Principle of Psycho

• Psychology


  The scientific study of the mind and behavior
• Psychologists


  • Study everything about the human experience from the basic workings of the human brain to consciousness, memory, language, reasoning, personality and mental health
• Psychologists' Goals


  • 1. Describe the different ways that people behave
  • 2. Explain the causes of behavior
  • 3. Predict how people behave in certain situations
  • 4. Control people's behavior
• Psychology, Physiology and Philosophy

  • Psychology is the science of mind and behavior
  • Psychology can be seen as a bridge between physiology and philosophy
  • Where physiology describes and explains the physical make-up of the brain and nervous system, psychology examines the mental processes that take place within them
  • Where philosophy is concerned with thoughts and ideas, psychology studies how we come to have them and what they tell us about the workings of our minds
• Major Philosophical Issues in Psychology

  • Free will versus determinism
  • The mind-brain or mind-body problem
  • The nature-nurture issue
• Determinism


  The idea that everything that happens has a cause, or determinant, that someone could observe or measure
• Free will


  The belief that behavior is caused by a person's independent decisions
• Mind-brain problem

  • Philosophical question of how experience relates to the brain
  • Dualism - view that the mind is separate from the brain but somehow controls the brain and therefore the rest of the body
  • Monism - view that conscious experience is inseparable from the physical brain
• Nature-nurture issue

  Question of how differences in behavior relate to differences in heredity and environment
• Psychological perspectives

  • Structuralism
  • Functionalism
  • Psychoanalytic Theory
  • Gestalt Psychology
  • Behaviorism
  • Humanism
• Wilhelm Wundt (Structuralism)


  • Set up the first laboratory intended exclusively for psychological research in 1879
  • Emphasized structuralism, maintaining that the elements of experience were sensations and feelings
  • Maintained your experience is partly under your voluntary control
• Introspection


  The process by which someone examines their own conscious experience in an attempt to break it into its component parts
• Edward Titchener (Structuralism)


  • Like Wundt, believed that the main question of psychology was the nature of natural experiences
  • Structuralism - an attempt to describe the structures that compose the mind
• William James (Functionalism)


  • Recognized as the founder of American psychology
  • Defined many of the questions that still dominate psychology today
  • Drew from the functionality of cognitive processes, establishing functionalism
  • Functionalism - emphasized how mental activities contributed to basic environmental survival
• Sigmund Freud (Psychoanalytic Theory)


  • Founded Psychoanalytic theory, a perspective which dominated clinical psychology for many decades
  • Studied "hysteria" and neurosis
  • Theorized that many of his patients' problems arose from the unconscious mind
  • Believed that one way the unconscious mind could be accessed was through dream analysis
  • Psychoanalytic theory focuses on the role of a person's unconscious and early childhood experiences
• Gestalt Psychology

  • Kohler, Koffka and Wertheimer were German psychologists who immigrated to the U.S. to escape Nazi Germany
  • Based on the idea that although a sensory experience can be broken down into individual parts, how those parts relate to each other as a whole is often what the individual responds to in perception
  • Ideas of Gestalt continue to influence research on sensation and perception
• Darwin and the Study of Animal Intelligence


  • Charles Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection had an enormous impact on psychology as well as biology
  • Early comparative psychologists set out to measure animal intelligence by rank-ordering animals from the smartest to the dullest
  • They set various species to such tasks as the delayed-response problem and the detour problem
• Ivan Pavlov (Classical Conditioning)


  • Discovered the concept of classical conditioning
  • Studied conditioned reflexes in which an animal produced a reflex (unconscious) response to a stimulus (salivating in the presence of food) and, over time, was conditioned to produce the response to a different stimulus (salivating to the sound of a bell) that the experimenter associated with the original stimulus
• Measuring Human Intelligence


  • Francis Galton was among the first to try to measure intelligence and to ask whether intellectual variations were based on heredity
  • In 1905, Alfred Binet devised the first useful intelligence test
• John B. Watson (Behaviorism)


  • Many regard John B. Watson as the founder of behaviorism
  • Behaviorism - a field of psychology that concentrates on observable, measurable behaviors and not on mental processes
  • Believed that objective analysis of the mind was impossible
  • Instead he focused on observable behavior and ways to bring that behavior under control
  • Today, behaviorism is used in behavioral and cognitive-behavioral therapy
• Behaviorism


  A field of psychology that concentrates on observable, measurable behaviors and not on mental processes
• John B. Watson


  • Regarded as the founder of behaviorism
  • Believed that objective analysis of the mind was impossible
  • Instead focused on observable behavior and ways to bring that behavior under control
• Today, behaviorism is used in behavioral and cognitive-behavioral therapy
• Advantages of studying nonhuman animals

  • The researcher can control the animals diet, waking/sleeping schedule, and so forth far more completely than with humans
  • Nonhuman learning might be simpler to understand
• B.F. Skinner


  • Famous for his research on operant conditioning
  • Concentrated on how behavior was affected by its consequences
  • Studied the principles of modifying behavior through reinforcement and punishment which he saw as major factors in driving behavior (operant conditioning)
• Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs


  A hierarchy of human needs proposed by Abraham Maslow to motivate behavior
• Carl Rogers


  • Developed a client-centered therapy method that has been influential in clinical settings
  • Client-centered therapy involves the patient taking a lead role in the therapy session
  • Rogers believed therapists need: unconditional positive regard, genuineness, empathy
• Cognitive Revolution


  By the 1950's, new disciplinary perspectives in linguistics, neuroscience, and computer science were emerging, and the mind became the new focus of scientific inquiry
• Noam Chomsky


  • Very influential in beginning the cognitive revolution
  • Believed psychology needed to incorporate mental functioning into its focus in order to fully understand human behavior
• Unlike early psychologists, most of today's psychologists do not expect to find a grand theory that will revolutionize our understanding and apply widely to all aspects of experience
• Most psychologists today attempt to answer more limited questions
• Basic research


  Study that seeks theoretical knowledge for its own sake
• Applied research


  Study dealing with practical problems
• Since the 1960s, cognitive psychology (the study of thought and knowledge) has gradually gained in prominence
• Other rapidly growing fields

  • Neuroscience
  • Evolutionary psychology
  • Positive psychology - study of the predispositions and experiences that make people happy, productive, and successful
• New fields of application

  • Health psychology - study of how people's health is influenced by their behaviors
  • Sports psychology - application of psychological principles to help athletes set goals, train, and concentrate their efforts
• Psychologists today have also broadened their scope to include more of human diversity
• Branches of psychology


  • Biopsychology and Evolutionary Psychology
  • Sensation and Perception
  • Cognitive Psychology
  • Developmental Psychology
  • Personality Psychology
  • Social Psychology
  • Health Psychology
  • Industrial-Organizational Psychology
  • Sports and Exercise Psychology
  • Clinical Psychology
  • Forensic Psychology
• Types of Mental Health Professionals

  • clinical psychologist
  • psychiatrist
  • psychoanalyst
  • psychiatric nurse
  • clinical social worker
  • counseling psychologist
  • forensic psychologist
• Some Major Specializations in Psychology

  • Biopsychologist
  • Clinical psychologist
  • Cognitive psychologist
  • Community psychologist
  • Counseling psychologist
  • Developmental psychologist
  • Educational psychologist
  • Environmental psychologist
  • Evolutionary psychologist
  • Human factors specialist
  • Industrial/organizational psychologist
  • Learning and motivation specialist
  • Personality psychologist
  • Psychometrician
  • School psychologist
  • Social psychologist