INTRO TO PSYCH

• Psychology is the scientific study of behavior and mental process
• •Psyche: Mind
• •Logos: Knowledge or study
• Control: Altering conditions that influence behaviors

  •Positive use: To control unwanted behaviors (e.g., smoking, tantrums, etc.)
• Pseudo means “false.”  Any unfounded “system” that resembles psychology and is NOT based on scientific testing
• •Palmistry: Lines on your hands (palms) predict future and reveal personality 
• •Phrenology: Personality traits revealed by shape of skull
• Phrenology was an attempt to assess personality characteristics by examining various areas of the skull.
• •Graphology: Personality traits are revealed by your handwriting
• •Astrology: The positions of the stars and planets at birth determine personality traits and affect your behavior
• Feng Sui :Chinese principles of “luck”..
• Wilhelm Wundt: “Father” of psychology

  •1879: Set up first lab to study conscious experience
• I.TRADITIONAL ERA: Psychology started with man’s early speculations.

  Animism – Belief in gods and spirits determine life occurences
• Plato and Aristotle – postulated that the “Soul” is the source of life.

  And every human person is made up of a core, which is the soul.
• Galen primarily his concept of the four humours that controlled the human condition: blood, phlegm, black bile, and yellow bile.
• . Sanguine - cheerful
• . Melancholic - sad
• Choleric –strict, irascible
• . Phlegmatic – slow and sluggish
• René Descartes argued that the mind gives people the capacities for thought and consciousness: the mind “decides” and the body carries out the decision—a dualistic mind-body split that modern psychological science is still working to overcome.

  -“ Mind and body dualism”
• John Locke – “Tabula Rasa”, latin for “blank sheet or blank tablet”.
• Wilhelm Wundt, 1832-1920. Wundt is credited with making psychology an independent science, separate from philosophy. Wundt's original training was in medicine, but he became deeply interested in psychology. In his laboratory, Wundt investigated how sensations, images, and Ofeelings combine to make up personal experience.
• Attempted to discover the “building blocks” of conscious thought. This was based on a pure, immediate sensory experience

  Wilhelm Wundt
• William James believed strongly that ideas should be judged in terms of their practical consequences for human conduct.
• William James (American) and functionalism

  •How the mind functions to help us adapt and survive
• •John B. Watson and Burrhus F. Skinner•Psychology must study observable behavior objectively•Studied relationship between
• •Watson studied Little Albert with Rosalie Raynor; Skinner studied animals almost exclusively
• B. F. Skinner, 1904-1990. Skinner studied simple behaviors under carefully controlle conditions. The "Skinner box" has been widely used to study learning in simplified animal experiments.
• John B. Watson, 1878-1958. Watson's intense interest in observable behavior
• Albert Ellis was one of the most influential Psychotherapists in the establishment of cognitive behavioral therapy because he founded Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy (REBT).
• Cognition (thinking) and conditioning are combined to explain behavior
• Albert Bandura, posits that people learn from one another, via observation, imitation, and modeling.

  • Observational learning or Vicarious learning
• Gestalt psychology: “The whole is greater than the sum of its parts”

  •Studied thinking, learning, and perception in whole units, not by analyzing experiences into parts
• Piaget's theory of cognitive development is a comprehensive theory about the nature and development of human intelligence.
• Psychoanalytic Perspective

  •Our behavior is largely influenced by our unconscious wishes, thoughts, and desires, especially sex and aggression•All thoughts, actions, and emotions are determined  by unconscious processesFreud performed dream a
• Repression: When threatening thoughts are unconsciously held out of awareness
• “Reservoir” – storage for repressed items
• •Free Association: Saying whatever comes to mind, regardless of how embarrassing or unimportant it may seem
• •Goal of psychology is to study unique aspects of the personFocuses on human experience, problems, potentials, and ideal ?

  HUMANISM
• Abraham Maslow, 1908-1970. As a founder of humanistic psychology, Maslow was interested in studying people of exceptional mental health. Such self-actualized people, he believed, make full use of their talents and abilities.