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Intro To Psychology - Part 1

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39 views

Intro To Psychology - Part 1

Uploaded by

moizabdul767
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© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Introduction to Psychology

Week 1
Prepared by Ayesha Zafar
Lecturer
Department of Psychology, IU Karachi.
LEARNING OUTCOME
Understanding the meaning of
psychology and its application

Differentiation between different


fields of psychology

Understanding of historical
perspective of psychology
What is Psychology?
It can be defined as the scientific study of
behavior and mental processes.
1. Behavior: Outward 0r overt actions and
reactions
2. Mental Processes: all internal, covert (hidden)
activity of mind

6
Cont.
From the Greek psyche, (mind)
logos (study), the study of the nature
and functions of the mind and of
human behaviour
Scope of Psychology
• The scope of psychology is broad, covering topics such
as:
1. Face recognition
2. Attributing traits to people
3. Social judgment
4. Memory
5. Aggression etc.

8
Scope of psychology
• Psychology today covers enormous range
of scope or fields:
• Broadly it can be divided into two types:

1. Basic psychology- it is the study of mind


and behavior
2. Applied psychology-methods and
findings of scientific psychology to solve
practical problems of human and animal
behavior and experience.
Psyche

• The Greeks believed that the soul or


"psyche" was responsible for behavior.
Psyche was the Greek goddess of the
soul.

10
Beginning of Psychology
• Supernatural Elements: Before the age of scientific
inquiry all good and bad manifestations beyond
the control of humankind were regarded as
supernatural.
Early Demonology
DEMONOLOGY:
• The doctrine that a semi autonomous or completely
autonomous evil being such as the devil may dwell
within a person and control his or her mind and body
is called demonology.
Philosophical thought
While psychology did not emerge as a separate discipline until the
late 1800s, its earliest history can be traced back to the time of the
early Greek
Classical Philosophers
• Socrates
• Plato
• Aristotle
Cont.
✔ They posed fundamental questions about mental life:
✔ What is consciousness? Are people inherently rational or irrational?
✔ Is there really such a thing as free choice?
✔ These questions, and many similar ones, are as important today as they were
thousands of years ago.
✔ Hippocrates, often called the ‘father of medicine’, lived around the same time as
Socrates. He was deeply interested in physiology, the study of the functions of the
living organism and its parts. He made many
✔ Important observations about how the brain controls various organs of the body.
These observations set the stage for what became the biological perspective in
psychology.
The Beginnings of Scientific Psychology
Descartes: Mind – Body Dualism
• During the 17th-century, the French philosopher Rene
Descartes introduced the idea of dualism, which asserted that
the mind and body were two entities that interact to form the
human experience.
Major British Empiricists
• John Locke (1632 – 1704)
• George Berkeley (1685 – 1753)
• David Hume (1711 – 1776)
• John Stuart Mill (1806 – 1873)
Cont.…
• Tabula rasa, a blank slate on which experience ‘writes’
knowledge and understanding as the individual matures.
• Nature vs Nurture (read pg. # 7 & 8, from Atkinson R. C.,
& Smith, E. E. (2000).Introduction to psychology (13th
ed.). NY: Harcourt Brace College Publishers.)
Historical perspective:
• Structuralism and functionalism
• Behaviorism
• Gestalt psychology
• Psychoanalysis
Structuralism
• Structuralism is regarded as the first school of thought in the
field of psychology.
• 'Structuralism began with the work of Wilhelm Wundt, who
created the first psychology lab back in 1879.
• His structuralist approach sought to identify the building
blocks, or the structure, of psychological experience.
Structuralism
• It was Wundt's student, Edward Titchener, who first came up
with the term 'structuralism' and popularized the school of
thought.
• Defined as :
“the analysis of mental structures –
to describe this branch of psychology”
• According to Titchener, the conscious mind was made up of 3
'structures’.
• Sensations, which are produced by sensory
information,
• Images, which are mental imagery of ideas,
• Affections, or the elements that make up
emotions.
Introspection
• Introspection refers to having people look inside themselves
in order to gain a better understanding of their current
emotions or thoughts.
• However, introspection was viewed as too subjective by some
psychologists, since we all have our own perception of things.
One of the biggest critics of structuralism was William James,
who played a key role in the development of functionalism.
Functionalism
• William James,

“Studying how the mind works to enable an organism to


adapt to and function in its environment”
• Functionalism is the mental processing behind
thinking and interpretation of one's consciousness
and reality.
• These mental processes dictate human behavior and
help humans adapt and modify their behavior
appropriately to their environment
Structuralism vs. Functionalism
• Imagine that in a high school
chemistry class, the teacher
asks her students for the best
way to define water.
Structuralism vs. Functionalism
• One student, Mike, says that the way
to define water is to break it into its
basic components; he defines it as two
hydrogen atoms and one oxygen atom.
Structuralism vs. Functionalism
• His classmate, Susan, disagrees with him, and says that the best way to define
water is to look at its purpose. She describes it as a liquid without taste or color that
serves as the main component of lakes, rivers, oceans, and streams, as well as the
fluids in most living organisms, including human beings.
Structuralism vs. Functionalism
• Mike's definition is closely aligned with that
of structuralism, while Susan's definition
demonstrates the principles of functionalism.
Structuralism vs. Functionalism
Structuralism Functionalism
Focused on breaking things down to Focused on how things worked
their smallest parts together

Examined the capabilities of different Examined how the mind functions in


parts of the mind different environments

Used introspection to study feelings Used objective techniques to explore


and sensations memories and emotions
Behaviorism
• John B. Watson,
• Behaviorism, argued that nearly all behavior is a result of
conditioning and the environment shapes behavior by
reinforcing specific habits.
• For example, giving children cookies to stop them from
whining reinforces (rewards) the habit of whining.
Gestalt psychology:
• Gestalt is a German word meaning ‘form’ or
‘configuration’
• By Max Wertheimer and his colleagues Kurt
Koffka and Wolfgang Köhler
• Primary interest was perception, and they
believed that perceptual experiences depend
on the patterns formed by stimuli and on the
organization of experience.
Psychoanalysis:
• Theory of personality and a method of
psychotherapy originated by Sigmund Freud
• Center of theory is Unconscious
• Later developments in twentieth-century psychology included
information-processing theory, psycholinguistics, and
neuropsychology.
Subfields of psychology
1. Biological psychology- look for the relationship between
biological processes and behavior.
2. Cognitive psychology- are concerned with people’s internal
mental processes, such as problem-solving, memory, and
language and thought.
3. Developmental psychology- are concerned with human
development and the factors that shape behavior from birth to
old age.
Cont..
4. Social psychologists are interested in how people perceive
and interpret their social world and how their beliefs,
emotions, and behaviors are influenced by the real or
imagined presence of others.
5. Personality psychologists study the thoughts, emotions, and
behaviors that define an individual’s personal style of
interacting with the world.
Cont..
6. Clinical psychology- apply psychological principles to the
diagnosis and treatment of emotional and behavioral
problems, including mental illness, drug addiction, and
marital and family conflict.

7. Counseling- perform many of the same functions as clinical


psychologists, although they often deal with less serious
problems. Like, working with high school or university
students.
Cont..
8. School Psychologists work with children to evaluate learning
and emotional problems.
9. Educational Psychologists are specialists in learning and
teaching.
• They may work in schools, but more often they work in a
university’s school of education,
• They do research on teaching methods and help train teachers.
Cont..
10. Organizational psychologists- also called industrial
psychologists, typically work for a company.

11. Engineering psychologists- also called human factors


engineers, try to improve the relationship between people and
machines.

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