Psychology

• Study of the mind and internal mechanisms
• Studies the thought process and behaviour of the individual
• Study of the human mind, behaviours, emotions, cognitive processes, and personality
• Psychology is deeply related to biology
• Psychology comes from the Greek words “psyche” meaning soul and “logos” meaning study of
• Psychologists often look for links between human behaviour and the mental processes
• Buddha wonders how sensations and perceptions combine to form ideas
• Confucius stresses power of ideas and of an educated mind
• Israel scholars link mind and emotion to body
• Socrates (469-399 B.C.E.) and Plato (428-348 B.C.E.) - concluded that the mind is separable from the body, that the mind continues after the body dies and that knowledge is innate- meaning already within us
• Aristotle (384-322 B.C.E.) - applies logic and observation and concludes that knowledge is acquired through the exercise of reason (not innate/pre existing)
• Rene Descartes (1585-1650) - agrees with Socrates with existence of innate knowledge and the mind being separate from the body and able to survive its death
• Francis Bacon (1561-1626) - centered on experiment, experience, and common sense judgement. Bacon became one of the founders of modern science
• John Locke (1632-1704) - spends 2 decades pondering human understanding. He famously argues that the mind at birth is a blank slate (tabula rasa) upon which experiences and life writes upon to create personality, disposition, and temperament
• Empiricism: idea that what we know comes from experience
• Wilhelm Wundt (1879) - created the first experiment to test time lag between hearing a sound and consciously aware of hearing a sound.
• Edward Titchener (1892) - used introspection to search for the mind;s structural elements
• Structuralism - thinking about the mind’s structures
• Flaw of introspection: needed subjects who were smart and verbal, and it was too subjective
• William James - influenced by Charles Darwin, he concluded that structures in the body have a specific function (functionalism)
• Mary Whiton Calkins - was denied a Ph.D. even though she had all requirements
• Margaret Floy Washburn - first female Harvard psychology Ph.D.
• Behaviourism: the view that psychology should be an objective science that studies behaviour without reference to mental processes
• John. B Watson & B.F. Skinner dismissed introspection and redefined psychology as “the scientific study of observable behaviour”
• Freudian Psychology: emphasized the ways our unconscious thought processes and our emotional responses to childhood experiences affect our behaviour
• Humanistic Psychology (1960s): emphasized growth potential of healthy people
• Carl Rogers & Abraham Maslow focused on environmental influences nurturing. Limiting growth potential and need for love and acceptance
• Cognitive neuroscience: study of brain activity linked with cognition
• Psychology: science of behaviour of mental processes
• Behaviour: anything an organism does. Mental processes is the internal, subjective experiences we infer from behaviour
• Basic Research: pure science that aims to increase the scientific knowledge base
• Applied Research: scientific study that aims to solve practical problems
• Developmental Psychology: studies physical, cognitive, and social change throughout the lifespan
• Social Psychology: scientific study of how we think about, influence, and relate to one another
• Bronfenbrenner’s Ecological Model

  • Individual: Age, gender, type farm
  • Microsystem: Family, peers, veterinarian
  • Mesosystem: Interrelations
  • Exosystem: Industry, community, regulations
  • Macrosystem: Norms and ideology of the systems
• Biopsychosocial Approach

  • Biological Influences
  • Psychological Influences
  • Socio-cultural Influences
• Hindsight: the tendency to believe after learning an outcome that we could have foreseen it
• Overconfidence: in our judgement results partly from our bias to seek information to confirm our perspective
• Scientific attitude requires us to be skeptical, curious, and humble
• Critical thinking: thinking that does not blindly accept arguments and conclusions