Unit 1: Psychology's History and Approaches

• Psychology is the study of the mind and behavior, including the biological, cognitive, and social aspects of behavior.
• there are 7 different approaches in psychology
• Psychodynamic approach


  unconscious motives, past experiences
• Behavioral approach


  observable environment influences behavior; reinforcement/punishment, learning/conditioning
• Humanistic approach


  positive growth, choice, unconditional positive regard
• Cognitive approach


  mental processes used in thinking, knowing, remembering, communicating
• Biological approach


  focus on body; genes, brain, nervous system, hormones
• Evolutionary approach


  natural selection, adaptation, survival, reproduction
• Sociocultural approach


  social interaction, culture's influence on behavior/mental processes
• Bio-Psycho-Social


  eclectic view, sees all perspectives as interacting/interrelated
• Wilhelm Wundt 


  “Father of Psychology“, consciousness, structuralism, introspection
• William James


  “Principles of psychology“ , functionalism
• structuralism

  • Analyze structure of consciousness
  • dependent on introspection
  • subjective
• Functionalism

  • Analyze function/purpose of consciousness
  • More objective
• Empiricism 


  Knowledge comes from experience, and experimentation enables scientific knowledge
• Gestalt psychology


  human mind/behavior as a whole, against structuralism
• psychometrics


  Scientific study of the measurement of human abilities, attitudes, and traits.
• Developmental psychology


  physical, cognitive, and social changes
• Educational psychology


  Psychological processes affect teaching/learning
• Personality psychology


  Characteristic pattern of thinking, feeling, acting
• Social psychology


  How we think about, influence, relate to one another
• Applied research


  Solve practical problems; theory driven (hypothesis)
• Industrial – organizational


  Apply psychology to optimize workplaces
• Human factors psychology


  How people/machines interact
• Counseling psychology


  Assist people with problems in living
• Clinical psychology


  Treat people with study, diagnosis, treatment
• Psychiatry


  Provide medical (drug) treatments/psychological therapy
• psychiatrist


  medicine
• Psychologist


  study/diagnose
• Overconfidence


  Thinking we know more than we do
• Hindsight bias


  “I-knew-it-all-along” phenomenon
• Experiment


  Observing factors’ affect on behavior/mental processes
• Population


  All cases in a group, sample drawn for study
• random sample


  Fairest representation of the population
• Convenience sample


  More convenient for scientist
• Random assignment


  Experimental/control conditions by chance; reduce experimenter bias
• Correlational methods


  Study behaviors as they are (case studies)
• Scientific method:


  Hypothesis, experiment, conclusion
• Descriptive research


  Observation/record behavior
• Correlational research


  Natural relationships