The Moral Self: Obedience, Learned Helplessness, Positive

Psychology and Empathy

Department of Social RelationsHarvard University

• Formed in 1946 (ended in 1970)• Interdisciplinary: Social and Clinical

Psychology, Social Anthropology and Sociology

• Gordon Allport (Social Psychology)• Henry Murray (Head of Harvard Psychological

Clinic)• Clyde Kluckhohn (social anthropologist)• Talcott Parsons (sociologist)

Stanley Milgram (1933-1984)

(1974)

German Jewish Philosopher, Hannah Arendt, had been imprisoned and then fled Germany for the US. Attended Eichmann’s trial in 1961, wrote updates of the trial in the New Yorker, later published as a book.

(1963)

Milgram’s Shock Machine

Obedience Experiments 1961

• Remote Condition (heard but couldn’t see learner) 65% compliance

• Voice Feedback Condition (vocal complaints “get me out of here” ) 62.5% compliance

• Proximity Condition (learner right next to teacher) 40% compliance

• Touch-Proximity Condition (teacher put learner’s hand on electric plate to shock) 30% compliance

Milgram’s Experimental ConditionsObedience Studies of 1961

“The social psychology of this century reveals a major lesson: Often it is not so much the kind of person a man is as the kind of situation in which he finds himself that determines how he will act.”

Milgram, as cited in Blass, p. 101

Ethics in Human Experimentation

• 1973, APA “Ethical Principles in the Conduct of Research with Human Participants”

• 1975, Dept. of Health, Education and Welfare: new regulations on human subject research—mandatory review by an institutional review board (IRB), committee created to ensure well-being of subjects, and informed consent.

Learned Helplessness- Martin Seligman (1967)

Positive Psychology

• Seligman, Martin E. P. (1991). Learned Optimism: How to Change Your Mind and Your Life.

• Seligman, Martin E. P. (1993). What You Can Change and What You Can't: The Complete Guide to Successful Self-Improvement.

• Seligman, Martin E. P. (2002). Authentic Happiness: Using the New Positive Psychology to Realize Your Potential for Lasting Fulfillment.

Martin Seligman Director, Positive Psychology Center,

Prof. Psychology University of Pennsylvania

President of APA, 1998

Happiness:a) positive emotion or pleasureb) engagementc) meaning

CSV: Character Strengths and Virtues (Peterson & Seligman, 2004)

• Wisdom and Knowledge; creativity, curiosity, open-mindedness, lover of learning, perspective

• Courage: authenticity, bravery, persistence, zest• Humanity: kindness, love, social intelligence• Justice: Fairness, leadership, teamwork• Temperance: forgiveness, modesty, patience,

self-regulation• Transcendence: appreciation of beauty,

excellence, gratitude, hope, humor religiousness.

Harvard's crowded course to happiness'Positive psychology' draws students in drovesMore than 800 students fill the lecture hall for Tal Ben-Shahar's 'Positive Psychology' at Harvard this semester.By Carey Goldberg, Globe Staff | March 10, 2006

CAMBRIDGE -- The most popular course at Harvard this semester teaches happiness.

The final numbers came in this week: Positive Psychology, a class whose content resembles that of many a self-help book but is grounded in serious psychological research, has enrolled 855 students, beating out even Introductory Economics.

Every Tuesday and Thursday at 11:30 a.m., students crowd into Sanders Theatre to learn about creating, as the course description puts it, ''a fulfilling and flourishing life," courtesy of the booming new area of psychology that focuses on what makes people feel good rather than the pathologies that can make them feel miserable.

Exercises• Daily Gratitude Journal – every night write down

at least five things that made or make you happy – things for which you are grateful.

• Meditating on Happiness• Mapping Life—charting time doing activities, and

how much meaning or pleasure taken from it• Setting Self-Concordant Goals-those we pursue

out of deep personal conviction or strong interest – one’s choice, linked to self-expression

• Happiness Board – set up a group a people that will check in with you, to see if your own goals and keep you accountable

• Letters of Gratitude – to those in your life that have had a positive impact

Sentence Completion

• The things that make me happy are…

• To bring 5% more happiness to my life…

• If I take more responsibility for fulfilling my wants…

• If I bring 5% more integrity to my life..

• If I were willing to say yes when I want to say yes and no when I want to say no…

• I am becoming aware…

…because positive psychology bridges the ivory tower and Main Street, advice given by positive psychologists – whether in book form, in lectures, or on a website- can sometimes sound like the advice that self-help gurus offer.”

Tal Ben-Shahar, Happier, p. xi.

• First International Neuropsychological Society meeting in 1973

• National Academy of Neuropsychology met in 1982 to discuss education and

credentialing guidelines – developed the:

•

- Group of 21 practicing neuropsychologists in counseling, clinical and school psychology, organized to develop guidelines for the profession of neuropsychology.

From 1990 to the end of 1999, the Library of Congress and the National Institute of Mental Health of the National Institutes of Health sponsored a unique interagency initiative to advance the goals set forth in a proclamation by President George Bush designating the 1990s as the Decade of the Brain: "to enhance public awareness of the benefits to be derived from brain research" through "appropriate programs, ceremonies, and activities."

First Issue of new Journal, Social Neuroscience, March 2006

Textbooks like this one began appearing in 2004 & 2005

Vittorio Gallese

Giacomo Rizzolatti

Premotor cortex and the recognition of motor actions Giacomo Rizzolatti, Luciano Fadiga, Vittorio Gallese & Leonardo Fogassi

Istituto di Fisiologia UmanaUniversità di Parma, Parma, Italy

Cognitive Brain ResearchVolume 3, Issue 2, March 1996, Pages 131-141

Iacoboni and Dapretto Redgrave Nature Reviews Neuroscience 7, 942–951 (December 2006)

Mirror Neurons

• First described in inferior frontal cortex in monkey• Fire not only when the monkey is moving his hand or

its mouth, but also when he sees someone else performing the same action.

• These neurons ‘mirror’ the behavior of the other animal/human, as though the observer were performing the action.

• Important for understanding the actions of other people, learning new skills by imitation.

• Some argue they are the basis for understanding emotions, and may be the neuronal substrate of empathy.

• Function according to a “Perception-Action Theory.”With thanks to Nouchine HadjikhaniMartinosSCAN 2007

Mirror Neurons - localization

STS - superior temporal sulcus

IPL - inferior parietal lobule

IFC - inferior frontal cortex

Nouchine HadjikhaniMartinosSCAN 2007

Auditory Mirror Neurons

Bangert, M., Peschel, T., et. al, & Altenmüllera, E. (2006). Shared networks for auditory and motor processing in professional pianists:

Evidence from fMRI conjunction. NeuroImage, 30, 917-926.

Rizzolatti, “Both of us disgusted in my insula” Neuron, vol. 40, 2003

Keysers et al “A Touching Sight SII/PV Activation during the Observation and Experience of Touch”

Neuron, 42:335-346, 2004

Implications ofMirror Neuron

System Findings

• Neural mechanism for the notion of culture & social interaction: We imitate, and simulate others through our neural activity; our social responses are ‘hard-wired’ or built into the very structure of the brain.

• Automatic, direct process: our responses to others are not made through inferences, or through analogy, but immediate simulation.

“…the unconscious forms of imitation observed while people interact socially to the neurobiological mechanisms of mirroring that have their key neural elements in mirror neurons – suggest a level of uncontrolled biological automaticity that may undermine the classical view of autonomous decision making that is at the basis of free will.”

Iacoboni, Mirroring People (pp. 212-213)