Psychology 101 Notes

Psychology 101 Notes

Introduction

  • Prepared by Prof. Angel.

Motivation

  • Guess the Greek words: KA-LI-ME-RA, KA-TA-LA-VE-NOH, SIG-NO-MII.

Learning Objectives

  • Learn the history of Psychology and its definition.

  • Learn the Schools of Psychology and their contributions.

  • Learn the different fields in Contemporary Psychology.

What is Psychology?

  • Etymology: From the Greek words "psyche" (mind or soul) and "logy" (science).

  • Popular definition: The "study of behavior" which is a manifestation of one's mind.

Etymology

  • Etymologists study how words are influenced by language change, symbolical meanings, and sound alterations.

  • In Modern Latin, "the study of soul" is referred to as psychologia (1650's).

History of Psychology

  • Psychology is a relatively young science with experimental roots in the 19th century.

  • Before the 19th century, exploring issues related to the mind was typically done in a philosophical context.

  • Wilhelm Wundt and William James are credited as the founders of psychology as a distinct science and academic discipline separate from philosophy.

Wilhelm Wundt

  • Wilhelm Wundt is commonly identified as the father of psychology.

  • He created the first experimental psychology lab, marking the official start of psychology as a separate science.

Wilhelm Wundt's Lab

  • Wundt, a German doctor and psychologist, established his lab in 1879 at the University of Leipzig in Germany.

  • By creating a lab dedicated to experimental psychology, Wundt moved psychology from a sub-discipline of philosophy and biology to a unique scientific discipline.

Early Considerations of the Mind

  • The term psychology wasn't coined until around the turn of the sixteenth century, and what we call science today wasn't established until the mid-1800s.

  • Humans have always been curious about themselves.

  • Aristotle pondered the seed of human consciousness and decided it was in the heart, not the head.

  • 2000 years ago, Chinese rulers conducted the world's first psychological exams, requiring public officials to take personality and intelligence tests.

Big Questions in Psychology

  • How can humans do horrible things like commit genocide or torture other humans, and why do we know those things are horrible?

  • Do we have free will, or are we simply driven by our environment, biology, and non-conscious influences?

  • What is mental illness, and what can we do about it? And what is consciousness or the notion of self? If I lose my awareness of myself, am I still human?

Schools of Psychology

  • The main schools of psychology are structuralism, functionalism, Gestalt, behaviorism, psychoanalysis, humanism, and cognitivism.

Structuralism

  • Edward B. Titchener established structuralism, the first school of thought in Psychology.

  • Structuralism focuses on breaking down mental processes into their most basic components.

Focus of Structuralism

  • Reducing mental processes to their most basic elements.

  • Using techniques like introspection to analyze the inner processes of the human mind.

Introspection and Self-Awareness

  • Reflective introspection can improve self-awareness, leading to higher resilience and lower stress.

  • Introspective reflection aids in personal growth.

Functionalism

  • An American perspective that emerged in response to structuralism.

  • Influenced by thinkers like Charles Darwin and William James.

  • Functionalists sought to explain mental processes in a more systematic and accurate manner.

Focus of Functionalism

  • Interested in the role that mental processes play.

  • Interested in the purpose of thoughts and behaviors.

  • Structuralism was concerned with the elements that make up consciousness.

Comparison of Structuralism and Functionalism

  • Structuralism

    • Focused on breaking things down to their smallest parts.

    • Examined the capabilities of different parts of the mind.

    • Used introspection to study feelings and sensations.

  • Functionalism

    • Focused on how things worked together.

    • Examined how the mind functions in different environments.

    • Used objective techniques to explore memories and emotions.

Gestalt Psychology

  • Based on the idea that people experience things as unified wholes.

  • Began in Germany and Austria during the late 19th century in response to the molecular approach of structuralism.

Core Belief

  • Instead of breaking down thoughts and behavior to their smallest elements, Gestalt psychologists believed that you must look at the whole of experience.

  • The whole is greater than the sum of its parts, a philosophy known as holism.

Behaviorism

  • Became a dominant school of thought during the 1950s.

  • Based on the work of thinkers such as John B. Watson, Ivan Pavlov, and B. F. Skinner.

  • Suggests that all behavior can be explained by environmental causes rather than by internal forces.

  • Focused on observable behavior.

Classical Conditioning

  • A type of learning that involves associating a previously neutral stimulus with a stimulus that naturally and automatically triggers a response. (Ivan Pavlov)

Operant Conditioning

  • This type of learning involves using rewards and punishments to create an association between the behavior and the consequences of that behavior. (BF Skinner)

Psychoanalytic School of Psychology

  • Founded by Sigmund Freud.

  • Emphasized the influence of the unconscious mind on behavior.

  • Freud believed that the human mind was composed of three elements: the id, ego, and superego.

The Id, Ego, and Superego

  • The id consists of primal urges.

  • The ego is the component of personality charged with dealing with reality.

  • The superego is the part of the personality that holds all the ideals and values we internalize from our parents and culture.

Freud's Iceberg Theory

  • Conscious: Thoughts, perceptions

  • Preconscious: Memory, stored knowledge

  • Unconscious: Instincts, fears, selfish motives

Humanistic School of Psychology

  • Developed as a response to psychoanalysis and behaviorism.

  • Heavily influenced by humanist thinkers such as Abraham Maslow, Carl Rogers, and Clark Moustakas.

Emphasis of Humanistic Psychology

  • Helping people achieve and fulfill their potential.

  • Topics:

    • Becoming a fully functioning person: A person who is in touch with their innermost desires and trusts their own instincts.

    • Individual free will: The capacity that individuals have to make choices, select courses of action, and control their own lives.

    • Hierarchy of needs: A theory introduced by Maslow suggesting that people were motivated by a series of increasingly complex needs, starting with their basic physiological needs up to the need to achieve an individual's full potential.

Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs

  • Self-actualization: Desire to become the most that one can be

  • Esteem: Respect, self-esteem, status, recognition, strength, freedom

  • Love and belonging: Friendship, intimacy, family, sense of connection

  • Safety needs: Personal security, employment, resources, health, property

  • Physiological needs: Air, water, food, shelter, sleep, clothing, reproduction

Key Concepts

  • Peak experiences: Moments of pure, transcendent joy that play an important part in reaching self-actualization.

  • Self-actualization: A state of reaching one's full potential

  • This branch of psychology is centered on helping people live happier, more fulfilling lives.

Cognitive School of Psychology

  • Studies mental processes, including how people think, perceive, remember, and learn.

  • Related to other disciplines such as neuroscience, philosophy, and linguistics.

Examples of Theories

  • Stages of cognitive development: A theory proposed by Jean Piaget, which suggested that children go through a series of progressive stages of intellectual development.

Piaget's Stages of Cognitive Development

  • Sensorimotor stage (0-2 years old): Children primarily learn about their environment through their senses and motor activities.

  • Preoperational stage (2-7 years old): Children learn more about categorization and start to understand numbers and quantity.

  • Concrete operational stage (7-11 years old): Children are more capable of solving problems because they can consider numerous outcomes and perspectives.

  • Formal operational stage (11 years old through adulthood): Children are capable of hypothetical-deductive reasoning, which allows them to test hypotheses and draw conclusions from the results.

Other Theories

  • Sociocultural theory: Introduced by Lev Vygotsky, looked at how the interaction of cultural and social factors contributed to cognitive development.

  • Informational processing theory: Suggests that the mind functions much like a computer to process and interpret information about the world.

Multi Store Model - Atkinson & Shiffrin

  • Explains the flow of information through sensory memory, short term memory, and long term memory.

  • Environmental Input -> Sensory Input (sights, sounds, etc.) -> Sensory Memory -> Attention -> Short Term Memory -> Elaborate Rehearsal -> Long Term Memory

  • Maintenance Rehearsal keeps information in Short Term Memory

  • Retrieval brings information from Long Term Memory to Short Term Memory

  • Forgetting occurs through decay, displacement, interference, or retrieval failure

Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy (CBT)

  • Heavily influenced by this psychological perspective.

  • Focuses on how automatic negative thought patterns influence behavior and psychological problems.

  • The emergence of this field is sometimes referred to as the "cognitive revolution".