PSYC

• Psychology


  The scientific study of mind and behavior
• Mind


  Our inner experiences of perceptions, thoughts, memories, and feelings
• Behavior


  Observable actions of human and non-human beings
• Pseudoscience


  • Information is presented as scientific but is not rooted in reliable and verifiable scientific evidence
  • Examples include phrenology and astrology
  • Pseudoscience essentially exaggerates and presents false claims as true based on what is popular or what most people want to hear at the time
• Psychological findings are based on empirical evidence
• Psychological findings aren't based to what usually happens, what is convenient, or what is personally desired or expected
• Evidence based on research often contradicts common sense, which helps us understand the mind and behavior more accurately
• There aren't any good or bad findings in psychology
• Psychological scientists think why and why not?
• Perspectives and areas of psychology

  • Cognitive psychology
  • Developmental psychology
  • Behavioral neuroscience
  • Biological psychology
  • Personality psychology
  • Social psychology
  • Cross-cultural psychology
  • Clinical psychology
  • Counseling psychology
  • Health psychology
  • Educational psychology
  • Industrial/organizational psychology
  • Sports psychology
  • Forensic psychology
• Critical thinking in psychology

  • Asking questions
  • Defining terms clearly
  • Examining the evidence
  • Analyzing assumptions and biases
  • Avoiding emotional reasoning
  • Avoiding oversimplification
  • Considering alternative interpretations
  • Tolerating uncertainty
• Scientific method in psychology

  1. State hypotheses and predictions precisely

  2. Formulate operational definitions

  3. Gather empirical evidence

  4. Comply with the principle of falsifiability

  5. Cautiously settle on a theory

  6. Do not assume any final conclusions until results are replicated
• Types of methods in psychology

  • Descriptive studies
  • Correlational studies
  • Experiments
• Descriptive statistics are used to summarize data followed by significance tests to check the likelihood of findings occurring by chance
• Human aspects in the scientific method

  • Choice of methods
  • Reliance on multiple methods
  • Interpretation of findings
  • Overconfidence
  • Confirmation bias
• Myths about psychology


  • Psychology is both an art and a science
  • Psychological information is based on the scientific method, not speculation, personal beliefs, or views based on status oriented or changing authority
  • Psychology comprises of various subdisciplines and perspectives of which clinical psychology is one part
  • Psychology is the study of the negative and the positive that influences human well-being and longevity
  • Psychologists cannot read your mind
  • Common sense may align with certain psychological findings, but counterintuitive findings are common
  • Findings in psychology are never expressed as definitive proof due to the changing nature of various influencing factors
• Overview


  • The Early Years
  • Structuralism
  • Functionalism
  • First Women in Psychology
  • Psychoanalysis
  • Behaviorism
  • Humanistic Psychology
  • Cognitive Neuroscience
  • The Story of Social-Personality Psychology
  • Recent Developments
• The two parent disciplines of psychology are Philosophy and Physiology
• Empiricism


  The view that knowledge and thoughts come from experience and observations
• Psychophysics, the psychology of physical sensations, was studied by some of the first researchers in psychology
• Psychology primarily began in Europe and got further established as a science in the United States
• John Locke


  Early psychologist
• Ernst Weber


  Early psychologist
• Gustav Fechner


  Early psychologist
• Wilhelm Wundt


  Began the first psychology laboratory in 1879, influenced by Hermann Helmholtz and methods in physiology
• Principles of Physiological Psychology

  Relevant book published in 1874
• Bradford Titchener


  Further elaborated the methods of introspection
• Structuralism


  • Focused on the analysis of the basic elements that constitute the mind
• William James


  A philosopher-psychologist who encouraged the study of the evolved functions of thoughts and feelings

  
• William James agreed with Wundt on the importance of immediate experience and introspection, but thought thoughts could not be broken down into separate elements</b>
• Functionalism


  How and why the mind enables people to adapt to their environments
• G. Stanley Hall


  Earned the first PhD in psychology, opened the first U.S. laboratory of psychology at Johns Hopkins University, and founded the American Psychology Association as its first president in 1892
• Francis Cecil Sumner


  First African American to earn a PhD in psychology (1920)
• Mary Whiton Calkins


  First woman to be the president of the American Psychological Association in 1905
• Margaret Floy Washburn


  First woman to get a Ph.D. in Psychology, second woman to be the president of the American Psychological Association in 1921
• The early years of psychology were marked by many struggles for women, but today women easily comprise at least 50% of all psychologists, and even more in some areas
• Struggles continue for women as they go up the academic ladder
• Sigmund Freud


  Developed the psychoanalytic theory which emphasized the importance of unconscious mental processes in shaping feelings, thoughts, and behaviors
• Sigmund Freud's theory was controversial and popular as it saw the unconscious, sexual drives, and aggression as the basis of most human experience
• Carl Jung


  Offered alternative ideas to Freud's psychoanalytic theory