Star Wars

Psychologist: Carl Jung

Book - The book mentions that he founded analytical psychology and

explains that it studies mental health and personality development. Jung

contacted Sigmund Freud and they became friends. After Jung’s and

Freud’s friendship ended, Jung began to explore his personal unconscious.

He spent the rest of his life trying to understand the human spirit. Carl Jung

concentration on the establishment of archetypes as they influenced

individual growth and psychosis. “Knowing your own darkness is the best

method for countering the darkness of other people” - Carl Jung.

Textbook - Jung was a former disciple of Freud and shared some of

the same qualities. Jung focused on the collective unconscious, which

stores instincts, urges, and memories. He called these archetypes. Jung

identified extraversion versus introversion. Jung believed that mentally

healthy people have self-actualization.

Compare/contrast - Both books sort of describe Jung’s and Freud’s

relationship, Jung’s exploration about the unconscious, and archetypes.

The textbook had a little more information about Jung’s work about mental

health.

Psychologist: Sigmund Freud

Book - Sigmund Freud named mental illnesses that cause people to

handle distress poorly, Neurosis. Freud mentored Jung and became good

friends but had differing ideas which led to them splitting.

Textbook - Freud thought that dreams represented the past, present,

or future concerns. Freud was interested in the unconscious mind, he

thought that the conscious mind was the tip of the iceberg. Freud identified

three levels of consciousness, conscious, preconscious, unconscious.

Freud believed that dreams had special meanings and clues to our

thoughts that we might be afraid of acknowledging while we are awake.

Compare/Contrast - The book doesn’t have very much information

about Freud while the textbook did. They both mention that he dealt with

the mind but the textbook had a lot more information about him.

Topic: Archetypes
 Book/Textbook Description- Archetypes are universal ideas that every

person has. Jungian archetypes are “distinctive elements of the

unconscious that manifest as images, motifs, and behaviors.” Jung referred

to archetypes as manifestations of evolution, and that human behavior is

based on the archetypes of the psychological landscape. Unconscious

themes archetypes are traits we are born with. An example of an

unconscious theme archetype would be, someone seeing a hero and

knowing that person was a hero, without having any knowledge about what

a hero is or does.

Reference to Star Wars Character - The Ewoks, those fluffy creatures

that lived in the trees, reflect a child archetype. They have very simple

minds. They are primitive and whatever they do, whether it’s hunting,

architecture, or fighting, it’s simple. They don’t have complex thoughts and

have simple approaches to everything.

Topic: Antisocial Personality

Book/Textbook Description - An antisocial personality disregards and

violates the rights of other people. They treat people as objects and use

them just to push them aside without any feeling of guilt or shame.
Someone with an antisocial personality does not learn from punishment.

They can get away with destructive behaviors by using their intelligence to

win affection and trust from people they take advantage from. If caught,

they will lie their way out of problems by acting like they were trying to do

the right thing.

Reference to Star Wars Characters - Anakin Skywalker/Darth Vader

used people for his own self gain and didn’t have any remorse for killing

them. He would win peoples’ trust by being powerful but would turn on

them in a heartbeat.

Han Solo shows some signs of an antisocial personality. He can

be devious but he does that to protect himself. He isn’t completely

antisocial though, he cares about people to much to have a problem.

Topic: Motivation

Book/Textbook Description - Motivation causes us to do certain

things. William McDougall proposed that a variety of instincts motivated

humans. Some instincts include, cleanliness, curiosity, sociability, and

sympathy. There are some flaws in the instinct theory though. Physiological
and psychological needs turn into a drive that motivates us into what we

need. Food and water would be a physiological need and self esteem

would be a psychological need. In Star Wars, Darth Vader wants peace and

justice in the galaxy, but his dark actions have led him into failure. His

failure has made his main motivation anxiety. He tries to make peace in the

world, but now he is being hunted and people see him for just being a bad

person.

Topic: Introversion/Extraversion

Book/Textbook Description - An introvert has traits such as,

calmness, contemplation, need for privacy, reflection, quiet manner, and

risk aversion. An extravert has traits such as, social, outgoing and talkative.

Not very many people are full introverts or extraverts, but instead have

some traits of each. Bother introverts and extraverts have some traits that

people don’t like admitting they have. Introverts can be unsocial,

pessimistic, and anxious. Extraverts can be impulsive, touchy, and

aggressive. A stable person is someone who have a mix of the good

qualities from both introversion and extraversion, like peaceful, calm,

reliable, easygoing, leadership, and lively.

 Batman
Psychologist: Albert Bandura

Book - Albert Bandura expanded on behaviorism with observational

learning, also called imitational learning. He believed that we acquire

actions through seeing other people preform these actions. He showed that

people can easily imitate aggressive actions, and therapeutic techniques

have come from his discoveries. Bandora’s social behaviorism is still

important to this day and applies to other views such as cognitive

psychology.

Textbook - Bandura believes that human development is a big

continuous process. Throughout our life, we develop by interacting with

others. Bandura refers to this as the social learning theory of development.

Bandura had an experiment where he would have kids in a room with a

doll, and a person would do violent acts to the doll. The kids used a social

learning called modeling, and also acted violent to the doll. He explained
that children who watch a model preform aggressive behaviors, will also

have those aggressive behaviors.

Compare/Contrasts - Both the book and the textbook mentioned that

Bandura worked with learning by watching others. The textbook had an

experiment to explain his work better, while the book didn’t. The textbook

also mentioned about human development while the book didn’t have

anything about that.

Psychologist: Abraham Maslow

Book: Abraham Maslow is the founder of humanistic psychology and

believes that humans have a drive to pursue our potential. Humans have a

hierarchy of needs that have basic physiological needs up to our personal

growth. Sometimes we focus on what we don’t have instead of what we

need or appreciate what we already have.

Textbook: Maslow is one of the pioneers of humanistic psychology.

He believed that all humans needs to win approval and recognition. In the

hierarchy of needs, we try to satisfy the bottom level of the pyramid and

then move up. The bottom level is the fundamental needs to live. Then,

after we satisfy that level, we move on to the psychological needs. We

need to feel loved and accepted. The last level is the self-actualization

needs, which is pursuing knowledge, beauty, or whatever someone thinks

is their potential.

Compare/Contrast: The book and the textbook both talked about how

Maslow was a founder of humanistic psychology and his hierarchy of

needs. The textbook went more in depth about the hierarchy though. The

book didn’t have all of the levels and didn’t explain the levels as well.

Topic: Obsessive Compulsive Disorder

Book/Textbook Description - An obsession is a persistent idea, a

thought, or an impulse that can be intrusive and can cause anxiety. People

with OCD know that they have an obsession. OCD is an anxiety disorder

because they can bother the person and the person sometimes tries to

fight it. People with OCD are not considered disabled by anxiety because

they can still function effectively. Psychologists say that it’s a problems

when thoughts and activities interfere with what someone needs or wants.

People can develop OCD from trying to run away from their real fears to try

and reduce anxiety. OCD also runs in the family.

 Reference to Character - The Riddler has an obsession of leaving

clues at crime scenes. He knows that the compulsions are excessive and

unreasonable because he tries to stop it, but he just can’t

Topic: Bipolar Disorder

Book/Textbook Description - Otherwise known as manic depression,

bipolar disorder is when someone goes between being depressed and

extremely energized. The depression phase involves feelings of failure,

worthlessness, and despair while the manic phase is full of optimism and

high activity. Some people will alternate between frantic action and

motionless despair. Some have episodes of manic or depressive reactions

but then they are normal for a while. Others can have no normal behavior,

but instead are cycling between depression-type reactions and manic-type

reactions.

Reference to Character - The Joker goes from being bored and

frustrated by his failures, to a crazy criminal. As he has gotten older, he

hasn’t had as much fun and he goes into a bored, sullen mood more often.

Topic: Operant Conditioning

 Book/Textbook Description - Operant conditioning is learning from

consequences of your behavior. Reinforcement is used to increase the

chances of that behavior to happen again. A positive reinforcer would be

like giving a dog a treat when he obeys a command. The dog learns that

when he obeys, he will get a treat. But, extinction is when your dog doesn’t

get a treat for a while and doesn’t see the benefit of obeying you, so he

stops. Negative reinforcement is when a kid begs for something and you

give in and buy it so he stops whining. The kid was reinforced that he can

beg to get what he wants, so he will beg more often.

Reference to Character: Bruce Wayne’s parents died to a mugger

while leaving a theater. So, Bruce may have been conditioned to not go to

the theaters because it caused his parents to die.

Topic: Stress

Book/Textbook Description - Traumatic experiences can cause great

stress. Losing a parent or family member is the most stressful common life

event. Distress is the bad kind of stress and eustress is the good kind.

Distress comes from anxiety, pressure, or trauma that can have a harsh

impact on your mind and body. Eustress results from striving for something
and taking on challenges. Not everyone has stress the same way though.

Someone may have distress over something, while another has eustress. A

family may mourn and have distress over a lost family member, while

another family may have eustress because the family member who died

was causing harm to the family.