UNIT 1

INTRODUCTIO
N TO
PSYCHOLOGY

© DR OINDRILA MUKHERJEE
 Table of contents
Definition
of Goals of
01 Psycholog 02 Psycholog
y y

Psycholog
03 y as a 04 Recap
Science
 What is
Psychology?
 DEFINITIONS OF
PSYCHOLOGY

The word psychology is derived from two Greek words “psyche” and “logos”. Psyche
means soul (life) and logos means knowledge (explanation) or the study of the soul.
Psychology is a science that seeks to understand and predict human and animal behavior.
DEFINITIONS OF PSYCHOLOGY
- Activity

Using a book or the web, find out one definition of psychology given by a famous
psychologist.
 DEFINITIONS OF
PSYCHOLOGY
Psychology is the science of mental life – William James (1892)

Psychology is the study of behavior - John B. Watson (1913)

Psychology is the study of the dynamic interaction between the individual and
their environment - Kurt Lewin (1935)

Psychology is the study of the whole person - Carl Rogers (1951)

Psychology is the science of behavior and mental processes. American Psychological

Association (APA)
What is Psychology?

Psychology is a scientific and

systematic study of human and
animal behaviour, emotions and
cognitive processes.
WHAT ARE
THE GOALS
OF
PSYCHOLO
GY?
© DR OINDRILA MUKHERJEE
Goals of Psychology

Describe Explain

Predict Control
 Goals of Psychology

Describe

Systematically observe and document

psychological phenomena.
Example: Describing behaviour of children
during the COVID-19 pandemic

This Photo by Unknown Author is licensed under CC BY

Goals of Psychology
Explain
Understand the causes and reasons behind behaviors and
mental processes.
Example: Explaining the causes of phobias

This Photo by Unknown Author is licensed under

CC BY
Goals of Psychology
Predict
Use knowledge to anticipate future behaviors and mental processes.
Example: Predicting student performance based on number of
classes attended
Goals of Psychology
Control
Use research findings to shape, modify, and improve behaviors
and mental processes.
Example: Developing a new psychotherapy to treat depression
Is
Psychology
a Science
or an Art?
Psychology is a social science

© DR OINDRILA MUKHERJEE
 WHAT IS A SCIENCE?

Science is a systematic and organized It involves the formulation of

approach to understanding the natural hypotheses, the design of experiments
world through observation, to test these hypotheses, the collection
experimentation, and evidence-based of data, and the analysis of results to
reasoning. draw conclusions.

Science aims to uncover general laws

and principles that explain how the
universe works, ranging from the
behavior of subatomic particles to the
structure of galaxies
Historical Foundations
of Psychology
 Several years ago…
People thought mental illnesses were caused due to evil spirits

Evil spirits entered one’s body due to which a person showed symptoms
of psychological disorders

To cure them, ancient healers chipped a hole in the patient’s skull using
crude instruments. This process was called trephining.

This allowed the evil spirit to escape the body

 Trephination
A method used to drill burr holes into the human skull
 Rene Descartes

A 17th century French philosopher

Believed that nerves were hollow tubes through

which animal spirits conducted impulses

This was the cause of mental illnesses

 Franz Josef Gall

Introduced the
An 18th century
field of
physician
Phrenology

Believed that by observing the

number of bumps on a person’s
skulls their personality
characteristics can be understood.
 John Locke

A 17th century British philosopher

Believed that children were born with minds like ‘blank

slates’ aka ‘tabula rasa’ in Latin

Their experiences would determine what kind of adults

they would become

His view contrasted with Plato and Descartes who said

that humans are born with some inborn knowledge
The Formal Beginning of
Psychology
Psychology as a discipline began in the late 19th century

Establishment of the first experimental psychology

laboratory by Wilhelm Wundt in 1879 in Leipzig, Germany

William James also established a laboratory in Cambridge,

Massachusetts around the same time
 Structuralism

Wundt’s goal was to study the structures of the mind and their
relationship to conscious experience

He called this ‘Structuralism’

Structuralism focused on studying the basic mental components

of perception, consciousness, thinking, emotions, etc.

To understand this, he used ‘Introspection’

 Introspection

Introspection is a procedure in which people are presented with a

stimulus – such as an image or a sentence – and asked to describe in
their own words and in as much detail as possible, what they were
experiencing. Wundt believed that by doing this, one can uncover the
structure of the mind.
STRUCTURALISM - Criticisms

The school of Structuralism met with criticisms which labelled it as a

‘mentalist system’ because of its heavy focus on the inner processes of a
human being. Such inner processes were neither observable nor verifiable.
Therefore, the school of structuralism was rejected.
 FUNCTIONALISM

A group of psychologists of Functionalism assumed

Th founders of this school
Chicago University founded that the human mind was
were John Dewey, James
a school around 1930 continuously adapting to
Angel and Harvey Carr
called Functionalism environmental demands

Psychology therefore, deals

Psychology studies mental
An organism’s practical with the functional
activities to understand the
goal is to adapt to its processes of the mind and
adjustive behaviour of
environment to function not with the components of
individuals to their
effectively consciousness as
environment
structuralists believed.
 BEHAVIOURISM
This school emerged as an opposition to Structuralism

JB Watson is considered to be the main champion of Behaviourism

Behaviourists believed that mental concepts like consciousness, thoughts,

mind, etc. are not scientific and objective

They believed that behaviour is the only aspect that can be objectively
studied and described

This observation can be done in terms of stimulus and responses

PSYCHOANALYSIS
 PSYCHOANALYSIS
Originated from a non-academic field – medical practice

Sigmund Freud is the founder of psychoanalysis

Was a neurophysician from Vienna

Came across patients who had physical symptoms without physiological

causes

Collected empirical data by deeply interviewing such patients

 PSYCHOANALYSIS

Psychoanalysis is a
Sigmund Freud
system used in 3 ways
It Is a system of diagnosing and
classifying mental disorders
From his experience, he
developed a system for
It is a treatment method which
diagnosing and treating mental
uses the technique of ‘free
disorders and also explained
association’
personality through a process
called Psychoanalysis It is a theory of personality with
focus on the unconscious
repressed thoughts and motives
 PSYCHOANALYSIS

The system of Alfred Adler and Carl

psychoanalysis was Jung, Freud’s colleagues
However, this school of
used by several disagreed with him on
psychology split soon
researchers for a long certain concepts like the
time unconscious

Analytical Psychology –
This led to the formation
Carl Jung; Individual Neo-Freudians
of 2 distinct approaches
Psychology – Adler
 GESTALT PSYCHOLOGY
This school of psychology was founded in Germany around 1912 by Max
Wertheimer and his colleagues – Kurt Koffka and Wolfgang Kohler

This school also rose in opposition to Structuralism

Gestalt psychologists believed that the mind was NOT made up of a

combination of simple elements

They believed that the mind is a result of the entire pattern of sensory
activity and the relationships within them

The whole is greater than the sum of its parts

 CONTEMPORARY
PERSPECTIVES IN
PSYCHOLOGY
The contributions made by the Schools of
Structuralism, Functionalism and Gestalt are
of great importance however, they are not
followed any more

Behaviourism and Psychoanalysis are on the

other hand, used in modified forms.

In the contemporary world, different

psychological PERSPECTVES /
VIEWPOINTS are used to understand
human behaviour
 MODERN PERSPECTIVES IN
PSYCHOLOGY

Behavioural Biological Cognitive Social

Perspective Perspective Perspective Perspective

Developmental Humanistic Psychoanalytic

Perspective Perspective Perspective
 PSYCHOLOGICAL
PERSPECTIVE
• This perspective tries to understand
observable behaviour through past
Behavioural learning and external stimuli
• It is used develop behavioural
interventions to teach behavioural skills
• This perspective relates behaviour to
Biological biological functions – specifically the
nervous system and the endocrine system
• Relates behaviour to our perception of the
world
Cognitive • The processing of information we receive
through our senses and how we
understand the world around us
 PSYCHOLOGICAL
PERSPECTIVE
• Explains the causes of behaviour based on
our social interactions and how we
Social communicate / behave in a social setting
• Focuses on our interpersonal relationships
• Concerned with the characteristic changes
that occur in an individual as the grow/mature
Developmental over time
• Explains the causes of behaviour based on
the stage of life a person is at
 PSYCHOLOGICAL
PERSPECTIVE
• Emphasizes a person’s sense of self
• Concerned with basic human needs and how
Humanistic they affect a person’s self-concept
• places human values and dignity at the
forefront
• Focuses on the role of feelings and impulses
which are unconscious
• When these impulses are unacceptable, we
Psychoanalytic
convert them to defense mechanisms
• Hidden motives may be expressed as
accidents in real life
 02
Famous
Experieme
nts
 What is an Experiment?
An experiment is a research method used to
explain a cause-and-effect relationship.
Experiments are performed in a controlled
environment.

In an experiment, a researcher investigates the relationship

between two (or more) variables by deliberately changing
(manipulating) one variable in a controlled environment and
observing the effects of that change in the other variable.

For e.g., to see the impact of caffeine consumption on memory

 Variables
A variable is any construct that can be
quantified or measured. In other words, any There are 2 types of variables:
construct that we can assign a number to, is Independent Variable and Dependent
called a variable. For e.g., happiness, anger, Variable
memory, academic performance, etc.

A dependent variable is the

variable/condition that is not being
An independent variable is the
manipulated by the researcher. We
variable/condition that is manipulated
observe and measure the dependent
by the researcher
variable to understand the effect of
the independent variable on it.

For e.g., coffee consumption academic performance

 Pavlov’s Classical
Conditioning
Classical conditioning is a learning process that occurs through
associations between an environmental stimulus and a naturally
occurring stimulus.

This concept was founded by Ivan Pavlov, a Russian physiologist

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jd7Jdug5SRc
 Skinner’s Experiments

B.F. Skinner designed a device called the "Skinner Box," which is a controlled
environment used to study animal behavior.

Typically, a rat or pigeon is placed inside the box, where it can press a lever or peck a
disc to receive a reward, such as food. The box can also deliver punishments, like a
mild electric shock.

Skinner observed that the frequency of the behavior (pressing the lever or pecking
the disc) increased when it was followed by a reward (positive reinforcement) and
decreased when it was followed by a punishment (negative reinforcement).
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bDWwXdYWqGk
 Bandura’s Bobo Doll
Experiment
This experiment demonstrated that learning could occur through
observation and imitation, rather than just through direct
reinforcement or punishment.

The goal was to investigate whether children could learn

aggressive behaviors through the observation of adult models.

Results showed that children learnt aggressive behaviour by

observing adult models
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XHIhkM1cAv4
THANK YOU