Week 1 General Concepts in Psychology PDF

Psychology Society: NU sikoloEASTa National University East Ortigas Campus Week 1_ General Concepts in Psychology At the end of this module, you are expected to: 1. Define what Psychology is...

Psychology Society: NU sikoloEASTa National University East Ortigas Campus Week 1_ General Concepts in Psychology At the end of this module, you are expected to: 1. Define what Psychology is 2. Know the history background of Psychology 3. Differentiate approaches/perspectives of Psychology 4. Familiarize with different research methods of psychology The Nature of Psychology In this module, we will begin with the basic definition of what is Psychology, then review the history of psychology, know the different research methods of psychology, and focus on the major approaches (perspectives or schools) of psychology. What is Psychology This course is an introduction to psychology, and as we go on with each module I want you to connect each topic to your life experiences like to the things you've seen, heard, or experienced first-hand. Figure 1. The symbol for psychology represents the penultimate letter of the Greek alphabet, psi, which is also the first letter of the Greek word psyche, meaning mind or soul So to properly answer the first question – what is psychology? Psychology is the scientific study of mind and behavior. The word “psychology” comes from the Greek words “psyche,” meaning life, and “logos,” meaning explanation or study of. Psychology is a multifaceted discipline and includes many sub-fields of study such areas as human development, sports, health, clinical, social behavior and cognitive processes. Week 1_Introduction to Psychology 1  Psychology is really a very new science, with most advances happening over the past 150 years or so. However, its origins can be traced back to ancient Greece, 400 – 500 years BC. The emphasis was a philosophical one, with great thinkers such as Socrates influencing Plato, who in turn influenced Aristotle. Philosophers used to discuss many topics now studied by modern psychology, such as memory, free will, attraction etc. One way to explain about the history of psychology is to organize the various theorists and theories into “waves” (or schools of thought). Each wave is a way of thinking about human thought and behavior that dominated the field for a certain period of time until a new way of looking at psychology started to dominate the field. History of Psychology Wave One—Introspection Archaeologists and historians find evidence that humans have always thought about our thought and behavior, so in a way, the study of psychology is as old as our species. Figure 2. Trephination Archaeologists find evidence of trephination—Stone Age humans carving holes through the skull to release evil spirits. Greek philosophers such as Plato and Democritus theorized about the relationship between thought and behavior. However, thinking about psychology is different than studying it scientifically. Many psychologists specializing in the history of the science date the beginning of scientific psychology to the year 1879. 2  Psychology Society: NU sikoloEASTa National University East Ortigas Campus Figure 3. Wilhelm Wundt (seated) with colleagues in his psychological laboratory, the first of its kind On December day in 1879, in a small, third-floor room at Germany’s University of Leipzig, Wilhelm Wundt, create an experimental apparatus. Their machine measured the time lag between people’s hearing a ball hit a platform and their pressing a telegraph key. Wundt trained subjects in introspection—the subjects were asked to record accurately their cognitive reactions to simple stimuli. Through this process, Wundt hoped to examine basic cognitive structures. Soon after receiving his Ph.D. in 1892, Wundt’s student Edward Bradford Titchener joined the Cornell University faculty and introduced structuralism. Titchener aimed to discover the structural elements of mind. His method was to engage people in self- reflective introspection (looking inward), training them to report elements of their experience as they looked at a rose, listened to a metronome, smelled a scent, or tasted a substance. What were their immediate sensations, their images, and their feelings? And how did these relate to one another? Figure 3. The Principles of Psychology is an 1890 book about Psychology by William James. Title page from the first edition. Week 1_Introduction to Psychology 3 In 1890, William James published The Principles of Psychology, the science’s first textbook. James examined how these structures Wundt identified function in our lives and his theory is called functionalism. Another early pioneer in the new science of psychology was Mary Whiton Calkins (1863–1930), who studied with William James and who became a pioneering memory researcher and the first woman to be president of the American Psychological Association. Margaret Floy Washburn (1871–1939) is the first woman to receive a psychology Ph.D., Washburn synthesized animal behavior research in The Animal Mind. Another student of William James, G. Stanley Hall (1844– 1924), pioneered the study of child development and was the first president of the American Psychological Association. Introspective theories were important in establishing the science of psychology, but they do not significantly influence current psychological thinking. Wave Two—Psychoanalysis If you ask someone to name a famous psychologist, he or she will most likely name Sigmund Freud (1856–1939). Freud revolutionized psychology with his psychoanalytic theory. While treating patients for various psychosomatic complaints, Freud believed he discovered the unconscious mind—a part of our mind over which we do not have conscious control that determines, in part, how we think and behave. Freud believed that this hidden part of ourselves builds up over the years through repression—the pushing down into the unconscious events and feelings that cause so much anxiety and tension that our conscious mind cannot deal with them. 4  Psychology Society: NU sikoloEASTa National University East Ortigas Campus Freud believed that to understand human thought and behavior truly, we must examine the unconscious mind through dream analysis, word association, and other psychoanalytic therapy techniques. While many therapists still use some of Freud’s basic ideas in helping clients, Freud has been criticized for being unscientific and creating unverifiable theories. Freud’s theories were and are widely used by various artists. Many of Freud’s terms moved from being exclusively used by psychologists to being used in day-to-day speech (for example, defense mechanism). Wave Three—Gestalt Psychology While Wundt and James were experimenting with introspection, another group of early psychologists were explaining human thought and behavior in a very different way. Gestalt psychologists like Max Wertheimer (1880–1943) argued against dividing human thought and behavior into discrete structures. Gestalt psychology is a school of thought that looks at the human mind and behavior as a whole. When trying to make sense of the world around us, Gestalt psychology suggests that we do not simply focus on every small component. Instead, our minds tend to perceive objects as part of a greater whole and as elements of more complex systems. "The fundamental "formula" of Gestalt theory might be expressed in this way,” Max Wertheimer wrote. "There are wholes, the behavior of which is not determined by that of their individual elements, but where the part-processes are themselves determined by the intrinsic nature of the whole. Gestalt theory hopes to determine the nature of such wholes." This school of psychology played a major role in the modern development of the study of human sensation and perception. Therapists later incorporated gestalt thinking by examining not just a client’s difficulty but the context in which the difficulty occurs. Like the introspective theories, other than the contribution to specific forms of therapy and the study of perception, Gestalt psychology has relatively little influence on current psychology. Wave Four—Behaviorism John Watson (1878–1958) studied the pioneering conditioning experiments of Ivan Pavlov (1849–1936). Watson then declared that for psychology to be considered a science, it must limit itself to observable phenomena, not unobservable concepts like the unconscious mind. Watson along with others wanted to establish behaviorism as the dominant paradigm of psychology. Behaviorists maintain that psychologists should look at only behavior and causes of behavior—stimuli (environmental events) Week 1_Introduction to Psychology 5  and responses (physical reactions)—and not concern themselves with describing elements of consciousness. Another behaviorist, B. F. Skinner (1904–1990), expanded the basic ideas of behaviorism to include the idea of reinforcement—environmental stimuli that either encourage or discourage certain responses. Skinner’s intellectual influence lasted for decades. Behaviorism was the dominant school of thought in psychology from the 1920s through the 1960s. The view of behaviorism that psychology (1) should be an objective science that (2) studies behavior without reference to mental processes. Most research psychologists today agree with (1) but not with (2). Wave Five—Multiple Perspectives Currently, there is no one way of thinking about human thought and behavior that all or even most psychologists share. Many psychologists describe themselves as eclectic—drawing from multiple perspectives. As psychology develops in the new century, perhaps one way of thinking will become dominant. For now, though, psychologists look at thought and behavior from multiple perspectives. Psychological Perspective Different contemporary psychologists look at human thought and behavior from different perspectives. Contemporary perspectives can be placed into other broad categories. Humanist Perspective Humanistic psychology rebelled against Freudian psychology and behaviorism. Pioneers Carl Rogers and Abraham Maslow found behaviorism’s focus on learned behaviors too mechanistic. Rather than focusing on the meaning of early childhood memories, as a psychoanalyst might, the humanistic psychologists emphasized the importance of current environmental influences on our growth potential, and the importance of having our needs for love and acceptance satisfied. The humanists, including theorists Abraham Maslow (1908–1970) and Carl Rogers (1902–1987), stressed individual choice and free will. This contrasts with the deterministic behaviorists, who theorized that all behaviors are caused by past conditioning. Humanists believe that we choose most of our behaviors and these choices are guided by physiological, emotional, or spiritual needs. A humanistic psychologist might explain that an introverted person may choose to limit social contact with others because he or she finds that social needs are better satisfied by contact with a few close friends rather than large groups. Humanistic theories are not easily tested by the scientific method. Some psychological historians view it as more of a historical perspective than a current one. However, some therapists find humanistic ideas helpful in aiding clients to overcome obstacles in their lives. 6  Psychology Society: NU sikoloEASTa National University East Ortigas Campus Psychoanalytic Perspective Psychologists using a psychoanalytic perspective believe that the unconscious mind— a part of our mind that we do not have conscious control over or access to—controls much of our thoughts and action. Psychoanalysts would look for impulses or memories pushed into the unconscious mind through repression. This perspective thinks that to understand human thought and behavior, we must examine our unconscious mind through dream analysis, word association, and other psychoanalytic therapy techniques. A psychoanalytic psychologist might explain that an introverted person avoids social situations because of a repressed memory of trauma in childhood involving a social situation, perhaps acute embarrassment or anxiety experienced (but not consciously remembered) at school or a party. Biopsychology (or Neuroscience) Perspective Biopsychologists explain human thought and behavior strictly in terms of biological processes. Human cognition and reactions might be caused by the effects of our genes, hormones, and neurotransmitters in the brain or by a combination of all three. A biopsychologist might explain a person’s tendency to be extroverted as caused by genes inherited from their parents and the genes’ effects on the abundance of certain neurotransmitters in the brain. Biopsychology is a rapidly growing field. Some scientists wonder if the future of psychology might be a branch of the science of biology. Evolutionary (or Darwinian) Perspective Evolutionary psychologists (also sometimes called sociobiologists) examine human thoughts and actions in terms of natural selection. Some psychological traits might be advantageous for survival, and these traits would be passed down from the parents to the next generation. A psychologist using the evolutionary perspective (based on Charles Darwin’s (1809– 1882 theory of natural selection) might explain a person’s tendency to be extroverted as a survival advantage. If a person is outgoing, he or she might make friends and allies. These connections could improve the individual’s chances of survival, which increases the person’s chances of passing this trait of extroversion down to his or her children. The Evolutionary Perspective is similar to (and in some ways a subset of) the Biopsychology Perspective. Week 1_Introduction to Psychology 7 Behavioral Perspective Behaviorists explain human thought and behavior in terms of conditioning. Behaviorists look strictly at observable behaviors and what reaction organisms get in response to specific behaviors. A behaviorist might explain a person’s tendency to be extroverted in terms of reward and punishment. Was the person rewarded for being outgoing? Was the person punished for withdrawing from a situation or not interacting with others? A behaviorist would look for environmental conditions that caused an extroverted response in the person. Cognitive Perspective Cognitive psychologists examine human thought and behavior in terms of how we interpret, process, and remember environmental events. In this perspective, the rules that we use to view the world are important to understanding why we think and behave the way we do. Jean Piaget’s cognitive developmental theory (1896–1980), which focuses on how our cognitions develop in stages as we mature. A cognitive psychologist might explain a person’s tendency to be extroverted in terms of how he or she interprets social situations. Does the individual interpret others’ offers for conversation as important ways to get to know someone or important for his or her own life in some way? To a cognitive psychologist, an extroverted person sees the world in such a way that being outgoing makes sense. Social-Cultural (or Sociocultural) Perspective Social-cultural psychologists look at how our thoughts and behaviors vary from people living in other cultures. They emphasize the influence culture has on the way we think and act. A social-cultural psychologist might explain a person’s tendency to be extroverted by examining his or her culture’s rules about social interaction. How far apart do people in this culture usually stand when they have a conversation? How often do people touch each other while interacting? How much value does the culture place on being part of a group versus being an individual? These cultural norms would be important to a sociocultural psychologist in explaining a person’s extroversion. 8  Psychology Society: NU sikoloEASTa National University East Ortigas Campus Perspective Focus Sample Questions How the body and brain How are message transmitted within the body? enable emotions, How is blood chemistry linked with moods and Neuroscience memories, and sensory motives? experiences How the natural selection How does evolution influence behavior Evolutionary of traits promoted the tendencies? survival of genes How much our genes and To what extent are psychological traits such as Behavior our environment influence intelligence, personality, sexual orientation, and genetics our individual differences vulnerability to depression attributable to our genes? To our environment? How behavior springs from How can someone’s personality traits and unconscious drives and disorders be explained in terms of sexual and Psychodynamic conflicts aggressive drives or as the disguised effects of unfulfilled wishes and childhood traumas? How we learn observable How do we learn to fear particular objects or responses situations? What is the most effective way to Behavioral alter our behavior, say, to lose weight or stop smoking? How we encode, process, How do we use information in remembering? Cognitive store, and retrieve Reasoning? Solving problems? information How behavior and thinking How are we humans alike as members of one Social-cultural vary across situations and human family? As products of different cultures environmental contexts, how do we differ? Research Methods of Psychology Psychology is a science, and it is therefore based on research. An understanding of research methods is fundamental to psychology Approaches in Psychology Research Nomothetic (Quantitative Approach) Uses inferential and descriptive statistics as both mediums of scientific method of investigation in analyzing, presenting, and interpretation of data gathered by the researcher through standardized or objective instruments (e.g. psychological Tests). The term “nomothetic” comes from the Greek word “nomos” meaning “law”. Psychologists who adopt this approach are mainly concerned with studying what we share with others. That is to say in establishing laws or generalizations. Idiographic (Qualitative Approach Uses qualitative methods of data gathering such as interviews, diaries, and other written materials, obtained from or provided by the expected or anticipated respondents of a particular research. The term “idiographic” comes from the Greek word “idios” meaning “own” or “private”. Psychologists interested in this aspect of experience seek to discover what makes each of us unique. Week 1_Introduction to Psychology 9 Research Design Descriptive Studies In this research method, general or specific behaviors or attributes are observed and measured, without knowing the relationship to each other. An example of such a study would be a researcher inquiring into the quality of mental health institutions. This would be done by observation or measurements of various criteria, as opposed to relationships between variables. Case study Examines one individual in depth in hopes of revealing things true of us all. It often suggests directions for further study, and they show us what can happen Survey The survey method looks at many cases in less depth. A survey asks people to report their behavior or opinions. But asking questions is tricky, and the answers often depend on the ways questions are worded and respondents are chosen. Naturalistic Observation Researchers study organisms in their natural environments or habitats without trying to manipulate or control anything. It observes its natural setting while attempting to avoid influencing or controlling it. Correlation A correlation expresses a relationship between two variables without ascribing a cause. Correlations can be either positive or negative. A positive correlation between two things means that the presence of one thing predicts the presence of the other. A negative correlation means that the presence of one thing predicts the absence of the other. Experiment Experiments enable a researcher to focus on the possible effects of one or more factors by (1) manipulating the factors of interest and (2) holding constant (“controlling”) other factors. Experiments can be divided into laboratory experiments and field experiments. Laboratory experiments are conducted in a lab, a highly controlled environment, while field experiments are conducted out in the world. The extent to which laboratory experiments can be controlled is their main advantage. The advantage of field experiments is that they are more realistic. Random Assignment Assigning participants to experimental and control groups by chance, thus minimizing preexisting differences between those assigned to the different groups. Independent and Dependent Variables Independent variable the experimental factor that is manipulated; the variable whose effect is being studied. 10  Psychology Society: NU sikoloEASTa National University East Ortigas Campus Dependent variable the outcome factor; the variable that may change in response to manipulations of the independent variable. Research What Is Method Basic Purpose How Conducted Manipulated Weaknesses Descriptive To observe and record Do case studies, Nothing No control of variables; behavior surveys, or single cases may be naturalistic misleading observations Correlational To detect naturally Compute statistical Nothing Does not specify cause occurring relationships; association, and effect to assess how well one sometimes among variable predicts survey responses another Experimental To explore cause and Manipulate one or The independent Sometimes not feasible; effect more factors; use variable(s) results may not random assignment generalize to other contexts; not ethical to manipulate certain variables References and Supplementary Materials Books and Journals 1. Tracy Henley; (January,2018); Hergenhahn's An Introduction to the History of Psychology 8th Edition; California; Wadsworth Cengage Learning 2. Kurt Koffka; (September, 2014); Principles Of Gestalt Psychology; Mimesis International 3. Myers, David G, C. Nathan DeWall. Psychology Twelfth Edition. New York: Worth Publishers Online Supplementary Reading Materials 1. What is Psychology? ; https://www.simplypsychology.org/whatispsychology.html 2. History of Psychology (387 BC to Present); https://allpsych.com/timeline/ Online Instructional Videos 1. Intro to Psychology - Crash Course Psychology #1 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vo4pMVb0R6M; July 7, 2018 2. Psychological Research - Crash Course Psychology #2 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hFV71QPvX2I Week 1_Introduction to Psychology 11