PSY-101 Chapter 1: Introduction To Psychology PDF

Chapter 1: Introduction to the Science of generated by research results from all of Psychology psychology’s subfields. SUBFIELDS OF PSYCHOLOGY 6. Clinical, counseling, and community 1. Cognitive...

Chapter 1: Introduction to the Science of generated by research results from all of Psychology psychology’s subfields. SUBFIELDS OF PSYCHOLOGY 6. Clinical, counseling, and community 1. Cognitive Psychologist psychologists - Study basic mental processes such as - Study the causes of behavior disorders sensation and perception, learning and and offer services to help troubled people memory, judgement, decision making and overcome these disorders. problem solving. a. Clinical psychologists have Ph.D. degrees in psychology; most provide therapy 2. Biological psychologists services, and many conduct researches as - Also called physiological psychologists or well. neuroscientists. b. Counseling psychologist might work as a - Study topics such as how genes and mental health counselor, for example, and brain chemistry are related to the have either a Ph.D. or a master’s degree in appearance of mental disorders, how psychology. brain cells communicate with each other c. Community psychologists offer in forming memories, whether certain psychological services to the homeless patterns of brain activity can reveal that a and others who need help but tend not to person is lying, and how stress hormones seek it. By working for changes in schools weaken the body’s immune system. and other social systems, they also try to prevent poverty and other stressful 3. Personality psychologists conditions that so often lead to disorder. - Study individuality—the unique features - All of these psychologists differ from of each person. Your personality traits, psychiatrists, who are medical like your finger prints, are different from doctors with a specialty in abnormal those of all other people. Some behavior (psychiatry). personality psychologists use tests to describe how one individual compares 7. Educational psychologists with others in terms of openness to - Conduct research and develop theories experience, emotionality, reliability, about teaching and learning. The results agreeableness, and sociability. Others of their work are applied in programs study particular combinations of designed to improve teacher training, personality traits that may predict refine school curricula, reduce dropout particular patterns of behavior. rates, and help students learn more efficiently. 4. Developmental psychologists - Study and describe changes in behavior 8. School psychologists and mental processes over the life span, - Have traditionally specialized in trying to understand their causes and intelligence testing, diagnosing learning effects. They explore areas such as the disabilities and other academic problems, development of thought, friendship and setting up programs to improve patterns and parenting styles and students’ achievement and satisfaction in whether everyone must face a midlife school. crisis. - Today, however, they are also involved in early detection of students’ mental health problems and in crisis intervention 5. Quantitative psychologists following school violence. - Develop and use statistical tools to analyze vast amounts of information 9. Social psychologists  - Study the ways that people influence Plato, Socrates, Rene Descartes one another. E.g. They conduct research on social-influence strategies, such as the Empiricism effectiveness of safe-sex advertising Experience is the source of all knowledge. campaigns designed to halt the spread of According to empiricism, knowledge AIDS. They also explore how peer comes to us only through our experiences pressure affects us, what determines and observations. whom we like (or even love), and why and our minds are more like a blank slate how prejudice forms. (tabula rasa in Latin) on which our experiences write a lifelong story. 10. Industrial/organizational psychologists Aristotle, John Locke, George Berkeley - Study leadership, stress, competition, pay, and other factors that affect the Structuralism efficiency, productivity, and satisfaction of Wilhelm Wundt, Edward Titchener workers and the organizations that interpreted psychology as a study of the employ them. They conduct research on mind and its structure. topics such as increasing the motivation Titchener called this approach of current employees and helping structuralism because he was trying to companies select the best new workers. define the structure of consciousness. Introspection; looking inward to describe A Brief History of Psychology experiences; analyzing sensations, images and feelings into basic elements. Functionalism Psychology is the scientific study of mind and behavior. The word “psychology” William James comes from the Greek words “psyche,” refers to the idea that if we are to study meaning life, and “logos,” meaning human behavior, we must study functions explanation. of consciousness. It is the science that seeks to understand It was emphasized that the mind behavior and mental processes and to functions to help the individual respond apply that understanding in the service of to changes in its environment. human welfare. Gestalt Psychology Psychology is a relatively new science, but its origins can be traced through Max Wertheimer centuries. They were called Gestalt psychologists Since at least the time of Socrates, Plato, because they pointed out that the whole and Aristotle in ancient Greece, (or Gestalt, in German) of conscious philosophers have debated such experience is not the same as the sum of psychological topics as where human its parts. knowledge comes from, the nature of consciousness should be studied as a mind and soul, the relationship of the whole, not piece by piece mind to the body, and even the possibility Gestalt therapy provides insight into ways of scientifically studying these matters. in which a client can alleviate their current issues and distress in order to Rationalism aspire to their maximum potential. Believes in innate idea, deduction and Psychoanalysis reason. This philosophy thought that reason could Sigmund Freud explain the working of the world; without reference to sense experience.  Freud concluded that the causes of some psychologists new ways to study the people’s physical ailments were not biological bases of mental processes. physical. The real causes, he said, were deep-seated problems that the patients had pushed Introduction to the Science of Psychology out of consciousness. He believed that many of these unconscious psychodynamic conflicts are Approaches to the Science of Psychology created when our sexual and aggressive instincts clash with the rules set for us by Why don’t all psychologists explain behavior in the society. same way? Psychoanalytic therapy tends to look at experiences from early childhood to see if these events have affected the individual’s Biological Approach life, or potentially contributed to current concerns. - This approach assumes that behavior and mental processes are largely shaped by Behaviorism biological processes. John B. Watson, B.F. Skinner - Psychologists who take this approach If all species evolved in adaptive ways, study the psychological effects of perhaps their behavior and mental hormones and genes and the activity of processes would follow the same, or the nervous system, especially the brain. similar, laws. - It believes that most of our behavior is John B. Watson, a psychology professor at inherited and can be explained using Johns Hopkins University, agreed that the neurological terms. behavior of animals and humans was the Evolutionary Approach most important source of scientific - Assumes that the behavior and mental information for psychology. processes, of animals and humans today Watson argued that psychologists should are also affected by evolution through ignore mental events and concern natural selection. themselves only with observable - A view that emphasizes the inherited, behavior. adaptive aspects of behavior and mental His approach, known as behaviorism, did processes. not address consciousness and - Evolutionary psychologists see unconscious. aggression, for example, as a form of Watson believed that learning is the most territory protection, and they see gender important cause of behavior. differences in mate selection preferences Psychology Today as reflecting different ways of helping genes survive in the future generations. By the end of the 1960s, however, more Psychodynamic Approach and more psychologists saw the behaviorists’ lack of attention to mental - Rooted in Freud’s theory of processes as a serious limitation. psychoanalysis. As the computer age dawned, - This approach explains our behavior psychologists began to think about mental through our childhood experiences. activity in a new way – as information - It looks back at our childhood to make processing. sense of our actions in the present. At the same time, progress in - It believes our choices are heavily biotechnology began to offer influenced by our unconscious mind.  - According to Freud, these conflicts occur when the impulse to instantly satisfy our instinctive needs – such as food, sex, or aggression – are opposed by our learned need to follow society’s rules about fairness and consideration for others. Behavioral Approach - A view based on the assumption that human behavior is determined mainly by what a person has learned in life, especially through rewards and punishments. - Behavior learned through interactions with the environment - They acknowledge emotions however they believe only behavior can be objectively and scientifically measured. Cognitive Approach - A view that emphasizes research on how the brain takes in information, creates perceptions, forms and retrieves memories, processes information, and generates integrated patterns of action. - Focuses on how behavior is affected by the ways we take in, mentally represent, process, and store information. Humanistic Approach - Focuses on the view that each person is unique and has free will to change at any time in their life. - It believes we are responsible for our own happiness. - It emphasizes how our perception of the world is subjective therefore it is an opposing approach to any scientific attempts to explain human behavior. - Humanistic psychologists see people as basically good, in control of themselves, and seeking to grow toward their fullest potential.