PSYCH 101 - Week 1, Intro to Psych

What Is Psychology

Psychology is the science of behaviour and mental processes

Who Are These People Called Psychologists?

• Study all aspects of life

• Diverse areas of focus (e.g., research, teaching, clinical work)

How Did Psychology Begin?

Origins in philosophy:

• Socrates:  “Know thyself”

• Plato and Aristotle:  body, mind, and soul

• Descartes:  “I think therefore I am”

• Empiricists (e.g., Locke and Hume):  all knowledge is linked to experience and comes from our senses

How Did Psychology Begin? (cont’d)

• Young science: Began a little more than a century ago

• Different schools of psychological thought emerged…

  • Structuralism – focused on basic elements of the mind (or structure)

    • Edward Titchener

  • Functionalism – focused on how (and why) the mind functions

    • William James: “Consciousness, he argued, consists of a continuous flow of thoughts. In analyzing consciousness

      into its “elements,” the structuralists were looking at static points in that flow

• Wilhelm Wundt is considered the founder of psychology

  • established the first formal laboratory for research in psychology

  • established the first journal devoted to publishing research on psychology

Psychology’s Roots in Canada

• 1891:  First experimental laboratory in the British Empire established by James Baldwin at the University of Toronto

• 1892:  Baldwin helped found the American Psychological Association

• 1939:  Canadian Psychological Association founded

Important Canadian contributions by Brenda Milner and Donald Hebb (both of McGill University)

What’s the difference between a psychologist and a psychiatrist?

• Many psychologists have professional training and clinical skills to evaluate and treat your mental health using psychotherapy (talk therapy), psychological evaluations and testing.

• Psychologists work in many different settings, for example, schools

  • They also do a lot of research

• Psychiatrists are concerned with the diagnosis and treatment of psychological problems and disorders

  • Medical doctor who specialize in brain

  • Sometimes counsel?

7 Key Themes in Psychology

1. Psychology is empirical

   a) Empiricism is the premise that knowledge should be acquired

   through observation

2. Psychology is theoretically diverse

   a) A theory is a system of interrelated ideas used to explain a set of observations

   b) Lots of different theories to explain human behaviour and human mental processes

3. Psychology evolves in a sociohistorical context

   a) Interconnections exist between what happens in psychology and what happens in society at large

   b) When we think of diversity, we must think about what’s going on in the world at the time that influences human behaviour

4. Behaviour is determined by multiple causes

   a) Leads us to rational idea that lots of different things can impact behaviour

5. Behaviour is shaped by cultural heritage

6. Heredity and environment jointly influence behaviour

   a) Heredity: the passing on of physical or mental characteristics genetically from one generation to another. Looking at how both influence behaviour at once

7. People’s experience of the world is highly subjective

What Makes Psychology A Science?

Use of scientific principles, methods and procedures for:

• Knowledge development

• Prediction

(Social sciences are a bit limited in ability to predict)

Psychology is Based on 2 Premises: #1?

1. Empiricism:  knowledge through careful observation, not ‘logic,’ ‘common sense,’ or ‘intuition’

   1. Common sense: subjective based on life experience. Yes, its based in “intuition” however is still based in culture, experiences etc. you cannot say there is something everybody knows

Psychology is Based on 2 Premises: #2?

2. Theory development:  collection of interrelated ideas & observations that describe, explain and predict behaviour or mental processes

   1. Research needs to be grounded in theory. Theory is important!

Theory Overview

Theory is like a lens! They offer different perspectives and stuff. Theories also vary across time and sociohistorical periods

• The “map” metaphor

  • The “map” is not the “territory”

  • They are organized based on the perspective you are focusing on. It is based on what u are highlighting

  • What one theory highlights, another obscures

And so:

• Theories are:

  • Historically situated and variable

    • Reflect social and moral thinking of the day

  • Limited

8 out of Some Major Theoretical Perspectives in Psychology*

• Psychodynamic

• Behaviourism

• Humanistic

• Cognitive

• Developmental

• Social

• Cultural

• Evolutionary

Psychodynamic (focus on)

• Founder: Sigmund Freud

• Proposed that unconscious mental processes direct behaviour

  • the unconscious: contains thoughts, memories, and desires that are well below the surface of conscious awareness but that nonetheless exert great influence on behaviour

• Therapeutic technique: Psychoanalysis

  • Based on idea that on the conscious, mental processes direct our behaviour, focuses on the subcounsious/unconsiusness

  • Technique that came from theory is psychoanalysis

Behaviourism (focus on)

• Founder: John Watson

  • believed psychology should be the study of behaviour since the conscious was a private matter and u could only technically observe its surroundings

• Rejected study of the contents of consciousness

• Focused on measuring only what is observable

  • There’s no one truth in psychology

  • Focus on interactions with the environment, that’s all lol

Humanistic (focus on)

• Developed by Carl Rogers and Abraham Maslow

• Individuals motivated by need for self-actualization

• Emphasizes person’s positive qualities, unique experiences

  • Self actualization: means being all u can be

  • People are unique and you should focus on their unique experiences

  • Contracts both psycho and behavioural. Those theories obscured people’s actual experiences

Cognitive

• Focuses on such processes as perception, memory, and thinking

• Mental processes involved in knowing

• Ideas/Thoughts → Behaviour

  • Looks at how people think, what they think, what kind of mental process do we draw and and use

  • What happens inside our head impact our behaviours

Social

• Focus on how social factors affect both behaviour and mental processes

• Deals with social interactions, their origins, and how they impact individuals

  • How groups impact individuals

  • Nuanced environment discussions

  • How do people impact how you think and what you do

Evolutionary

• Based on ideas of Charles Darwin

• Assumes behaviours that help organisms adapt will be passed on to successive generations

• Reproduction, adaptation, “survival of the fittest”

Multiple Theoretical Perspectives Inform the Research in Psychology - General Notes

• Remember, theory and research work together!

• Theory informs research questions

• Research tests theory

• When theory is tested and research is not supporting it, QUESTION THE THEORY :D

Psychology as a Science

• What does “doing science” mean to you?

  • Participant observer

  • Can u be objective in observations if u are apart of group or by having values that have been socially ingrained in yourself?

• Is Psychology a “real” science?

  • Psychology follows principles of “hard” sciences but has space for subjectivity/ different opinions because people don’t sit still, they are odd

Doing Research: Three Principles of the Scientific Endeavour

1. Objectivity

   1. To be empirical u have to be objective

2. Systematic Observation

3. Replicability

   1. Shows that your idea might actually be right

Operational definitions (clarity, measurability)

An operational definition describes the actions or operations that will be used to measure or control a variable.

• To be testable, scientific hypotheses must be formulated precisely, and the variables under study

  must be clearly defined. Researchers achieve these

  clear formulations by providing operational definitions of the relevant variables.

• they establish precisely what is meant by each variable in the context of a study