) no functions are developed
b) recuperative bodily functions occur
c) destructive functions of the body are in progress

Task 3: Write a short summary of each paragraph.

Paragraph 1

Paragraph 2

Paragraph 3

VOCABULARY ACTIVITIES:
Read the text and fill in the blanks with the missing information:
increase emotional serious controlling sleepiness deprivation

A good way to understand the role of sleep is to look at what would happen if we didn't sleep. Lack of
sleep has _______________ (1) effects on our brain’s ability to function. Sleep _______________ (2)
not only has a major impact on cognitive functioning but also on _______________ (3) and physical
health. Disorders such as sleep apnoea which result in excessive daytime _______________ (4) have
been linked to stress and high blood pressure. Research has also suggested that sleep loss may
_______________ (5) the risk of obesity because chemicals and hormones that play a key role in
_______________ (6) appetite and weight gain are released during sleep.

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 UNIT 9 : EDUCATION
Pestalozzi, Father of Modern Pedagogy
Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi, Swiss social reformer and educator, is known as the Father of Modern
Education. The modern era of education started with him and his spirit and ideas led to the great
educational reforms in Europe in the nineteenth century.
Pestalozzi believed in the ability of every individual human being to learn and in the right of every
individual to education. He believed that it was the duty of society to put this right into practice. His
beliefs led to education becoming democratic; in Europe, education became available for everyone.
Pestalozzi was particularly concerned about the condition of the poor. Some of them did not go to
school. If they did, the school education was often useless for their needs. He wanted to provide them
with an education which would make them independent and able to improve their own lives.
Pestalozzi believed that education should develop the powers of ‘Head’, ‘Heart’ and ‘Hands’. He
believed that this would help create individuals who are capable of knowing what is right and what is
wrong and of acting according to this knowledge. Thus the well being of every individual could be
improved and each individual could become a responsible citizen. He believed that empowering and
ennobling every individual in this way was the only way to improve society and bring peace and
security to the world. His aim was for a complete theory of education that would lead to a practical
way of bringing happiness to humankind.
Pestalozzi saw teaching as a subject worth studying in its own right and he is therefore known as the
father of pedagogy (the method and practice of teaching, especially as an academic subject or
theoretical concept). He caused education to become a separate branch of knowledge, alongside
politics and other recognised areas of knowledge.
Pestalozzi’s approach has had massive influence on education, for example, his influence, as well as
his relevance to education today, is clear in the importance now put on:
 The interests and needs of the child
 A child-centred rather than teacher-centred approach to teaching
 Active rather than passive participation in the learning experience
 The freedom of the child based on his or her natural development balanced with the self-
discipline to function well as an individual and in society
 The child having direct experience of the world and the use of natural objects in teaching
 The use of the senses in training pupils in observation and judgement
 Cooperation between the school and the home and between parents and teachers
 The importance of an all-round education – an education of the head, the heart and the hands,
but which is led by the heart
 The use of systemised subjects of instruction, which are also carefully graduated and
illustrated
 Learning which is cross-curricular and includes a varied school life
 Education which puts emphasis on how things are taught as well as what is taught
 Authority based on love, not fear
 Teacher training
Pestalozzi’s influence over the spirit, the methods and the theory of education has continued into the
twentieth and twenty-first centuries and most of his principles have been assimilated into the modern
system of education.

(Source: Adapted from www.jhpestalozzi.org/)

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LANGUAGE FOCUS

Reported Speech
When we report statements that were made in the past we change the tense of the original (direct)
speech. When we report things that are timeless, such as scientific theories, we can keep the verb in
the Present Simple. There are some verbs which introduce the Reported Speech: said, told, affirmed,
admitted, alleged, etc.

A. Reformulate these sentences. Use the reporting verbs given and make all the necessary
changes.
Model
Pestalozzi’s early experiments ran into difficulties.
It is said that Pestalozzi’s early experiments had run into difficulties.

1. The modern era of education started with Pestalozzi.

The author affirmed ……………………………………………………………………………………

2. He believed in the ability of every individual human being to learn.

It is asserted ……………………………………………………………………………………………...

3. Pestalozzi saw teaching as a subject worth studying in its own right.

It is stated ………………………………………………………………………………………

4. Pestalozzi’s approach has had massive influence on education.

Teachers alleged ……………………………………………………………………………………...

5. Most of Pestalozzi's principles have been assimilated into the modern system of education.
Educators admitted ……………………………………………………………………………………...

B. Read the text below and insert the word which best fits each space. Choose from the list
below:

report education assigned attend choice standards range

conducted satisfaction private

Parents of children who _____(1) private schools are more satisfied with their schools than parents of
children in public _____(2) settings, according to a new report from the National Center for Education
Statistics, while parents whose children attend the public school of their _____(3) are more satisfied
than those whose children attend an _____(4) public school.
Released in August, the _____(5) is based on telephone interviews with parents _____(6) in the first
half of 2007 on a wide _____(7) of topics: school satisfaction, parental involvement in schools,
school-parent communication, _____(8) with teachers, discipline and homework levels. While the
specific numbers varied, more _____(9) school parents than public school parents were very satisfied
with teachers, academic _____(10), discipline, and school/parent interaction.

(Source: Adapted from http://www.educationreport.org, Parent satisfaction higher in private schools, September 16, 2008)

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UNIT 10: SPECIAL EDUCATION
What is Special Education?
Special Education programs are designed for those students who are mentally, physically, socially
and/or emotionally delayed. This aspect of “delay,” broadly categorized as a developmental delay,
signify an aspect of the child's overall development (physical, cognitive, scholastic skills) which place
them behind their peers. Due to these special requirements, students’ needs cannot be met within the
traditional classroom environment. Special Education programs and services adapt content, teaching
methodology and delivery instruction to meet the appropriate needs of each child.
(Source: Adapted from https://teach.com/what-is-special-education/)

Autism and Communication

Autism is a complex neurobiological disorder that typically lasts throughout a person's lifetime. It is part of a
group of disorders known as autism spectrum disorders (ASD). Today, 1 in 150 individuals are diagnosed with
autism, making it more common than paediatric cancer, diabetes, and AIDS combined. It occurs in all racial,
ethnic, and social groups and is four times more likely to strike boys than girls.
Autism was first identified in 1943 by Dr. Leo Kanner of Johns Hopkins Hospital. At the same time, a German
scientist, Dr. Hans Asperger, described a milder form of the disorder that is now known as Asperger Syndrome.
These two disorders are listed in the DSM IV as two of the five developmental disorders that fall under the
autism spectrum disorders. The others are Rett Syndrome, PDD-NOS, and Childhood Disintegrative Disorder.
All of these disorders are associated with rigid routines and repetitive behaviours, such as obsessively arranging
objects or following very specific routines, but the most important characteristic is that they impair a person's
ability to communicate and relate to others.
The capacity to acquire and use language is a key aspect that distinguishes humans from other organisms.
Language acquisition starts in infancy and it is the process by which humans acquire the capacity to perceive,
produce and use words to understand and communicate.
A child's acquisition of language can be broken down into different segments: phonology, which is a person's
use of speech sounds; syntax - the rules of grammar; semantics, which refers to a person's ability to understand
and create the meaning of language; pragmatics - the ability to use language for the purpose of communication.
Breaking down language into these different segments allows professionals to clarify to what extent and which
aspects of the language and communication of a child with an autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is impaired.
Children with an ASD often fail to communicate using speech or any other type of language, for example eye-
contact, hand gestures, body language. If a child does not wish to communicate intentionally, they will not
explore their ability to vocalise, learn new sounds or listen to the language spoken around them. This will
ultimately result in a delay in their language acquisition. Without this means of communication, a child will find
it difficult to express themselves. A child with an ASD may not see any reason to communicate with other
people and, consequently, without a reason there is no point in communicating or no need to communicate.
Children with an ASD may also remove themselves from situations that require communication, limiting their
opportunities to communicate. Without opportunities there cannot be a development in communication.
(Source: Adapted from http://www.autismspeaks.org/, http://www.nas.org.uk The National Autistic Society – Speech and Language
Therapy)

Specialist Vocabulary
acquire/ communication/ impair/ occur/ repetitive behaviour/ rigid routines/ spectrum/ strike

Acronyms
AIDS ASD DSM PDD-NOS

Antonyms
pair ≠ impair integrate ≠ disintegrate order ≠ disorder

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VOCABULARY ACTIVITIES

A prefix is placed at the beginning of a word to modify or change its meaning. dis- shows an opposite
or negative and, in verbs, it shows the stopping or removing of a condition.

A. Add the prefix dis- to the following words. Use a dictionary to find their meaning.
Model:
appear disappear to become impossible to see any longer

ability approval associate believe compose graceful integrate junction order

pleased qualify regard reputable satisfaction trust

…………………………………………………………………...............................................

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………

B. Match the following words with the most suitable definition. Model: 0. explore = K

0. explore = K A. to damage something or make it not as good

as it should be
1. capacity B. someone’s ability to do something
C. to happen or exist in a particular place or
2. vocalize situation
3. delay D. the process by which you gain knowledge or
learn a skill
4. strike E. when something does not happen or start when
5. spectrum it should do
6. occur F. to break up, or make something break up, into
7. disintegrate very small pieces
G. to make a sound or sounds with your voice
8. routine H. to damage or harm someone or something
9. impair I. the usual order in which you do things, or the
things you regularly do
10. acquisition J. a complete range of opinions, people,
situations, etc. going from one extreme to its
opposite
K. to discuss or think about something carefully

C. Follow the link http://www.all-acronyms.com/ to find what these acronyms stand for. Choose
the ones that are the most suitable to the text above.

Model: ASD = autism spectrum disorders

AIDS = CDD =

DSM = PDD-NOS =

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LANGUAGE FOCUS

Reported Speech
Other ways of reporting include using nouns such as: argument, assertion, comment, denial,
explanation, observation, remark, statement, etc.

A. The words in the following sentences have been jumbled. Rearrange them within the first
and last words given, in order to make coherent sentences. All the sentences contain reporting
nouns.

Charles Aussilloux, Professor of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at the University of Montpellier,
and his team studied the patterns of autism in the population of Languedoc, France.
Below, there are reported some of the results of his research.

Model: was a to clearer of provide argument study major the picture

The major argument of the study was to provide a clearer picture of autism.

1. first his of that observations the was evolutions autistic of were persons
One ………………………………………………………………………………….………different.

2. about remark the autistic possibility of to autonomously was people live

His ……………………………………………………………………………………..encouraging.

3. was great of comment the importance on the environmental influence

Of …………………………………………………………………………………………….factors.

4. autism related the was important similarities statement to Asperger’s and between
Another ………………………………………………………………………………..Syndrome.

5. of the emphasized major autistic role normal assertion the in contact development of human
Aussilloux’s………………………………………………………………….………….children.

(Source: Adapted from http://www.abc.net.au/rn/talks/8.30/helthrpt/stories/s21141.htm)

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