Calvin and Hobbes

1. Calvin and Hobbes Ryley Blouin

2. UNIT 9 Developmental Psychology Preoperational stage- Calvin and Hobbes are both in Piaget’s preoperational stage of development where they don’t yet understand concrete concepts like at the end where Hobbes says the score is “Q to 12” which are obviously in no relation and therefore doesn’t make sense. This shows they don’t yet comprehend how sports are played.

3. Unit 9 Egocentrism- In Piaget’s theory it’s a child’s difficulty of taking another’s point of view which Calvin, as we can see here, is having trouble imagining what it must be like to be a girl and how it must be terrible because she’s like a bug.

4. Unit 9 Formal operational stage – This stage in Piaget’s theory is the stage of cognitive development where people begin to think logically about abstract concepts. As we can see here, Calvin is using his juggling of eggs as a metaphor of life. This is an abstract concept that he is thinking logically about and he realizes that in life there needs to be balance.

5. Unit 9 Attachment – This is the emotional tie with another person done by seeking closeness to the caregiver. As we can see, Calvin has an emotional tie with Hobbes so large that he takes him to school everyday. He sees as Hobbes as his protector because he ate Tony Chesnutt for making fun of Calvin.

6. Unit 9 Gender role –This is a set of expected behaviors for males or for females. As we can see perfectly, Susie draws the typical domestic scene with flowers, a house, and sunshine because that’s what girls do. Calvin ends up drawing a squadron of B-1’s nuking New York because that is what typical boys do, they think big and violent as that is their gender role.

7. Unit 10 Personality Id and Superego – The id in someone is the evil side to them just looking for whats best for themselves. The superego is the one that follows the rules and always does right. Throughout the whole comic series we see Calvin as the id because he is very violent and really only out to satisfy himself while Hobbes is his alter ego who follows the rules and is nice and sweet. We see that especially here where Calvin wants Hobbes to maul Susie because Hobbes is a monster but Hobbes wants to be nice and likes to cuddle her.

8. Unit 10 Trait – A trait is a characteristic pattern of behavior. Calvin as you can see has a pattern of making morbid snowmen. It is Calvin’s trait to be morbid and disturbing when it comes to snowmen.

9. Personal control – This is the extent to which people feel control over their environment. In this comic Calvin is talking about how he wants to be a part of nature but when he notices how scary nature is he goes inside and controls his environment by turning on the lights and turning up the heat so he doesn’t have to go outside. Unit 10

10. Unit 10 External locus of control – This is the perception that chance or outside forces beyond your personal control determine your fate. Calvin decides to believe exactly that and “by fate” he gets pushed into the mud.

11. Individualism – This is the giving of priority to one’s own goals and defining one’s identity in terms of personal attributes rather than group identifications. In this comic Calvin is comparing his “modern artwork” compared to everyone else’s. Calvin says he and Hobbes are the ones who are keeping “high culture” alive. He is separating himself and Hobbes from the group of kids who make the stereotypical and boring snowmen. In other words he doesn’t identify himself with that group and therefore is showing individualism. Unit 10

12. Unit 14 Social Psychology Central route persuasion – This is the attitude change path where interested people focus on arguments and respond with favorable thoughts. Calvin doesn’t want to eat his disgusting dinner and his attitude is changed when his dad responds with the favorable thought of Calvin turning into a mutant if he eats it.

13. Unit 14 Scapegoat theory – This is the theory that prejudice offers an outlet for anger by providing someone to blame. Calvin, in this strip, is angry and sad that he waited so long for a beanie hat (the hat with the propeller on top) and then he broke it. He is so frustrated that he tries to use Hobbes as a scapegoat and blame him for breaking it even though it was all Calvin’s fault. In other words, Calvin was upset about the tragedy that happened and he needed someone to blame and that was Hobbes.

14. Unit 14 Frustration-aggression principle – This is the principle that states the blocking of an attempt to achieve some goal creates anger and can generate aggression. In this comic we see Calvin’s attempt at figuring out if he will be president. He gets frustrated that the board starts to spell out “GOD FORBID” so Calvin gets frustrated, then acts aggressively towards the board by kicking it across the room.

15. Unit 14 Proximity – Geographic nearness that provides opportunities for aggression but much more often it breeds liking. In this comic we see both the aggression and the liking that Susie and Calvin have for each other. Calvin gets a cruddy valentine for Susie with dead flowers to show aggression towards her. She shows aggression back by hitting him with a snowball. But each in the end interpret it as the other person liking them. I think they started to like each other because they see each other all the time because they are neighbors and the close proximity bred the liking they have for one another.

16. Unit 14 Social reciprocity norm – This states that people have an expectation to help those dependent on them. In the case below, Calvin realizes that he is dependent upon his father and has the expectation that his father will help him in the future if he becomes “messed up”. Although this is a perfect example of social reciprocity norm, it is a bit extensive in what is required from the father.

17. Unit 6 Learning Respondent behavior – This is any behavior that occurs as an automatic response to some stimulus. Hobbes always responds to Calvin’s calling of “I’M HOME!” with pouncing on him. So because he is the respondent of Calvin’s calling and his behavior is pouncing on him, it fits the definition perfectly.

18. Discrimination – This is the ability to distinguish between a conditioned stimulus and stimuli that do not signal an unconditioned stimulus. Hobbes has learned to pounce on Calvin when he gets home (conditioned stimulus). Then Calvin tries to trick Hobbes into pouncing on Susie by having her say “I’M HOME!” but Hobbes learned the ability to distinguish between the two because of Calvin’s bad smell. Unit 6

19. Unit 6 Associative learning - This is the learning that certain events occur together. Calvin has finally learned that whenever he says “I’M HOME!” he gets pounced on by Hobbes. So he learns to keep the door shut so he doesn’t get attacked.

20. Unit 6 Shaping – This is the procedure in which reinforcers guide behavior toward closer and closer approximations of the desired behavior. Hobbes wants to teach Calvin how to survive in the wild and we can see that Calvin is trying to look out for him in the first half of this drawing. Then Hobbes uses punishment on Calvin for moving upwind to in the end teach him how to survive in the wild. Then we see that Calvin basically gives up on learning because he doesn’t even want to watch his nature program he was trying to learn from.

21. Unit 6 Learned helplessness – This is the hopelessness and passive resignation of an animal or human (in this case Calvin) who learns when it is unable to avoid repeated aversive events. Finally, after all the pouncing and attempting to get away from it, Calvin experiences learned helplessness when he just goes on with his day knowing that it is coming. Even when he sees Hobbes’s shadow he doesn’t move out of the way.