Introduction to Psychology

• Psychology seeks to understand the human condition.
• It addresses why knowing about humans is important.
• It also explores what it means to be human.

Psychology: Psyche and Logos

• Psychology studies the soul, mind, and behavior.
• The discipline uses the scientific method to study behavior.
• Psychology also looks at internal processes and motives.

Goals of Psychology

• Psychology aims to describe behavior.
• Psychology is used to explain behavior.
• Psychology can predict future behavior.
• Psychology helps to control or influence behavior.

Origin Story

• Psychology began with philosophers.
• Structuralism reduces mental processes to basic elements.
• Introspection is a self-observation technique.
• Wilhelm Wundt used introspection to analyze the human mind's inner workings.
• Functionalism studies the roles and functions of mental processes.
• William James questioned how the mind allows one to listen to a teacher.

Major Schools of Thought

• Psychoanalysis emphasizes the unconscious mind's influence on behavior, pioneered by Sigmund Freud.
• Behaviorism focuses on observable behavior and believes environmental causes explain actions, studied by Pavlov and Skinner.
• Humanistic psychology views each individual as unique with the potential for growth, associated with Maslow and Adler.
• Cognitive psychology studies mental processes like thinking, perception, memory, and learning. It is related to neuroscience, philosophy, and linguistics.
• Gestalt psychology is based on the idea that people experience things as unified wholes, associated with Wertheimer.

Human Development

• Human Development pertains to whether there is an end point for human development.

What is HD?

• HD is considered the pattern of constant change in human capabilities throughout life.
• It takes a holistic approach.
• It includes physical, cognitive, and emotional abilities.

Nature vs. Nurture

• Epigenetics relates to the nature vs. nurture debate.

Approaches to Psychology

• Biological approach focuses on genetic, hormonal, and neuro-chemical explanations of behavior.
• Psychoanalysis highlights innate drives of sex and aggression linked to nature, and social upbringing experienced as a child linked to nurture.
• Cognitive Psychology looks at innate mental structures, such as schemas, perception and memory constantly influenced by the environment,
• Humanism, Maslow emphasized needs and self-concept influenced by society.
• Behaviorism, all behavior learns through the environment via conditioning.

Piaget's Theories of Development

• Assimilation: new ideas/concepts put into understanding and practice aligning them with older ideas and practice.
• Accommodation: older ideas/concepts changed into new and completely different concepts and ideas.
• The ability for a child to be able to tell that objects continue to exist even if they can no longer be seen or heard is known as object permanence.

Erikson's Theory of Development

• Infancy (0-1 year): Trust vs. mistrust leads to Hope.
• Early childhood (1-3 years): Autonomy vs. shame/doubt leads to Will.
• Play age (3-6 years): Initiative vs. guilt leads to Purpose.
• School age (7-11 years): Industry vs. inferiority leads to Competence.
• Adolescence (12-18 years): Identity vs. confusion leads to Fidelity.
• Early adulthood (19-29 years): Intimacy vs. isolation leads to Love.
• Middle age (30-64 years): Generativity vs. stagnation leads to Care.
• Old age (65 onward): Integrity vs. despair leads to Wisdom.

Kohlberg’s Moral Development

• The stages of Moral Development include Pre-Conventional, Conventional, and Post-Conventional.
• Pre-Conventional: Moral Reasoning, based on reward and punishment (3-7 age).
• Conventional: Moral Reasoning, based on external ethics (8-13 age).
• Post-Conventional: Moral Reasoning, based on Personal Ethics (Adulthood).

Motivation

• 'Movere' is the Latin origin of the term motivation.
• Motivation is a general condition that shapes behavior.
• It is the process initiating, guiding, and maintaining goal-oriented actions.

Perceptions

• Perception is the interpretation of stimulus.
• It includes stimuli and sensations.
• It encompasses sensations and perceptions.

Factors of perception

Figure-Ground Perception

• An object/person that is the focus of the visual field.
• The ground is the background of the visual field.
• Perception varies greatly depending on what is perceived as figure and ground.

Proximity

• The Gestalt principle suggests a block of dots on the left and three columns on the right.

Similarity

• Likely to perceive alternative rows of colors when looking at an array of dots.
• Grouping dots according to the principle of similarity.

Law of Continuity

• Good continuation suggests that one is more likely to perceive something as two overlapping lines.

Closure

• Closure suggests a complete circle and rectangle will be perceived rather than a series of segments.