Unit 1: Introduction to Psychology

The unit aims to introduce students with the text about introduction to psychology,
equip them with reading skill of identifying the main idea, and introduce them with
some terms in psychology.

A. Reading
Task 1: Read the text below.

What is Psychology?
By Saul McLeod

Psychology is the scientific study of the mind and behavior, according to the
American Psychological Association (APA). Psychology is a multifaceted
discipline and includes many sub-fields of study such areas as human
development, sports, health, clinical, social behavior and cognitive processes.
Psychology is really a very new science, with most advances happening over the
past 150 years or so. However, its origins can be traced back to ancient Greece,
400 – 500 years BC. The emphasis was a philosophical one, with great thinkers
such as Socrates (470 BC – 399 BC) influencing Plato (428/427 BC – 348/347
BC), who in turn influenced Aristotle (384 BC - 322 BC). Philosophers used to
discuss many topics now studied by modern psychology, such as memory, free
will vs determinism, nature vs. nurture, attraction etc.

The Beginnings of Psychology as a Discipline

In the early days of psychology there were two dominant theoretical perspectives
regarding how the brain worked, structuralism and functionalism. Structuralism
was the name given to the approach pioneered by Wilhelm Wundt (1832-1920),
which focused on breaking down mental processes into the most basic
components. The term originated from Edward Titchener, an American
psychologist who had been trained by Wundt. Wundt was important because he
separated psychology from philosophy by analyzing the workings of the mind in
a more structured way, with the emphasis being on objective measurement and
control.

Structuralism relied on trained introspection, a research method whereby subjects

related what was going on in their minds while performing a certain task.
However, introspection proved to be an unreliable method because there was too
much individual variation in the experiences and reports of research subjects.
Despite the failure of introspection, Wundt is an important figure in the history
of psychology as he opened the first laboratory dedicated to psychology in 1879,
and its opening is usually thought of as the beginning of modern experimental
psychology.

An American psychologist named William James (1842-1910) developed an

approach which came to be known as functionalism, that disagreed with the focus
of structuralism. James argued that the mind is constantly changing and it is
pointless to look for the structure of conscious experience. Rather, he proposed
the focus should be on how and why an organism does something, i.e. the
functions or purpose of the brain. James suggested that psychologists should look
for the underlying cause of behavior and the mental processes involved. This
emphasis on the causes and consequences of behavior has influenced
contemporary psychology.

The Perspectives of Psychology

Structuralism and functionalism have since been replaced by several dominant
and influential approaches to psychology, each one underpinned by a shared set
of assumptions of what people are like, what is important to study and how to
study it. The perspectives include psychoanalysis, behaviorism, humanistic
approach, and cognitive psychology.

Psychoanalysis, founded by Sigmund Freud (1856-1939), was the dominant

paradigm in psychology during the early twentieth century. Freud believed that
people could be cured by making conscious their unconscious thoughts and
motivations, thus gaining insight. Freud’s psychoanalysis was the original
psychodynamic theory, but the psychodynamic approach as a whole includes all
theories that were based on his ideas, e.g., Jung (1964), Adler (1927) and Erikson
(1950).

The classic contemporary perspectives in psychology to adopt scientific strategies

were the behaviorists, who were renowned for their reliance on controlled
laboratory experiments and rejection of any unseen or unconscious forces as
causes of behavior. Behaviorism is a theory of learning which states all behaviors
are learned through interaction with the environment through a process called
conditioning. Thus, behavior is simply a response to environmental stimuli.
Behaviorism is only concerned with observable stimulus-response behaviors, as
they can be studied in a systematic and observable manner.

Later, the humanistic approach became the 'third force' in psychology and
proposed the importance of subjective experience and personal growth. The
humanistic approach in psychology developed as a rebellion against what some
psychologists saw as the limitations of the behaviorist and psychodynamic
psychology. The humanistic approach is thus often called the “third force” in
psychology after psychoanalysis and behaviorism (Maslow, 1968).

During the 1960s and 1970s, psychology began a cognitive revolution, adopting
a rigorous, scientific, lab-based scientific approach with application to memory,
perception, cognitive development, mental illness, and much more. Cognitive
psychology is the scientific study of the mind as an information processor.
Cognitive psychologists try to build up cognitive models of the information
processing that goes on inside people’s minds, including perception, attention,
language, memory, thinking, and consciousness.
(adopted from https://www.simplypsychology.org/whatispsychology.html)

Task 2: Answer these questions based the text from task 1.

1. How does American Psychological Association define psychology? ______
____________________________________________________________
2. Mention some fields in psychology ________________________________
____________________________________________________________
3. Where and when does psychology come from? _______________________
____________________________________________________________
4. Mention three philosophers who inspired the study of psychology ________
____________________________________________________________
5. What were two dominant theoretical perspectives of psychology in the early
days? _______________________________________________________
6. Who created the term structuralism? _______________________________
7. What was Wundt’ concentration which brought about the term
structuralism? ________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________
8. What was Wundt’s contribution? _________________________________
____________________________________________________________
9. How was the method of trained introspection? _______________________
____________________________________________________________
10. Why can’t trained introspection method be trusted? ___________________
____________________________________________________________
11. What was the event considered as the start of modern experimental
psychology? _________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________
12. What was the approach that challenged structuralism? _________________
13. What was James’ suggestion to psychologists which has influenced
contemporary psychology? ______________________________________
____________________________________________________________
14. How can people be healed according to psychoanalysis? _______________
____________________________________________________________
15. What do the behaviorists rely on? _________________________________
____________________________________________________________
16. According to the behaviorism theory, how can a behavior be learned? _____
____________________________________________________________
17. What was the reason of the development of humanistic approach in
psychology? _________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________
18. What does it mean by cognitive revolution? _________________________
____________________________________________________________
19. What is cognitive psychology? ___________________________________
____________________________________________________________
20. What do cognitive psychologists attempt to do? ______________________
____________________________________________________________
B. Vocabulary
Task 3: Find the words in column A with their synonym/meaning
in column B. The words are from the reading text.

A B
1. multifaceted [adj] ( ) A. attention, stress
2. cognitive [adj] ( ) B. separate something into smaller
parts
3. origin [n] ( )
C. the way in which children are
4. emphasis [n] ( ) treated as they are growing
5. nurture [n] ( ) D. calculation
E. a way of doing something
6. perspective [n] ( )
F. understanding
7. pioneer [v] ( ) G. intellectual, mental
8. break down [phrasal v] ( ) H. model, pattern
I. varied, various
9. measurement [n] ( )
J. accurate, correct
10. unreliable [adj] ( ) K. related to science, systematic
11. approach [n] ( ) L. to be one of the first people to do
12. pointless [adj] ( ) something, to found
M. beginning
13. conscious [adj] ( ) N. inaccurate, false
14. underlying [adj] ( ) O. viewpoint, position
15. contemporary [adj] ( ) P. give support
Q. new, modern
16. underpinned [v] ( )
R. basic, fundamental
17. paradigm [n] ( ) S. aware, alert
18. insight [n] ( ) T. meaningless / irrelevant
19. scientific [n] ( )
20. rigorous [adj] ( )
Task 4: Fill in the blanks below with the words from the box.
paradigm unreliable nurture cognitive
contemporary scientific rigorous measurement
break down pioneered origin underlying

1. __________ psychology involves the study of internal mental processes—

all of the things that go on inside your brain, including perception, thinking,
memory, attention, language, problem-solving, and learning.
2. For centuries, the debate has existed within the psychological community
and beyond concerning the topic of nature versus __________ in terms of
human development and achievement.
3. Some of these educators are hoping to produce a change in the current
educational __________.
4. His __________ career began in the mid-1980s, when he helped find the
vaccine against the virus.
5. Managers had complained that the workers were lazy and __________.
6. Most major airlines have had to adopt many of the cost-saving innovations
__________ by their low-cost competitors.
7. If you have a huge task on your to-do list right now, you need to __________
the large task into small tasks.
8. She gave a series of lectures at University of York last year on __________
British writers.
9. The driving test remains a __________ test of competence to drive and
includes assessment of a candidate's driving behavior.
10. The __________ message of the film is that love transcends everything else.
11. This book finally explodes some of the myths about the __________ of the
universe.
12. Safety of the vaccine will be determined from data provided by laboratory
__________.

C. Reading Skill: Reading for main ideas

Knowing the main idea of a paragraph or text is important because we can identify
the point of view and topic of the paragraph or text. The main idea is usually at
the beginning of a text. Therefore, to know what a text tells us about, we don’t
have to read the whole text. Look at the text below and identify the main idea of
the text.

Humanistic psychology is a psychological perspective that emphasizes the

study of the whole person. Humanistic psychologists look at human behavior,
not only through the eyes of the observer, but through the eyes of the person
doing the behaving. Humanistic psychologists believe that an individual's
behavior is connected to his inner feelings and self-image. The humanistic
perspective centers on the view that each person is unique and individual, and
has the free will to change at any time in his or her life.

The main idea of the text can be seen in the first line. So, its main idea is
humanistic psychology.

Task 5: Read the texts below and identify their main ideas.

1. Psychologists attempt to understand the role of mental functions in individual

and social behavior, while also exploring the physiological and biological
processes that underlie cognitive functions and behaviors. Psychologists
explore behavior and mental processes, including perception, cognition,
attention, emotion, intelligence, subjective experiences, motivation, brain
functioning, and personality.
(adopted from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychology)
 The main idea of this text is _________________________.

2. Psychologists take human behavior as a main area of study. Much of the

research in this area began with tests on mammals, based on the idea that
humans exhibit similar fundamental tendencies. Behavioral research ever
aspires to improve the effectiveness of techniques for behavior modification.
Early behavioral researchers studied stimulus–response pairings, now known
as classical conditioning. They demonstrated that behaviors could be linked
through repeated association with stimuli eliciting pain or pleasure.
(adoted from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychology)

The main idea of this text is _________________________.

3. Maslow's hierarchy of needs is a theory in psychology proposed by Abraham

Maslow in his 1943 paper "A Theory of Human Motivation" in Psychological
Review. There is little scientific basis to the theory; Maslow himself noted
this criticism. Maslow subsequently extended the idea to include his
observations of humans' innate curiosity. His theories parallel many other
theories of human developmental psychology, some of which focus on
describing the stages of growth in humans.
(adopted from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motivation)

The main idea of this text is _________________________.

4. An individual's motivation may be inspired by others or events (extrinsic

motivation) or it may come from within the individual (intrinsic motivation).
Motivation results from the interaction of both conscious and unconscious
factors. Mastering motivation to allow sustained and deliberate practice is
central to high levels of achievement e.g. in the worlds of elite sport, medicine
 or music. Motivation governs choices among alternative forms of voluntary
activity

The main idea of this text is _________________________.

5. One of the primary functions of the family involves providing a framework

for the production and reproduction of persons biologically and socially. This
can occur through the sharing of material substances such as food and the
giving and receiving of care and nurture. Thus, one's experience of one's
family shifts over time.

The main idea of this text is __________________________.

D. Terms in psychology
Task 6: Fill in the blanks with the appropriate words in the box.

bullying anorexia juvenile delinquency

autism addiction mind

1. _______________ is defined as a psychological and/or physiological

dependency on a particular substance or event.
2. _______________ is an eating disorder where an individual purposefully
starves or under-eats in the false belief that she is are overweight.
3. _______________ is a lifelong developmental disability that affects how a
person communicates with, and relates to, other people.
4. _______________ is the use of force, coercion, or threat, to abuse,
aggressively dominate or intimidate.
5. _______________ is the habitual committing of criminal acts or offenses by
a young person.
6. _______________ is the set of faculties including cognitive aspects such as
consciousness, imagination, perception, thinking, intelligence, judgement,
language and memory.

Task 7: Fill in the blanks with words from the box in task 6.
1. _______________ mapping is a highly effective way of getting
information in and out of your brain. It is a creative and logical means of note-
taking and note-making
2. _______________ behavior often emerges in childhood, and the
consequences for victims can last a lifetime.
3. Lack of parental control is seen to lie behind drug abuse and
_______________ among teenagers.
4. Children with _______________ may not reach the same developmental
milestones as their peers, or they may demonstrate loss of social or language
skills.
5. He successfully battled his _______________ to heroin.
6. Artist Demi Lovato has become an unofficial spokesperson for young women
with eating disorders since being treated for _______________ in 2010.

E. Writing
Task 8: Write 5 sentences using different words from Task 3
(column A).

F. Speaking
Task 9: Read again the text and tell the class what you know about
psychology.