Psychology as a Science (PDF)

## Some Salient Characteristics of Psychology as a Science ### Goals * Explanation of the underlying order in the confusions and complexities of man's nature and behavior. * Prediction of an event in order to prepare for and perhaps prevent or facilitate it. * Control of an event - influencing or...

## Some Salient Characteristics of Psychology as a Science ### Goals * Explanation of the underlying order in the confusions and complexities of man's nature and behavior. * Prediction of an event in order to prepare for and perhaps prevent or facilitate it. * Control of an event - influencing or changing the "natural" course of events (e.g. teaching and therapy). ### Levels of Investigation * **Biological:** Concerned with the bodily bases of behavior. * **Psychological:** Concerned with understanding the nature and role of psychological variables in human behavior. * **Sociological:** Concerned with the effects of sociocultural conditions upon the behavior of individuals and groups. ### Methods of Gathering Data * **Survey:** Obtaining data by means of written questionnaires or oral interviews from a representative sample of a larger group or universe of people. * **Field Study:** Involves making direct observations of natural events. * **Clinical Case Study:** Explores the behavior history and present life situation of a person seeking treatment for an adjustment problem. * **Experimental:** Tests hypotheses by systematically manipulating and controlling relevant variables. * **Comparative:** Involves the study of non-human species, especially where complexity of human considerations prevent the use of human subjects. * **Statistical:** Involves the use of mathematical techniques to simulate experimental manipulation or control of variables. ### Outcomes * **Factual Information:** Quantitative or qualitative data from observation; data can then be organized into a coherent, orderly, logical framework (model or theory). * **Models:** Analogies which enable the scientist to see relationships among his data. * **Theories:** Organizations of a large body of empirically validated facts, inferences, and generalizations. ## Ways of Viewing Man * **Psychoanalytic Man:** Based on the pioneering work of Sigmund Freud, this model explores the human psyche through the observation and writing of the major principles of his model based on the clinical study of individual patients undergoing psychoanalysis. - **Id, ego, and superego:** Behavior results from the interaction of these three key subsystems within the personality (id, ego, & superego). - The id contains the innate, primitive, biological drives of man such as hunger, thirst, and aggression. Freud also believed these drives are primarily of two types: - **Constructive drives:** Primarily of a sexual nature that provide the basic energy of life (libido). - **Destructive & Aggressive urges:** More obscure but tend toward self-destruction and death. - The ego develops to mediate between the demands of the id and the realities of the external world. It requires reason and other intellectual resources. - The superego is the outgrowth of learning the taboos and moral values of society. It is essentially what we refer to as conscience and is concerned with the good and the bad, the right and the wrong. - **Anxiety, defense mechanisms, and the unconscious:** Freud distinguishes three types of anxiety, with each arising from a different source or threat (Reality anxiety, neurotic anxiety, moral anxiety). - Each type of anxiety is a warning of impending danger which forces the individual to do something about the situation. - When rational measures do not suffice, the ego resorts to irrational protective measures called ego-defense mechanisms. - **Key importance: Unconscious processes** - Freud believed the conscious represents a small area of the mind, while the unconscious is much larger. In the domain of the unconscious are the images, desires, and wishes that have been either forgotten or repressed because they arouse anxiety. - **Psychosexual development:** Influenced by Freud, who saw psychosexual development as a succession of stages, each characterized by a dominant mode of achieving libidinal pleasure (oral stage, anal stage, phallic stage, latency stage, genital stage). * **Behavioristic Man:** Based on the early work of John Watson, this model emphasizes the objective observation of behavior, and the stimulus conditions which brought it about, in order to learn to predict and control man's behavior. - **Respondent vs. operant conditioning:** Behaviorists have addressed themselves primarily to the question of how learning comes about. They focused on conditions in the environment (stimulus conditions) that could be related to the acquisition, modification, and weakening of behavior patterns. - **Respondent Responses:** Relativley simple reflexes and emotional responses which are elicited by a stimulus e.g. a sudden loud noise leading to a fear response. - **Operant Responses:** The individual operates upon or modifies the environment. Through conditioning, new responses may come to be elicited by a wide range of stimuli. - **Reinforcement:** The strengthening of the conditioned fear response. - Reinforcement can be positive or negative. - **Generalization and discrimination:** - Generalization is the tendency for a response which has been conditioned to a specific stimulus to become associated with other similar stimuli. - Discrimination is the ability to differentiate between stimuli. * **Contrasting Explanations of a Phobia:** - **Psychoanalytic:** A case study of a child named Hans who displayed a phobia of horses. Freud attributed this phobia to unresolved unconscious conflict associated with the Oedipus complex. - **Behaviorist:** Explains the same phobic reaction as a simple conditioned fear response arising from previous unpleasant experiences involving horses (e.g. seeing horses beaten, being hurt while playing "horses," etc.).