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Lecture Notes: History and Overview of Psychology

What is Psychology

  • Psychology is the science that seeks to understand behavior and mental processes.
  • Study of mind and behavior.
  • Behavior is the best window into the human mind; from it we can deduce mental states.

Science vs Common Sense

  • Science is based on information gathered through empirical research.
  • Common sense frequently leads to wrong answers due to oversimplification, overgeneralization from few instances, self-serving biases, etc.
  • Unfortunately, many pop-psychology books are ‘common sense’ books, not science.

Empiricism

  • knowledge through direct observation and measurement/ experimentation.
  • Not speculation. Observable evidence.

Scientific Method

  • Observation
  • Defining a problem
  • Proposing a hypothesis
  • Gathering evidence/testing the hypothesis
  • Publishing results
  • Building a theory

Observation

  • Define problem
  • Propose hypothesis
  • Gather evidence
  • Test hypothesis
  • Reject hypothesis
  • Retain hypothesis
  • Publish results
  • Theory building

History of Psychology

  • Philosophy: theorized about the nature of the mind and soul - Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, associationists, nativists.
  • Physiology: Helmholtz – measured nerve energy – nerves were the essence of existence could be measured.

Historical figures and schools of thought

  • Wilhelm Wundt, 1879

    • First Psychology Laboratory - University of Leipzig, Germany
    • Physiologist studying sensory-perceptual systems
    • Goal: use the laboratory methods to study consciousness
    • methods of study: Introspection – issues with introspection
    • Processing time

  • Edward Titchner

    • Brought psychology to US
    • Formed Structuralism
    • Goal: to define the structure of consciousness
    • Used introspection
    • Did not last as too difficult to do/ conflicting findings

  • Hermann Ebbinghaus

    • Studied learning and memory
    • Contemporary of Titchner’s
    • No formal training
    • Did research on himself
    • Methods –
    • Nonsense words
    • Word lists
    • Repeated until stable data
    • Memory decay as a function of time
    • Length of time needed to memorize lists

  • (Graph) Retention data

    • Retention (savings score percentage) as a function of elapsed time
    • Immediate recall, 20 minutes, 1 hour, 9 hours, etc.

  • Gestalt psychologists

    • The whole is more than the sum of the parts
    • Methods: Illusions
    • Argued fundamental units of input were not enough to explain our perception of things.
    • Philosophical to some extent.

  • Kitaoka Turtles

    • Kitaoka Turtles (an illusion example)

  • Freud and Psychoanalysis

    • Psychodynamic
    • Root of all psychological problems are unconscious conflicts in the mind
    • emphasize internal motives, conflicts and unconscious forces
    • Still has impact today in psychoanalysis

  • William James

    • Functionalist school of thought
    • how consciousness functions to help people adapt to their environments
    • why has consciousness evolved
    • What is the adaptive function

  • Behaviorists

    • John Watson and B.F. Skinner
    • What should be measured is behavior
    • Behavior should not be used to infer mental events
    • Measure what we can measure
    • Use only empirical evidence

Current approaches in the field of psychology

  • Biological

    • How neurophysiological, chemical events in the nervous system produce behavior.
    • Psychological phenomena = biological/biochemical events
    • Genetic basis of behavior also important
    • reductionism -> complex processes can be reduced to component parts.

  • Evolutionary approach

    • How have psychological processes evolved?
    • Animal behavior is the backbone
    • Understanding animals helps understand evolution of human behavior.
    • Behavior is the product of natural selection - behavior is neither good or bad but neutral
    • Make inter-specific comparisons (comparative psychology)

  • Psychodynamic - Freud

    • Behavior is the result of inner conflicts between good and bad
    • inner drives and societal pressures.
    • Heredity and early childhood important
    • there is a biological component - emphasis on genetics
    • maternal influence in childhood determines long term behavior
    • human nature in some manner is corrupt, overriding
    • importance of the subconscious

  • 40-70’s predominant approach to studying psychology

    • reaction against psychodynamic. American invention
    • Behavior largely (or completely) the result of experience with rewards and punishment (learning)
    • Past history with the environment is the determinant of your reactions and behavior today.
    • Behavior driven by consequences and thus malleable. Shaped by consequences.
    • What occurs in the mind is irrelevant.
    • Purpose of the brain is to link behaviors to consequences. Thinking/feeling is inconsequential.

  • Cognitive

    • Behavior is used to infer mental events. Strongly allied with biological/neuroscience.
    • Mind is an information processor of stimulus input.
    • Processing leads to output - thus output can be used to infer the processing.

  • Humanistic

    • A response to the behaviorists and psychodynamicists -
    • Emphasizes free will and fulfillment behavior.
    • People driven by good will. Look internally for motives for change.
    • Unlike above approaches, not really used to predict behavior, but used in therapy.

Sub-fields of study

  • Cognitive
  • Biological,
  • Social and industrial/organizational psychology
  • Personality
  • Developmental
  • Clinical, counseling and community psychology
  • Educational and School psychology
  • Quantitative psychology
  • And more…

(a) Specialties in Psychology

  • 48\% Clinical
  • 18\% Other
  • 1\% Health
  • 2\% Educational
  • 11\% Counseling
  • 5\% Experimental and other research areas
  • 4\% School
  • 4\% Industrial/organizational
  • 3\% Developmental
  • 4\% Social and personality

(b) Where Psychologists Work

  • 34\% Private practice
  • 8\% Other
  • 4\% Schools
  • 28\% Colleges and universities
  • 14\% Hospital/clinic
  • 6\% Human services
  • 6\% Business, industry, government

(c) What Psychologists Do (Primary Activity)

  • 50\% Mental health services
  • 9\% Other
  • 4\% Applied psychology
  • 18\% Education and educational services
  • 10\% Research
  • 9\% Management/administration