Module 1 - Intro to Psych, Perspectives, Professionals, & Methods

Psychology

Scientific study of behavior and mental processes.

Behavior

all outward or overt actions and reactions (e.g. talking, expressions)

Mental processes

Internal/hidden activity of the minds

Wilhelm Wundt

• Father of Psychology

• First one to attempt to bring objectivity and measurement to psychology

• He defined psychology as the scientific study of conscious experience where it could be broken into thoughts, experiences, emotions, and other basic elements.

• Objective Introspection

  
  

Objective Introspection

Process of objectively examining and measuring one’s own thoughts and mental activities

Edward Titchener

• Wundt’s student

• Founder of School of Thought also known as Structuralism

• Made the aspects of the mind quantifiable. They added objective experiments in the field of psychology

  
  

Structuralism

• “What makes up the human mind?

• first school of thought that tried to understand the structure of mind by breaking down conscious experiences into its individual emotions and sensations.

William James

• Developed Functionalism

• The first educator to offer a psychology course in the United States

Functionalism

• A psychological viewpoint on how the mind allows people to function in the real world – how people work, play, and adapt to their surroundings.

Mary Whiton Calkins

First woman to complete the coursework for a doctorate at Harvard University

Gestalt Psychology

• Max Wertheimer

• The whole is greater than the sum of its parts. It studies the organized whole rather than small pieces of them.

Psychoanalysis

• Sigmund Freud (neurologist)

• Stressed the importance of early life experiences and the role of the unconscious mind and development through stages

• Early Childhood experiences – believing that personality was formed in the first 6 years of life

Behaviorism

• psychological approach that focuses on studying observable actions and treats internal mental states as secondary or unnecessary

Conditioning

The primary mechanism of learning through environmental interactions.

• Ex. Little Peter — conditions a baby to fear a rabbit by scary and aggressive noises.

Counterconditioning

Pairing a neutral stimulus with a natural stimulus to create an automatic response.

• Ex. Little Peter — exposing Peter to white rabbit eating his favorite food until he no longer fears the rabbit.

Classical conditioning

Learning to make an involuntary response (emotions, reflexes) to a stimulus aside from the natural stimulus that normally produces the involuntary responses.