WEEK 1

• Psychology is defined as the scientific investigation of mental processes (thinking, remembering, and feeling), behaviour, and the interaction between them.
• Psychologists apply scientific methods to understand human behaviours.
• Psychology is defined as the scientific investigation of mental processes (thinking, remembering, and feeling), behaviour, and the interaction between them.
• Cross-cultural research needs to reconsider research that looks at psychology and culture.
• Biopsychology examines the physical basis of psychological phenomena such as motivation, emotion, and stress.
• The sociocultural perspective represents a modern approach to psychology that emphasises social interaction and cultural determinants of behaviour and mental processes.
• Free will or determinism asks whether we choose our actions or do things outside our control to determine our behaviour.
• The mind-body problem is the question of how mental and physical events interact.
• Structuralism is the process of uncovering the basic elements of consciousness through introspection.
• Functionalism is the process of explaining psychological processes in terms of the role, or function, they serve.
• Edward Titchener initiated the school of thought known as structuralism.
• William James was one of the founders of functionalism.
• The psychodynamic perspective describes how people’s actions are determined by the way thoughts, feelings and wishes are connected in their minds. Many of these mental events occur outside conscious awareness. These mental processes may conflict with one another, leading to compromises among competing motives.
• Sigmund Freud emphasised unconscious mental forces in his psychoanalytic theory.
• According to psychoanalytic theory, many of the associations between feelings and behaviours or situations that guide our behaviour are expressed unconsciously.
• The humanistic perspective focuses on the uniqueness of the individual - it assumes that people are motivated to become self-actualised (reach their full potential).
• Carl Rogers’ client-centred therapy emphasised conscious, goal-directed choices and the need for individuals to realise their true potential - to self-actualise.
• The behaviourist perspective focuses on the way objects or events in the environment come to control behaviour through learning.
• B. F. Skinner observed that behaviour can be controlled by environmental consequences that either increase (reinforce) or decrease (punish) their likelihood of occurring.
• The cognitive perspective focuses on the way people perceive, process and retrieve information.
• René Descartes’ early philosophical questions led many cognitive psychologists to emphasise the role of reason in creating knowledge.
• Modern-day cognitive psychologists use experimental procedures to infer the underlying mental processes.