Psychology: The Story of Psychology

• Psychology is the scientific study of behavior and mental processes.
• The goals of psychology are to accurately measure, describe, explain, predict, and control/alter behavior and mental processes.

The Story of Psychology

• William Wundt was the first person to call himself a psychologist.
• Wundt opened the first psychology laboratory in Germany at the University of Leipzig.
• Wundt's approach was called Structuralism, and he looked inward on experiences to determine how they relate.
• William James was an American influenced by Darwin, he supported Functionalism.
• Functionalism involves interest in the adaptive functions served by behavior and thought.
• James was the first classroom teacher of psychology and wrote the textbook "Principles of Psychology".
• John Watson championed psychology as the science of behavior and demonstrated conditioned responses on a baby, supporting behaviorism.
• B.F. Skinner was a behaviorist who rejected introspection and studied how consequences shape behavior.
• Sigmund Freud emphasized how emotional responses to childhood experiences and unconscious thought processes affect behavior.
• Psychology until the 1920s was defined as "the science of mental life" due to Freud.

Psychological Perspectives

• Neuro-biological/Physiological perspective suggests behavioral and mental processes are explained by the nervous system's activities, the brain, and the action of hormones, neurotransmitters, and other chemicals.
• Psychodynamic perspective says behavior stems from unconscious drives and conflicts.
• Behavior and mental processes are largely determined by unconscious mental and emotional conflicts.
• Instincts or desires for sex, aggression, security, and power are pitted against environmental obstacles.
• Key figures in the psychodynamic perspective include Horney, Erikson, and Freud.

Different Approaches to Psychology

• Structuralism uses introspection to explore the structural elements of the human mind and was the first formal school of psychology, begun by Wilhelm Wundt.
• Functionalism focuses on how mental and behavioral processes function to enable adaptation, survival, and flourishing, begun by William James.
• Behaviorism states that science should be objective and study behavior without reference to mental processes.
• The psychodynamic perspective, founded by Freud, suggests that behavior and mental processes are largely determined by unconscious mental and emotional conflicts.
• The behavioral perspective states that psychology can be studied scientifically by examining overt behavior, which is shaped by the patterns of punishments experienced.
• The cognitive perspective says behavior is determined by how information is encoded, stored, retrieved, or processed by the brain.
• Humanistic perspective emphasizes the growth potential of healthy people and the individual's potential for personal growth, where humans make choices by thinking rather than environmental influence.
• The biopsychosocial model incorporates various levels of analysis for a complete picture of behavior/mental processes.

Thinking Critically

• Critical thinking does not blindly accept arguments and conclusions, but examines assumptions, discerns hidden values, and evaluates search methods.
• It also involves observation of the effect on some behavior or mental process via independent variables.
• Hindsight bias is the feeling you 'knew it all along' after hearing results.
• Overconfidence makes the answer seem obvious after its discovery.

Research Methods

• Steps in the Scientific Method include identifying a question of interest, posing a testable hypothesis, and conducting a study to test the hypothesis.

Research Methods: Benefits and Drawbacks

• Descriptive methods involves case studies, surveys, and naturalistic observation.
  • They allow observation and description of things in everyday life with the drawback of the inability to change factors plus data may be misrepresented, and there is no control of variables.
• Correlational: Benefits include helping to figure out how closely two things vary together and to predict the other variable.
  • The drawback is indication of the possibility of a cause-effect relationship, but it does not prove causation.
• Experimental: Benefits include the ability to draw cause and effect interferences while controlling variables with a control group.
  • Drawbacks involve the inability to ethically manipulate certain variables, and results may not generalize to other contexts.
• Random assignment controls for other relevant factors by assigning participants to experimental and control groups by chance, thus minimizing pre-existing differences.
• A control group is NOT exposed to the treatment, serves as a comparison for evaluating the effect of the treatment.
• The independent variable (IV) is the factor that is manipulated and variable whose effect is being studied.
• The dependent variable (DV) is the outcome factor, and its variable may change based on the manipulations of the independent variable.
• Correlation is a measure of the extent to which 2 factors vary together
• Correlation Coefficient is a statistical index of the relationship between 2 things (ranges from -1 to +1).
• The absolute value of the number indicates the strength of the relationship, a correlation of 0 means there is no relationship and the sign indicates direction of relationship
• A random sample fairly represents a population.
• Operational Definition – a statement of procedures (operations) used to define research variables, select research method, collect and analyze data, interpret and publish results.
• An experiment is an organized way to prove or disprove a hypothesis derived from observations.
• The experiment is the only method through which causal relationships can be studied, and involves manipulation of one variable.
• Research ethics involves IRB and human subjects' ethical approval, informed consent, weighing potential harms vs. potential benefits of research and ethical guidelines for animal research.

Explore the origins of psychology with key figures like Wilhelm Wundt and William James. Understand Structuralism, Functionalism, and the impact of behaviorism through Watson and Skinner's work. Learn about the science of behavior and mental processes.