Unit 0

Pre-history and History of Psychology

• Psychology is the study of behavior and the mind

  • Behavior: a natural process subject to natural laws, refers to the observable actions of a person or an animal

  • Mind: Refers to sensation, memories, motives, emotions, thoughts, and other subjective phenomena particular to an individual or animal that are not readily observed

• Psychology uses systematic observation and the collection of data to answer questions about the mind, behavior, their interactions

  • It seeks to describe, predict, and explain behavior and the mental processes underlying behavior

  • Many theories are elaborations or revisions of previous ones

Ancient Greeks

• Ancient Greek speculation on the nature of mind heavily influenced the prehistory of psychology as a science

• Socrates and Plato argued that humans possess innate knowledge that is not obtainable simply by observing the physical world

• Aristotle argued that we derive truth from the physical world

  • His application of logic and systematic observation of the world laid basis for empirical scientific method

Dualism

• Questions raised by early Greeks pertain to this concept

• Definition: Divides the world and all thing in two parts: Body and Spirit

• This theme was common is early Psychology
  Currently drives the debate about differences in the brain (command center for the central nervous system) and the Mind (Sensations, memories, emotions, thoughts, and other subjective experiences of a particular individual)

Religious Beliefs

• Reason that studies in Psychology were stunted, mainly due to the belief that “Spirit” portion of human nature could not be studied scientifically

• Another reason was that studying the natural world was only useful for what it demonstrated about God

• Views changed when great discoveries were being made in biology, astronomy, etc

  • Discoveries made it clear that human nature was indeed subject to scientific inquiry

Individuals contributing to Psychological studies

• Rene Descartes: Continued dualist view of human being

  • Believed that the physical world and all of the creatures in it are like machines in that they behave in observable, predictable ways

  • believed that humans were the exception to this rule because they possess minds

    • Mind is not observable and not subject to natural laws

    • Hypothesized that the mind and body interact and mind control body while body provides the mind with sensory input to decipher it

• John Locke: Extended Descartes’ application of natural laws to all things, believing that even the mind is under control of such laws

  • School of thought= Empiricism

    • The acquisition of truth through observations and experiences

  • Essay concerning Human Understanding Book: proposed that humans are born knowing nothing

    • Tabula Rasa: (Blank state), describes the mind of an infant

      • Almost all knowledge we have must be learned; almost nothing is innate aka all knowledge must derive from experience

  • Emphasized nature over nurture as the greater influence of development

• Thomas Hobbes: believed that the idea of a soul or spirit or mind is meaningless

  • Materialism: belief that the only things that exist are matter and energy

    • What we experience as consciousness is simply a by-product of the machinery of the brain

    • John Loche and Hobbes severely influenced behaviorism

• Charles Darwin: proposed theory of natural selection

  • All creatures have evolved into their present states over long periods of time

  • Evolution occurred because there exists naturally occurring variation among individuals of a species, and individuals best adapted to enviornment are most likely to surive (Survival to the fittest) and produce a more successful offspring

  • Evolutionary Theory: affected psychology by providing a way to explain differences between species and justfying the use of animals as a means to study the roots of human behavior

  • Behavior evolves just like physiology: both function to help individuals survive

• Wilhem Wundt: Father of psychology

  • wanted to apply methods he used to study the body to study the mind

  • Open laboratory to study consciousness

• Edward Tichnor: Wundt student and the first to bring Psychology to the US

  • sought to identify the smallest possible elements of the mind, theorizing that understanding all of the parts would lead to understanding of greater structure of the mind

    • This theory is called Structuralism: entails looking for patterns in thought, which are illuminated through interviews with a subject describing their conscious experience

    • This interview process is known as introspection

      • Experimenter could present stimuli to subjects, ask them to describe their conscious and then work to identify commonalities among various participants’ conscious descriptions

• William James: American Psychologist, opposed the structuralist approach

  • Argued that what is important is the function of the mind, such as how it solves a complex problem

  • Heavily influenced by Darwin, believed that the important thing to understand is how the mind fulfills its purpose

    • This function- oriented approach is Functionalism

• Dorthea Dix: crucial in advocating for the rights of mentally ill poor people and was instrumental in founding the first public mental hospital in the US

• Mary Whiton Calkins: First female graduate student in psychology, but denied a PhD because of gender

• Margaret Floy Washburn: First female PhD in Psychology and second female president of the American Psychology Association

  • G. Stanely Hall =first president

  • Washburn thesis was the first foreign policy published by William Wundt but was not allowed to join the organization of experimental psychologists because of her gender

• two-thirds of doctorates in psychology are held by women and half of the presidents of Association for Psychological Science are women

Approach 1: Biological

• Biological Psychology: Field of Psychology seeking to understand interactions between anatomy and physiology (Particularly the nervous system) and behavior

• Practiced by applying biological experimentations to psychological problems

  • Determining which portion of the brain is involved in a particular behavioral process through using CAT scans, MRIs, EEGs or PET scans

Approach 2: Behavioral Genetics

• Behavioral genetics: Field of Psychology exploring how particular behaviors may be attributed to specific, genetically based psychological characteristics

• Takes into account biological predisposition and extent of influence that environment had on the manifestation of that trait

• A person studying this might investigate to what extent risk-taking behavior in adolescents is attributable to genetics

Approach 3: Behaviorist

• Behaviorism: psychology is the stud of observable behavior

• Mind or mental events are unimportant, as they cannot be observed

• Classical conditioning: first identified by Ivan Pavlov was one of the most important earl findings

  • A basic form of learning in which behavior comes to be elicited b a formerly neutral stimulus

  • John Watson and Rosalie Rayner applied this to humans in the Little Albert experiment: made loud noises behind a 9 year old whenever he touches something white and furry making him scared of it afterwards

• Operant Conditioning: a subject learns to associate a behavior with an environmental outcome

  • BF Skinner was behind this

• Behaviorism is no longer the prevailing approach to psychology, but many of its principles as use in Behavior Modification

  • A set of techniques in which psychological problems are considered to be the product of learned habits, which can be unlearned by the application of behavioral methods

Approach 4: Cognitive

• Cognitive Psychology: approach rooted in the idea that to understand people’s behavior, we must first understand how they construe their environment aka how they think

• focuses on learning, memory, problem solving, decision making, language, and intelligence

• combines both the structuralist approach of looking subcomponents of thought and functionalist approach of understanding the purpose of thought

• Sometimes called cognitive-behavioral approach, largely replaced the purely behavioral approach as the predominant psychological method used in the US

Approach 5: Humanistic

• rooted in tradition of studying the role of consciousness, free will, and awareness of the human condition

• holistic study of personality that developed in response to a general dissatisfaction with behaviorism’s inattention to the mind and its function and psychoanalysis’s focus on the unconscious conflict and drives

• emphasize personal value and goals and how they influence behavior, rather than attempting to divide personality into smaller components

• Abraham Maslow: proposed idea of self-actualization, the need for individuals to reach their full potential in a creative way

  • attaining self-actualization meaning accepting yourself and your nature while knowing your limits and strengths

• Carl Rogers: stressed the role of unconditional positive regard in interactions and the need for a positive self-concept as critical factors in attaining self-actualization

Approach 6: Psychoanalytic/Psychodynamic

• Sigmund Freud: Developed a theory of human behavior known as Psychoanalytic theory

  • Concerned with individuals and their mental problems

  • Drew a distinction between conscious and unconscious mind

• Conscious mind: a mental state of awareness that we have ready access to

• Unconscious mind: those mental process that we do not normally have access to but that sill influenced our behavior, thoughts, and feelings

• Psychoanalytic theory: stresses the importance of early childhood experiences and a child’s relationship with their parents to the development of personality

• Psychoanalytic approach to therapy focuses on the resolution of unconscious mind conflict through uncovering information that has been repressed, or buried in their unconscious

Approach 7: Sociocultural

• believing that the environment of a person lives in has a great deal to do with how the person behaves and how other perceive that behavior

• cultural values vary from society and must be taken into account if one wishes to understand, predict, or control behavior

• considers the role sociological factors like socioeconomic status, education, occupation, and demographics in understanding a person’s psychological health

Approach 8: Evolutionary

• Draws upon theories of Darwin

• Behavior best explained in terms of how adaptive that behavior is to our survival

  • Fear is an adaptive evolutionary response; without fear, our survival would be Jeopardized

Approach 9: Biopsychosocial

• emphasizes the need to investigate the interaction of biological, psychological, and social factor as contributing to a behavior or a mental process

Domains

• Broad areas of psychological research

• Biological Domain: Question concerning the effect of drugs on behavior

• Social Domain: Question dealing with relationships between drug users and their families

• Clinical Domain: a question that considers treatment options for someone addicted to drugs

• Cognitive: What thoughts might someone entertain to justify their drug use

• Counseling: How might a school counselor talk to a student about drugs

• Developmental: At what ages might someone be susceptible to peer pressure

• Educational: How effective are the school systems

• Experimental: Dealing with Experiments

• Industrial organizational: Dealing with Workplaces

• Personality: Deals with Personality

• Psychometric: Dealing with how to measure things in psychology

• Positive Domain: Focuses on positive aspects and strengths of human behavior