ITP 1 - INTRO TO PSYCH

• Psychology is the scientific study of behavior and mental process
• Psyche - mind/spirit
• Logos - the study of
• Behavior involves the way we think, act, and feel
• The goals of Psychology are to describe, explain and understand, predict, and control behavior
• Naturalistic Observation is observing and recording the behavior of people (or animals) in their natural environment
• Case Studies are in-depth description and analysis of a single individual (or a few individuals)
• Surveys and Questionnaires are administered to a large group of people
• Correlational Research tells whether the values of two variables are related
• • Correlation - Number that indicates the relationship between two or more variables
  • Scatterplot - Visually represents a correlation
• By manipulating an independent variable (the cause), the researcher determines whether it influences the dependent variable (the effect)
• Experimental method - the experimenter deliberately manipulates a variable and the effect of that manipulation on another variable is then measured
• • Independent Variable -  Variable that is manipulated by the experimenter.
  • Dependent Variable -  Variable that is measured to see the effect of the independent variable.
• • Experimental Group -  Receives some “treatment” like getting a drug or psychotherapy.
  • Control Group - Treated exactly the same as the experimental group but does NOT receive the “treatment.”
• Other research methods in Psychology

  1. Predictive Studies
  2. Moderation and Mediation Studies
  3. Qualitative Researches
• Developmental Psychology - Studies changes that accompany age
• Physiological Psychology - Studies biological basis of behavior
• Experimental Psychology - Research on basic psychological processes
• Personality Psychology - Study differences among individuals, develop theories about the causes of these differences, and use tests and questionnaires to measure these differences.
• Social Psychology - How people influence one another.
• Industrial & Organizational Psychology - Selecting and training personnel, improving productivity and working conditions, stress and other worker problems, designing products for consumer convenience, safety, appeal.
• • Clinical psychologists - diagnosis, cause, and treatment of psychological disorders.
  • Counseling psychologists - “normal” problems of adjustments in life.
• Psychology is only about 100 years old. It is developed out of two other sciences; Philosophy and Physiology.
• Late 1800’s different “schools of thought” developed, first in Europe and later in the United States.
• • Wundt is considered by many to be the “father of psychology.”
  • Wundt opened the first psychological laboratory in Leipzig, in 1879.
• Goal of Structuralism -  to discover the basic units of conscious “atoms of thought.”  To discover the mind’s “structure.”
• Functionalism: William James - Consciousness is constantly flowing like a river and cannot be broken into atoms of thought.
• Goal of Functionalism - to understand how our senses allow us to function in the environment.
• Cognitive Psychology is concerned with memory, thinking, language, learning, decision making.
• • Gestalt psychology is concerned primarily with our perception of our environment.
  • Gestalt - means “whole” or good form.
• Goal of Gestalt Psychology - to understand how we perceive objects in our world.
• • Law of Pragnanz - We tend to see things in the simplest possible way.
  • Gestalt Principles - closure, similarity, proximity, continuity, etc.
• • Psychoanalysis focused on the unconscious determinants of behavior.
  • Psychoanalysis is also Freud’s theory of personality and method of research and therapy
  • Biologically “deterministic” little free will
• • Founder of Behaviorism is John B. Watson
  • Goal - Psychologists should study only “observable behaviors.”
  • Environmentally deterministic, little free will
• • Watson and Raynor’s (1921) “Little Albert Study”  demonstrated that Pavlov’s classical conditioning works in humans.
  • B.F. Skinner focused on Operant (Instrumental) conditioning in which the learner plays an active role.
• • Humanism (Carl Rogers) is an optimistic view of human nature
  • People are basically good and strive to reach their full potential
  • Optimistic view, we have free will
• • Existentialism (Rollo May) is based on existential philosophy
  • Concerned with the “alienation” and lack of meaning in our modern technological society.
  • Addresses difficult questions such as “what is the meaning of life?”
• • Positive Psychology is a recent addition to the field
  • Focuses on the characteristics that make people happy and successful.
  • Focuses on strengths
• Psychiatry – the branch of medicine concerned with the diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of mental disorders.
• Psychotherapy – the treatment of psychological orders using psychological rather than biological methods.