Defense Mechanism in Psychology - Essay Example

Psychology Question Defense mechanism is usually a term that is developed by an individual for protection against anxiety. They are thought to safeguard the mind against many things. These defense mechanisms are thus useful to the individual as their mind is protected against the thoughts and the feelings. These thoughts and feelings may not be coped with by the conscious mind. These defense mechanisms are thus very important to the conscious mind (p 563). This is the case as they prevent and keep away the unwanted and unpleasant thoughts as well as impulses from reaching the conscious mind (Zimbardo et al, 2012). The defense mechanisms thus create a very strong barrier to the conscious mind. This shows the role played by the defense mechanism to our minds. The author emphasis on this point since the dense mechanism is very useful to every individual notwithstanding the protection benefits provided. In explaining this, one can come up with a good example of the instances in life. For example, one may be forced by nature to experience to experience a certain unpleasant task hence the mind may make a choice for one to forget the dreaded assignments facing him. This is by the use of forgetting mechanism. There are three common defense mechanisms as described in the book. The repression mechanism is most important defense mechanisms (p 431). This mechanism involves burying of the painful feelings and thoughts. Despite this, there are many other factors that are linked to this type of mechanism. The other one is the denial mechanism. This one involves failing to accept the things that are a reality in our lives. Thus we deny the real truth that is facing us. The last mentioned type is the regression mechanism (p, 561). It involves reverting to the previous ways that may appear older. This entails handling of stresses less maturely. A good example is happened when I was leaving from the lecture where I encountered a great problem when my fellow students noticed that I had put on shoes that were totally different in color without noticing. I was forced to ignore the embarrassment that they caused to me. I thus applied the forgetting defense mechanism since they were too many for me to handle. I just did away with those feelings and moved on. Question 2 The method used in the Milgram study of obedience was very useful (p 461). The method used the following technique. His experienced had 40 men participants who were recruited by the use of a newspaper advert. Each person was entitled to a salary of $4.2 (Zimbardo et al, 2012). He came up with an intimidating shock generator that had shock levels of around30 volts that would increase to 450 volts. They had different labels as per the percentage of shock in them. Each participant was required to act as a teacher and had a role of delivering a shock to the student anytime a wrong answer was given. The teacher was of the thought he is delivering a real shock to the student whereas the student just pretended to be shocked. It was not a real shock. In the progress of the experiment, the participant was in a position to hear the learner who was pleading to be released from the shock. On reaching 300 volts, the learner would bang hardly on the wall and demand for a release (Zimbardo et al, 2012). Exceeding this limit, the learner would just go into a silent mode and fail to answer any question. The participant was trained by the experimenter to treat this silence as just as a wrong answer and hence required to increase the shock (p 475). This would be important at ensuring that the learner always gave the best answer at all times. The findings from the experiment were quite surprising to the learners (p 510). Many people were interested at knowing how these findings were possible given the shock limits that were very crucial to daily living styles. The findings of the experiments can be used in our daily activities by ensuring that the employees are well trained by the supervisors in the business set up. Question 3 The motivation of behavior is very useful to the process of human developed as described in this book. Motivation is defined as the process by which the individual is made and driven to achieve a certain goal in the field of business or in a particular area of study (Zimbardo et al, 2012). The psychological feature of an individual is aroused and hence able to achieve a desired goal or even act in a given direction that will help in controlling and achieving the set goals. It is thus a driving force compelling one towards attainment of a certain goal. Motivation has its roots in physiological, cognitive, and other social areas (p 365) The factors of extrinsic and intrinsic factors come into play. They are relevant in determining the reasons that makes one motivated (p, 365) The human behavior is thus motivated and makes him act in a given direction. The process of human behavior motivation is thus useful at ensuring that it creates an inner drive to the individual. The internal factor causes motivation on the part of the individual without relying on the external factors. This becomes important in that one takes a lot of enjoyment in the task himself without any external influences. On the other side, the external factors are those that comes from outside an individual and that causes one’s behavior to be motivated (p, 365). They are used by the organization to encourage the employees at achieving certain goals. The employee may be promised a salary increase in case they attain certain goals. The importance of this is to generate a better working environment to boost the entire production process in a given business or organization. The rewards are used in the process of motivation and are known to produce a better result. The rewards encourage the individual to work harder and achieve greater and many goals in their work environments (p, 367). The rewards may be in terms of cash or even gift. No matter the reward chosen, the result will be an increase in production to the individuals. It causes a direct motivation effect (Zimbardo et al, 2012) Work cited Psychology- Core Concepts 7th ed- p.Zimbardo, et al, (Pearson, 2012) Read More