Masters of Analogies: The GRE is to the MAT as Freud is to
James
by Brian J. Mistler
APAGS Member
If you have ever applied to undergraduate schools in the U.S.,
or know someone who has, you are probably familiar with the SAT. And, since you
are visiting this site, you are likely applying, considering applying, or are
already enrolled in a graduate program in psychology. That means you are almost
certainly familiar with the Graduate Record Examinations (GRE), whether you want
to be or not.
You may be aware that both the SAT and GRE are produced by the
same people: Educational Testing Services. And, knowing that, you will not be
surprised that both tests have a great deal in common. These commonalities
include sections on a variety of math and reading comprehension skills, as well
as verbal analogies, not to mention both being surrounded by some controversy
about their usefulness as predictors of future performance.
Some psychology graduate programs also consider the Miller
Analogies Test (MAT) in addition to, or even instead of, the GRE. The MAT is
shorter than the GRE, and wholly devoted to "partial analogy
problems". So, no matter which exam you take, the fun and exciting world of
analogies is unavoidable. Thus, you may wonder, what’s so important about a
command of analogies that many universities consider it an appropriate
admissions tool for selecting entrants and eliminating ‘the weakest links’?
When it comes to intelligence and aptitude, it’s hard to get
psychologists to agree on anything. There is no agreement on how to develop it,
how to test it, or even what it means. However, what most psychologists do
generally agree on is that a large component of intelligence is the ability to
understand and deal with new situations.
For this task, analogies are central in two important ways.
The first way is the most closely related to our normal use of the word analogy,
and is generally the form meant when we refer explicitly to analogy questions on
exams. These are called proportional analogies ('proportion' is in origin the
Latin word that corresponded to the Greek analogÍa), and are defined by
The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Linguistics as: "any pattern in which a
differs in form and meaning from b as c differs from d."
The formal notation is (a : b = c : d)
or (A : B :: c : d) and they generally appear on exams like
the GRE or MAT as SomeWord-A is to SomeWord-B, as SomeWord-C
is to ______, with the ominous ‘blank’ to be filled in by the test taker. In
all of these cases, the ‘=’, ‘::’, and word ‘as’ represent a
relationship of equivalence. That is, the relationship between ‘a’ and ‘b’,
is the same as, or equivalent to, the relationship between ‘c’ and ‘d’.
Or, to put another way, a is analogous to c, and b is analogous to d, in that a
and b are in the same proportion as c and d.
In a deeper way, almost everything we do involves analogy.
Analogical reasoning is not only the foundation for relating two objects, but,
as we relate more and more objects to one another, we use some form of
analogical reasoning to abstract larger concepts, rules, and formulate
higher-order mental maps of the relationships between these concepts.
Accordingly, as we might expect, the great teachers and innovators of
psychological concepts exemplify this mastery of analogies and analogical
reasoning.
Perhaps no name is more widely recognized and identified with
psychology than Sigmund Freud’s. And, you won’t be surprised to find that
Freud was a master of analogies. They are scattered everywhere in his work, and
linked to every major concept. Freud writes in "The Unconscious" page
171, "In psychoanalysis there is no choice for us but to assert that mental
processes are in themselves unconscious, and to liken the perception of them by
means of consciousness to the perception of the external world by means of the
sense-organs." It is difficult even to measure all that has been built on
this analogy. Lyman Baker highlights another analogy used by Freud during a
lecture Freud gave at Clark University during his trip to the United States.
Freud compares repression to the removal of an interrupter during the lecture,
and the posting of guards at the door (defense mechanisms) to keep the disrupter
locked outside (in the unconscious). He suggests that to talk to this unruly
person outside, and then seek again his admission with the promise of good
behavior is the role of the physician in the psychoanalytic treatment of
neuroses.
About the same time Freud was pioneering psychotherapy in
Europe, William James, the father of American psychology, was busy in the U.S. In
Psychology he wrote, "a 'river' or a 'stream' are the metaphors by
which [consciousness] is most naturally described," in contrast to a
prevalent analogy that compared consciousness to individual blocks stuck
together. James writes in a footnote on page 195 of Psychology: A Briefer
Course, "The great maxim in pedagogy is to knit every new piece of
knowledge on to a preexisting curiosity – i.e. to assimilate its matter in
some way to what is already known. Hence the advantage of comparing all that is
far off and foreign to something that is near home, of making the unknown plain
by the example of the known, and of connecting all the instruction with the
personal experience of the pupil." This is a maxim James took to heart, and
this particular one of James’ works contains no fewer than 50 analogies.
James went so far as to suggest that, "knowledge about a
thing is knowledge of its relations," and, Ralph Waldo Emerson, who James
especially admired, believed that "science is nothing but the finding of an
analogy." In fact, if we look at most great thinkers and leaders, we’ll
almost certainly find a great analogy. Socrates says learning is like giving
birth, and teaching is like being a midwife (his mother was a midwife). Plato
uses the relative reality of shadows in a cave to explain his metaphysics, and
Aristotle, who wrote most successfully on biology, uses growth analogies across
the board. John Locke published his Thoughts Concerning Education and,
some say, invented the concept of the child when he drew an analogy to a ‘blank
slate’. For Hobbes the state is best when it’s like a Leviathan, and for
Wittgenstein language is like family resemblance.
So, whatever your psychological orientation – whether you
believe like Watson and Skinner that humans are like rats in a maze/Skinner-box,
or follow Carl Rogers in feeling that persons are not like other categories, or
adhere to some other analogy (or develop your own), you are now, hopefully, more
conscious of the central role played by analogy in framing our theories. And,
whether you’re preparing for a graduate entrance exam, trying to find ways of
relating new concepts to your previous education, or already using analogical
reasoning to compare case studies, help clients, and create new research, think
of all of the great masters of analogies who have come before you.
You can find more information about the Miller Analogies Test,
offered by The Psychological Corporation, on their web site at: http://www.hbtpc.com/mat/
More details about the Graduate Record Examinations, offered
by Education Testing Services, can be found on their website at http://www.gre.org/
