What is Psychology?

• Psychology
– Psyche: Mind
– Logos: Knowledge or study
• Definition: The scientific study of behavior and
mental processes
– Behavior: Overt (i.e., can be directly
observed, as with crying)
– Mental Processes: Covert (i.e., cannot be
directly observed, as with remembering)
 What Are the Goals of Psychology?

• Description of Behaviors: Naming and

classifying various observable, measurable
behaviors
• Understanding: Being able to state the causes of
a behavior
• Prediction: Predicting behavior accurately
• Example of counter intuitive studies:
• Seminary speech on “good samiratans”
Some of the most interesting
research with animals has
focused on attempts to teach
primates to communicate with
sign language. Psychologist
Penny Patterson has spent 35
years teaching Koko more
than 1,000 signs. One of
Koko’s favorite signs (“stink”)
is shown here. Such research
has helped illuminate the
origins of human language
and has even suggested
better methods for teaching
language to children with
serious language impairment.
p. 15
 More Goals of Psychology

• Control: Altering conditions that influence

behaviors
– Positive use: To control unwanted behaviors
(e.g., smoking, tantrums, etc.)
– Negative use: To control people’s behaviors
without their knowledge
– What are some examples of this?
– In a classroom
 APPROACHES TO THE STUDY OF
PSYCHOLOGICAL PROCESSES

• Biological Approach: This approach focuses

on biological structures and phenomena such
as brain, genes, hormones, endocrine system
and neurotransmitters in order to understand
the dynamics of behaviour. Its main focus is on
the role of different parts of brain in regulating
feelings, memories, emotions and other
aspects of behaviour
 APPROACHES TO THE STUDY OF
PSYCHOLOGICAL PROCESSES

• Psychoanalytic Approach: Freud explored the nature

and quality of unconscious through analysis of
dreams, slips of the tongue, neuroses, psychoses,
work of art, and rituals. He assumed that majority of
human behaviours are triggered by unconscious
motivation. Thus to understand the present human
behaviour the analysis of unconscious mental
contents is considered most important.
 APPROACHES TO THE STUDY OF
PSYCHOLOGICAL PROCESSES

• Humanistic Approach: Carl Rogers put greater

emphasis on conscious experiences of the present
situation, role of interpersonal experiences across
the course of life, and people’s capacity to grow
toward psychological maturity. This approach
basically assumes that a person is an active and self-
actualizing agent and has a choice in deciding his
behaviour. As a part of the self-actualizing process a
person seeks to maintain a congruence between self
and experience.
 APPROACHES TO THE STUDY OF
PSYCHOLOGICAL PROCESSES

• Behaviorist Approach: The unit of analysis for this

approach is explicit, objective and overt behaviour
and its relationship with environmental stimulation.
The father of behaviorism J. B. Watson emphasized
on objective analysis of behaviour. He advocated that
behaviour is largely governed by the association
between stimulus and response and the behaviour
can be shaped in a desired direction by manipulating
this association
 APPROACHES TO THE STUDY OF
PSYCHOLOGICAL PROCESSES

• Cognitive Approach: The cognitive approach

emerged as an alternative to the mechanistic
paradigm of behaviourism. This approach mainly
focuses on the study of information processing
capacity of the individual in terms of perception,
remembering, thinking, language, reasoning,
problem solving and decision making which are
called higher mental processes
 Characteristics of a Psychological
Research
• The purpose of study or research is to develop
principles and theories, test them and apply
for solving different human problems

1. Objective - which means that such

researches are free from any kind of biases
2. Testable - One can verify its authenticity by
following the same method in terms of
getting the same result
 Characteristics of a Psychological
Research
• Self-correction - the researcher corrects his or
her understanding if there is some error and
goes for revision
• Replication - the results of the study are
consistently verified by similar other studies
across different settings.
 Theory

• Theory: A system of ideas that interrelates facts

and concepts, summarizes existing data, and
predicts future observations
– A good theory must be falsifiable (i.e.,
operationally defined) so that it can be
disconfirmed
 What Might a Psychologist Research?

• Development: Course of human growth and

development
• Learning: How and why it occurs in humans and
animals
• Personality: Traits, motivations, and individual
differences
• Sensation and Perception: How we come to
know the world through our five senses
 What Might a Psychologist Research?
(cont)
• Comparative: Study and compare behavior of
different species, especially animals
• Cognitive: Primarily interested in thinking
• Biopsychology: How behavior is related to
biological processes, especially activities in the
nervous system
• Gender: Study differences between males and
females and how they develop
• Social: Human and social behavior
 What Might a Psychologist Research?
• Evolutionary: How our behavior is guided by
patterns that evolved during our history
• Cultural: How culture affects behavior
• Imagine that you are a psychologist. Your client Linda, tells
you that spirits live in the trees near her home. Is Linda
suffering from a delusion? Is she abnormal?
• Linda is Native American. Obviously, you will misjudge Linda’s
mental health if you fail to take her cultural beliefs into
account. Cultural relativity (the idea that behavior must be
judged relative to the values of the culture in which it occurs)
can greatly affect the diagnosis of mental disorders. Cases like
Linda’s teach us to be wary of using inappropriate standards
when judging others or comparing groups
 Animal Model

• When an animal’s behavior is used to derive

principles that may apply to human behavior
• For example, rats learn better when reinforced
with food instead of punished by electric shock.
 Pseudopsychologies

• Pseudo means “false.” Any unfounded “system”

that resembles psychology and is NOT based on
scientific testing
– Palmistry: Lines on your hands (palms)
predict future and reveal personality
– Phrenology: Personality traits revealed by
shape of skull
Phrenology was an attempt to
assess personality
characteristics by examining
various areas of the skull.
Phrenologists used charts such
as the one shown here as
guides. Like other
pseudopsychologists,
phrenologists made no attempt
to empirically verify their
concepts.

p. 17
 Pseudopsychologies (cont)

• Graphology: Personality traits are revealed by

your handwriting
• Astrology: The positions of the stars and planets
at birth determine personality traits and affect
your behavior
 Some Terms

• Hypothesis testing: Scientifically testing the

predicted outcome of an experiment or an
educated guess about the relationship between
variables
• Operational definition: Defines a scientific
concept by stating specific actions or procedures
used to measure it
• Example: Research regarding “difficult teachers”
• Difficult because the teacher’s grading is so
challenging or difficult to stay awake because
the class is too boring and unchallenging