Chapter 1 part 1

Psychology

The scientific study of behaviors and mental processes

• Not field that relies on common sense and individual experiences and memory

Psychology is often considered to be a union of what 2 fields?

Philosophy (questions about the mind)

Physiology (empirical evidence from the body)

Dualism is the belief that body and ___ are separate. Psychologists instead believe that these two things are in fact one and the same

Mind

Wundt

• Interested in sensation and perception. Studied conscious experiences and that it can be broken down into basic elements → structuralism

• Studied in an objective way called Introspection

• Brought person into the lab and taught introspection → then showed metronome and asked to describe it

Structuralism

Focus on breaking down immediate conscious experiences (sensations and feelings) into their constituent parts

James

• Said that the more important to study was how people function in the world → functionalism

• Interested in how mental activities help humans adapt to their environment

• Used different recording devices to be objective as possible

Functionalism

Psychological perspective focused on how mental activities help people adapt to their environment → Darwinism

Freud

• Unconscious motives and experiences in early childhood govern personality and mental disorders → Psychodynamic

• Said children and adults are different → treat differently

Psychodynamic

More insight into unconscious thoughts, behaviors, and motivations

Watson and Skinner

• Only observable events can be studied scientifically → Behaviorism

• Study of consciousness, thoughts, feelings, etc should be abandoned → everything you are is LEARNED

Behaviorism

Suggests that observable behavior should only be the topic of the study, ignoring conscious experiences

Rogers and Maslow

• Humans are free and rational beings

• Born with the desire to learn and support its beliefs

• People can have control over their biological environment (Humanistic)

Humanistic

People have free will and the capacity to realize their own potential

Biological approach

An organism’s functioning can be explained in terms of bodily structures and biochemical processes that underlie behavior

Cognitive approach

Human behavior cannot be fully understood without examining how people acquire, store and process information (decision making)

Sociocultural approach

To understand human behavior we must examine influences of social/cultural environment → how it is impacted by the group you are in (race, gender, hierarchy)

Why are all famous historical psychologists old white men?

• Women and BIPOC could not go to school and get degrees

• Contributions of women and BIPOC were ignored and left out

Margaret Flay Washburn

1st woman to earn Psych PhD in US

Anna Freud

Freuds daughter

• Expanded his ideas about defense and mechanisms

• Started using psychoanalysis with kids

Mary Whiton Calkins

1st female president of APA

Leta Stetter Hollingworth

Challenged idea that women were intellectually inferior to men and unable to function while menstruating

Inez Prosser

1st Black woman to earn Psych PhD in the US

Martha Bernal

1st Latina to earn Psych PhD in the US

Mamie Phipps Clark

Created famous “Clark Doll Study”, instrumental in court cases about school segregation (Including Brown v Board of Education)

Kenneth Clark

1st Black President of the APA

Francis Cecil Sumner

1st Black person to earn Psych PhD in the US, called the “Father of Black Pyschology”

Robert Williams II

Founded the National Association of Black Psychologists, challenged idea of innate racial differences in intelligence with creation of Black Intelligence Test of Cultural Homogeineity, coined the term “Ebonics” to describe AAVE

Clinical & Counseling Psychology

Focus on the diagnosis, treatment, and/or understanding of psychological disorders and problematic behaviors

Counselors/therapists

Masters Degree

Clinical Psychologists

PhD or PsyD (cannot prescribe meds)

Psychiatrists

MD, prescribe meds

Tuskegee Syphilis Study

• 40 yr unethical medical experiment where 600 Black men had syphilis and were observed with the effects of the meds given to them

• Not told they had syphilis

Institutional Review Board (IRB)

Review board at any federally funded institution responsible for reviewing all research to determine if it is ethical