PYC1502-UNIT ONE

• The mid-19th century was a time of turbulence change in the European scientific community. Many major material sciences were witnessing extra-ordinary upheaval, with new technological discoveries that produced a revolution in industry of magnitude scale.
• Rising among this upheaval was the new science – a science with an origin that could be traced back to the beginnings of human civilization, and yet that had remained devoid of data or any notable theory, a science with no obvious technological or industrial associations, whose main focus of enquiry was central to the notion of what it is to be human. This new science is called psychology.
• Psychology


  The systematic, scientific study of behaviours and mental processes
• Behaviours refer to observable actions of human beings and non-human animals, the things that we do in the world by ourselves or with others. Mental processes (or the mind) refers to our private inner experiences, the ever-flowing stream of consciousness that is made up of perceptions, thoughts, memories and feelings.
• Science


  A method for learning about reality through systematic observation and experimentation
• Psychology as a science consists of scientific knowledge made up of factual statements and theories. Factual statements relate to information that has been collected and analysed in a systematic and controlled manner.
• Psychology was not considered as a 'science' prior to the 19th century because no systematic attempt had been made to pursue or generate the testable hypotheses that were necessary for a field of psychology to become a science.
• Objectivity


  Conclusions about any phenomena are based on facts without the influence from personal emotions or biases
• Subjectivity


  Conclusions reflect personal points of view
• Goals of psychology

  • Description
  • Explanation
  • Prediction
  • Control
• Description

  Observing behaviour and noting everything about it; what is happening; where it happens; to whom it happens, and under what circumstances it seems to happen
• Explanation


  Understanding or finding an explanation for observed behaviour
• Prediction


  Predetermining what will happen in the future
• Control


  Modifying behaviour from an undesirable one to a desirable one
• Theory


  An orderly, integrated set of statements that describes, explains, and predicts behaviour
• Theories must be subjected to scientific examination based on critical thinking. If the research does not support a theory, that theory would be revised or abandoned.
• Importance of theories


  • They allow us to understand and predict the behaviour of some aspect of the world
  • They give meaning to the facts we discover about the world, and serve as a framework within which to interpret facts and integrate new information with previously acquired knowledge
  • They help explain observations and contribute to the body of knowledge
  • Theories that are verified by research provide a sound basis for practical action
• The principle of parsimony suggests that when several alternative conclusions, or several competing theories offer nearly equally convincing explanations of something, the correct explanation tends to be the simplest.
• Structuralism


  The analysis of the basic elements that constitute the mind
• Introspection


  The subjective observation of one's own experiences
• Functionalism


  The study of the purpose mental processes serve in enabling people to adapt to their environments
• Functionalism focused on investigating the function or purpose of consciousness, rather than analysing its structure.
• Behaviorism


  The perspective that private experience was too idiosyncratic and vague to be the object of scientific study, and that psychology should focus on observable behaviour instead
• Functionalism


  Focused on investigating the function or purpose of consciousness, rather than analysing its structure
• Functionalism


  • Concentrated on what the mind does and how behaviour functions
  • Concerned about the role of behaviours in allowing people to better adapt to the environments
  • Examined how behaviour allows people to satisfy their needs
• John Dewey


  American educator who used functionalism to develop the field of school psychology, proposing ways to best meet the students' educational needs
• Behaviorism


  Proposed that psychology should focus entirely on the study of behaviour (what people do rather than what people experience) because behaviour can be observed by anyone and it can be measured objectively
• Behaviorism


  • The goal of scientific psychology should be to predict and control behaviour in ways that benefit the society
• Classical conditioning

  A type of learning where a neutral stimulus becomes associated with a stimulus that naturally produces a response, and the neutral stimulus eventually comes to trigger the same response
• Operant conditioning

  A type of learning where behavioural responses that are followed by pleasurable consequences are strengthened or reinforced, whereas the behaviours that are followed by unpleasurable consequences are punished
• Gestalt psychology

  A psychological approach that emphasises that people perceive the whole rather than the sum of its parts
• Gestalt psychology is a perspective focusing on how perception is organised
• Gestalt psychology concentrated on how people consider individual elements together as unit or whole</b>
• Humanism


  An approach that emphasises that people have great freedom in directing their future, a large capacity for achieving personal growth, a considerable amount of intrinsic worth, and enormous potential for self-fulfillment
• Psychoanalysis

  An approach that emphasises the importance of unconscious mental processes in shaping feelings, thoughts, and behaviours
• Freud became convinced that the causes of people's physical problems were not at all physical, but instead were deep-seated problems that the patient had pushed out of consciousness
• Freud believed that all behaviour - from everyday slips of the tongue to severe forms of mental disorder - is motivated by psychological processes, especially by mental conflict that occur without our awareness at an unconscious level
• Ontology refers to the study of the basic nature of the object of research in psychology, which is the behaviour and the experiences of human beings
• Epistemology relates to the scientific knowledge we have about the object of research, which is based on facts that all researchers agree about
• Methodology

  Our understanding of the methods that we use to obtain scientific knowledge