Introduction to Psychology: Types and Boundaries

• Psychology is the scientific study of mental processes, behavior, and their interactions.
• Psychology seeks to understand our minds and observable behaviors.

Types of Behavior

• Overt behavior is directly observable, like eating, sleeping, talking, or moving.
• Covert behavior includes internal cognitive, mental, and emotional processes such as perceiving, learning, remembering, thinking, reasoning, and feeling.

Boundaries of Psychology

• Psychology is a vast field with many disciplines addressing questions about the mind and behavior that often overlaps with other disciplines.
• Biopsychology (or behavioral neuroscience) studies the biology of the brain in relation to psychology.
• It investigates the physical basis of psychological phenomena like memory, emotion, and stress.
• It explores the role of biological factors in areas of psychology, examining behavior through genetics and biological processes in the brain/nervous system.
• Neurocircuits that underlie psychological events are distributed throughout the brain.

Social Cultural Perspective

• This perspective emphasizes how social interactions and culture shape behavior and mental processes.
• Ethnicity, religion, occupation, and socioeconomic status influence mental processes and behavior.
• Cross-cultural investigations distinguish universal psychological processes from those specific to particular cultures.

Origins of Psychology

• Psychology is a relatively new science with roots in philosophy.

Philosophical Roots

• Philosophical debates include free will versus determinism, nature versus nurture, rationalism versus empiricism, reason versus emotion, and mental versus physical distinctions.

Early Psychological Science

• Wilhelm Wundt (1832-1920) was a proponent of structuralism.
• William James (1842-1910) was a proponent of functionalism.

Structuralism

• Wundt used introspection to examine the structure of consciousness.
• The goal was to identify basic elements and their relationships, such as sensations, feelings, and emotions.
• Criticisms included its reliance on verbal reports, reductionistic approach, and elemental focus.

Functionalism

• William James focused on the purpose of consciousness.
• It explored how people adapt their behaviors to environmental demands.
• Topics included patterns of development during childhood, effectiveness of educational practices, and behavioral differences between males and females.
• Functionalism was more practical and applied.

Five Major Schools of Thought

Psychodynamic Approach

• Sigmund Freud developed this approach that focuses on the unconscious.
• It explains personality, motivation, and mental disorders in terms of unconscious determinants.
• Key premises include actions determined by connections of thoughts, feelings, and wishes; many mental events occur outside conscious awareness; and mental processes may conflict.
• Evidence was sourced from observations, case studies, and reflections on anxieties, conflicts, and desires.
• This approach suggests individuals are not fully in control of their own minds.

Behaviorism

• J.B. Watson advocated that psychology should study only observable behavior, abandoning the study of consciousness.
• Mental processes are considered private events that cannot be verified and are not proper subjects of scientific inquiry.
• Behavior is any overt response or activity by an organism.
• This approach takes an extreme position on nature versus nurture issues.
• This is also known as stimulus-response psychology, relating detectable inputs from the environment to overt behaviors (responses) in the organism.
• It emphasizes environment, experience (nurture), and argues that we are controlled by environmental factors.
• Behaviorism focuses on learning, which is changes in behavior based on experience, and focuses on observable behavior.
• Humans and animals are viewed as mechanistic.

Humanistic Perspective

• This perspective objected to the claim that people have no control over their destinies.
• It argues other approaches were dehumanizing and failed to recognize unique qualities of human behavior.
• The humanistic perspective is more optimistic, emphasizing unique human qualities.
• Human behavior is primarily driven by each individual's sense of self (self-concept).
• It emphasizes the human drive toward self-actualization and personal growth.
• Research on animals is considered to have little relevance to human behavior.
• People are inherently good and will strive to realize goals and ambitions; this is a person-centered perspective and has led to new treatments for psychological problems and disorders.

Cognitive Perspective

• There is a renewed interest in consciousness and physiological bases of behavior.
• Contributing influences include cognitive development, memory, and language and problem-solving.
• It assumes that internal mental events must be studied to understand behavior.
• Cognition includes mental processes involved in perceiving, processing, and retrieving information.
• This includes memory, concept formation, reasoning, problem-solving, decision-making, language, and abstract thought.
• Enduring patterns of thought are like software; the mind is like a computer.

Evolutionary Perspective

• Human behavior evolved because it helped our ancestors survive and reproduce.
• Some behaviors are biologically determined, like eating impulses and sexual impulses.
• Patterns of behavior are products of evolution.
• Examples include mating preferences, jealousy, aggression, sexual behavior, language, decision-making, and sex differences in spatial abilities.
• Humans are seen as runners in a race, competing for resources.
• This often begins with a known behavior in a species (e.g., higher aggression in males) and then attempts to explain it based on evolutionary principles.