Ch1: Introduction

What is Psychology

Psychology is the scientific study of mind and behavior. The word “psychology” comes from the Greek words “psyche,” meaning life, and “logos,” meaning explanation.

Psychology examines:

both observable behaviors and the internal, often unconscious, processes that shape human experience.

Primary goals

to describe, understand, predict, and sometimes control behaviors and mental processes.

Explain how psychology changed from a philosophical to a scientific discipline. Or What are the critics of Psychology?

Psychology was also defined as the “science of mind”. But psychologists were never satisfied with this definition because mind was a vague term that could not be defined in objective terms.

Psychology is subjective:

Critics argue that psychology often struggles to maintain objectivity, as many psychological concepts and diagnoses are influenced by subjective interpretation rather than concrete measurement

Behaviourism critic

Criticized for ignoring internal mental processes and focusing solely on observable behavior.

Psychoanalysis critic

Questioned for its lack of empirical support and reliance on untestable concepts.

Scientific approach

The field has moved steadily from speculation about behavior toward a more objective and scientific approach as the technology available to study human behavior has improved.

Schools of thoughts

Structuralism

Functionalism

Psychoanalysis

Behaviourism

Gestalt

Founder of Structuralism

Wilhelm Wundt, father of modern psychology

Founder of Functunalism

Willian James, John Dewey

Founder of psychoanalysis

Sigmund Freud

Founder of Behaviorism

John B. Watson and BF Skinner

Founder of Gestalt

.

Define Structuralism

It focused on breaking down mental processes into it’s most basic components.

Focused upon the structure and operations of the mind processes rather than studying whole things and phenomenon.

Define Functunalism

An approach that concentrated on what the mind does, in other words the functions of mental activity, and the role of behavior in allowing people to adapt to their environments.

Instead of ‘what’ is focused on ‘why’

Define Psychoanalysis

focuses on the unconscious forces that drive/ motivate human behavior or belief that the inner forces over which individuals have little control, motivate behavior.

Freud introduced a model of human psyche with three parts:

Id, ego and super ego

These are the driving factors in human behavior.

Define Behaviorism

It is a school of thought that argues all behavior is learned through the interaction with the environment. It focuses on overt rather than internal mental processes, like thoughts or emotions.

Behaviorists study

• Observable/ overt behavior

• Specific measurable responses

• How particular types of behaviors are controlled by particular types of environmental stimuli

Define Gestalt

A study focused on studying the whole experience of a person rather than breaking it into individual components.

The key idea is that ‘the whole is better than the sum of it’s parts’.

Example: Face

Objective of Psychology

Psychology is the scientific study of mind and soul. It examines both observable behaviors and the internal, often unconscious, processes that shape human experience.

fundamentally about people—customers, employees, teams, and leaders.

Goals

1. To describe

2. To explain

3. To predict

4. To control