Once Upon A Psychological Theory
Once Upon A Psychological TheoryOnce Upon A Psychological Theory
An Analysis of Psychological Hypotheses in Fairy Tales and Their Affect on Childhood Development
INDEX
I. Personal Statement
II. Introduction
III. Piaget
A. Childhood Development
i. Sensory-Motor Stage
ii. Preoperational Stage
ii. Stage Of Concrete Operations
iii. Stage Of Formal Operations
IV. Erikson
A. Autonomy And Social Development
i. Theory
ii. “The Goose Girl”
V. Freud
A. The Id, The Ego And The Super Ego
i. Theory
ii. “The Three Little Pigs”
B. Oedipus
i. The Myth Of Oedipus
ii. Theory
ii. “Snow White And The Seven Dwarfs”
iii. “Cinderella”
iv. “Rapunzel”
VI. Conclusion
VII. References
PERSONAL STATEMENT
“The object of psychology is to give us a totally different idea of the things we know best.”
-Paul Valéry
“Once upon a time..”, perhaps one of the single most famous phrases, the key that opens the door to a world of fantasy, enchantment and entertainment, the world of fairy tales. Fairy tales can mean different things to different people, each finds a different type of sanctuary within the realm of the make belief. Children may like fairy tales because good triumphs over evil; adults may favor them because they trigger childhood nostalgia; in the end, everything boils down to the fact that fairy tales were written to be enjoyed, and have become universally beloved.
For my personal project, I decided to take Paul Valéry’s notion of psychology’s objective to a universal level, by psychoanalyzing the effects of fairy tales. I chose psychology because it’s the field that I wish to pursue in post-secondary studies. The idea of fairy tales naturally sprung into mind after my initial choice to do a paper on psychology, as the notion of psychology and fairy tales was not completely inane, nor alien, and fairy tales are a substance with which the majority of the population has had relations. I decided to demonstrate, in depth, the hidden effects of fairy tales, to uncover a different perspective of this timeless method of amusement. After thorough research of Piaget’s developmental psychology, I concluded the best way to illustrate the “alter ego” of fairy tale repercussions was by outlining the fact that many of these mythical stories are correlated with psychological theories of behavioral conduct, and how they affect behavioral developments. Subsequently, I conducted a survey, of 75 adults and children, to establish the most popular of the world’s fairy tales, and from the results, researched various psychological theories and where they were applied in the five important fairy tales.
This project was also ideal in respects to the areas of interaction, as it encompasses the principles of Homo Faber, Health and Social Sciences, and Environment. Fairy tales, a manifestation of the human imagination, embraced the ideals of Homo Faber, as they are original and created by man. In respects to Environment, fairy tales constitute an aspect of a child’s environment, as an environment is the external conditions or objects that influence the development of a person. Psychology is the science of mental health, and as it is the...
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