psychology

• Psychology


  The scientific study of behavior and mental processes
• Behavior


  • Outward or overt actions and reactions
• Mental processes


  • Internal and covert activity of our minds
• Psychology as a science

  • Prevents possible biases from leading to faulty observations
  • Precise and careful measurement
• Four goals of psychology

  1. Description

  2. Explanation

  3. Prediction

  4. Control
• Historical figures in psychology

  • Plato
  • Aristotle
  • Rene Descartes
  • John Locke
  • Charles Darwin
  • Francis Galton
  • Ernst Weber
  • Gustav Fechner
  • Herman von Helmholtz
• Wilhelm Wundt


  Father of modern psychology, established first experimental psychology lab, developed technique of objective introspection
• Structuralism


  • Focused on the structure or basic elements of the mind
• Functionalism


  • Focused on how the mind allows people to adapt, live, work, and play to their surroundings
• Gestalt psychology


  • Believed that the human mind imposes meaning to related experiences, advocated holistic study of human behavior
• Psychoanalysis


  • Stressed the importance of early childhood experiences, proposed the existence of an unconscious mind
• Behaviorism


  • Focused on observable behavior only, based on the work of Ivan Pavlov and John B. Watson
• Psychodynamic


  • Modern version of psychoanalysis, focuses on the role of the unconscious mind and its influence on conscious behavior and early childhood experiences
• Behavioral


  • Focuses on how behavioral responses are learned through classical or operant conditioning
• Humanistic


  • Focuses on human potential, free will, and possibility of self-actualization
• Cognitive


  • Focuses on how people think, remember, store, and use information
• Sociocultural


  • Focuses on the relationship between social behavior and culture
• Biopsychological


  • Focuses on the biological bases of behavior and mental processes
• Evolutionary psychology


  • Focuses on the biological bases of universal mental characteristics that all humans share