What is Psychology?

Psychology is the scientific study of mind and behavior. Behavior is what can be observed from outside. Mind refers to our thoughts, feelings, private sensations, and various internal processes.


General Goal of Psychology

To help people, families, organizations, and society generally


Psychology is "Interdisciplinary" and "Eclectic"

Interdisciplinary

Any phenomenon can be approached from many different angles. Take the phenomenon of dreams. Dreams can be looked at as:

Actions: Overt behavior, such as REM.

Cognitions: Knowledge/thought: Why do we remember so few dreams?

Social Behaviors: Interaction with others: What do dreams say about our relationships with other people?

Dreams can be studied in terms of:

Development: When do kids distinguish dreams from reality?

Individual Differences: Do schizophrenics have different dreams than "normal" people?

So, dreaming can be looked at from the perspective of different disciplines in psychology (and outside of psychology)


Eclectic

Psychology uses various sources to understand phenomenon, to help people, etc. Take a psychological problem like severe depression:

Depression can be understood from many different theoretical perspectives (not just one). A few possible examples regarding depression:

Biological perspectives (ex: hormones, hereditary factors)

Cognitive perspectives (ex: distortions of various thought processes)

Social perspectives: (ex: it can be a cause and a consequence of poor social skills)

Personality perspectives (ex: some traits may predispose a person to becoming depressed more than other people)

Learning perspectives (ex: depression might be observed in the home and imitated because it leads to positive consequences, e.g., attention from others)

Psychodynamic perspectives (ex: depression may be a result of repressed unconscious conflicts about our true feelings of hostility toward a parent)

Cultural perspectives (ex: depression may be the only way that a particular society or subculture "allows" someone to express their dissatisfaction)

We like to think that only one perspective is the "true" one. But, in reality, most psychological phenomena are complex. Ex: Most instances of depression probably really do reflect the interplay of many of the above factors.

NOTE TO STUDENTS: As you study these notes, try to answer the questions that appear in this column to check your mastery of the material. To see the answers to the questions, highlight the 'invisible' text that is after the word ANSWER.

















( Cartoons by Mark Parisi. Used by special permission. For many more, visit his site.)

"Mind-Body" Problem

Dualism
Behavior is controlled by two distinct systems -- the body and soul

Body
This part of natural, material world can be studied scientifically (just like other matter or material things)

Soul
This is part of the immaterial world.
The spiritual, "supernatural"
Cannot be studied scientifically (left to religion)


Descartes' Take on Dualism

Descartes was a French Philosopher who had a different take on the mind-body problem. He believed:

Many human qualities are understandable in purely mechanical terms (without having to resort to notion of soul. But tThe soul has mainly one function: THOUGHT

The soul (thought, mind) distinguishes humans from other nonhumans and inanimate world. But even he described the soul in mechanical terms.

See chapter for what he says about pineal gland

Hobbes' View of Materialism

Hobbes was a British philosopher who believed that nothing exists but matter and energy. Soul doesn't exist. Everything (including thought) is understandable in terms of the material world like physiological processes (including the brain)

Lockes' View of Empiricism

Locke was a British philosopher who believed that everything (including thought and knowledge) is understandable in terms of sensory experience

Nineteenth-Century Physiology: Learning about the Machine

Reflexology
Localization of function

Darwin and Evolution

The Origin of Species
The Expression of Emotions in Man and Animals

Nativism (nature):

Certain elementary ideas are innate to the human mind; not gained through experience (associated with, for example, Descartes)

Men are born, not made

Empiricism (nurture):

Anything that we know, we have learned through experience. Our mind is like a blank slate (tabula rasa; Locke) that the environment writes upon

Men are made, not born

This is the question of whether our nature (heredity) versus our nurture (environment) makes us who we are (e.g., aggressiveness, intelligence, musicality, etc.)

Has huge political and social policy implications. Examples:

• If criminals are born that way, why invest money in rehabilitation programs?

• If intelligence is inherited, why invest money in educational programs?

• If laziness is inherited, then let's abolish welfare?

What's true? Most behaviors likely represent interactions between nature and nurture





( Cartoons by Mark Parisi. Used by special permission. For many more, visit his site.)

Wilhelm Wundt (1832-1920)

In 1879, in Leipzig Germany, Wundt created the first official lab of psychology.

Wundt studied atoms of the mind (e.g., through reaction-time experiments).

Wundt's contrubutions illustrate how historically contextualized psychology was and still is.

Edward Titchener (1867-1927)

Titchener is the father of the structuralist perspective.

Titchener asked: "What are the basic elements of the mind that combine to produce more complex thoughts?"

Titchener focused on introspection (self-observation).

William James (1842-1910)

James used the 'house and brick' analogy.

James is the father of the functionalist perspective.

He asked "What are the functions or purposes of the various behaviors and mental processes?"

Examples:

Why do we dream -- what function does it serve?
Why do we have emotions -- what function do they serve?

James is the father of American psychology.

Max Wertheimer (1880 - 1943)

Wertheimer is the father of the Gestalt perspective.

Gestalt (organized whole) approach holds that the whole is more than the sum of its parts.

Wertheimer believed that mind can only be understood in terms of organized wholes and not elementary parts.
The latter would be like trying to understand a painting in terms of each and every brushstroke.

Wolfgang Kohler, another Gestalt Psychologist, performed experiments with chimpanzees and problem solving. He believed that these animals produced solutions to problems through "flashes of insight" rather than in bits and pieces.

John B. Watson (1878 - 1958)

Watson is the father of behavioristic perspective, later championed by Skinner (1904-1990).

Behaviorists believe that only observable responses can be studied.

Waston said that it's silly to try to understand unobservable events (such as the mind) or to use these events to explain behavior.

B. F. Skinner (1904 - 1990)

Skinner disagreed with Watson that all behaviors can be understood as reflexes.

Skinner developed Operant Psychology.

Skinner's behaviorism is grounded in functionalism.

Sigmund Freud (1856-1939)

• father of psychodynamic perspective

Emphasis - discovering how our behavior is affected by unconscious experience and emotional conflicts

•introduced psychoanalysis, clinical case studies.

Cultural Psychology

Cultural Psychology studies how culture and ethnicity affect human behavior.

Sample problems/questions:

Are there universal emotions?

Are there cultural differences in definitions of morality?

Do children across cultures go through same stages of cognitive development?

Methods - Controlled experiments, naturalistic observations. Both laboratory and field settings are used.

Social Psychology

Social Psychology studies how people interact with each other; both as individuals and in groups.

Sample problems/questions:

Why and how can people be persuaded to conform to the expectations of others?

Why are people attracted to one another, and why do people like and even love one another?

Why are people sometimes generous and helpful and why are they sometimes not?

Methods - Elaborate experiments, surveys, questionnaires and naturalistic observation.



The Cognitive Perspective

During the 1960's there was a cognitive revolution in which cognitive psychology replaced behaviorism as the dominant school of thought.

The work of Jean Piaget and Noam Chomsky was especially influential in the surge of interent in the cognitive perspective.

The cognitive perspective empahsizes understanding how people think in order to understand human behavior; how knowledge is learned, structured, stored, and used

Methods - Experimentation and naturalistic observation, primarily of humans, as well as other primates.

People: Simon (1916- ); Neisser (1928- )

Wilhelm Wundt




Edward Titchener




LINK: William James



LINK: Max Wertheimer


LINK: Kohler's research on the mentality of apes. Includes pictures of Kohler's chimps in action!




LINK: John B. Watson




B. F. Skinner





Sigmund Freud

Biological Perspective

Emphasis - Relation between overt behavior and electrical and chemical events taking place inside brain and nervous system

Methods - Experimentation; studies on humans and animals; neurobiological and neurochemical examination of brains.

People: Lashley (1890 - 1958), Sperry (1920- ), Miller (1920- )

Phenomenological/Humanistic Perspectives

Emphasis - Focus on positive human qualities and one's potential to grow or "self-actualize"; focus on conscious rather than unconscious experience; emphasizes "well" as opposed to "sick" side of people.

Methods - Clinical practice and case-study observations; holistic rather than analytic approach.

People - Maslow (1908-1970); Rogers (1902-1987)

Ethological Perspectives

Emphasis - Influenced strongly by Darwin. Want to understand how behavior patterns are wired-into animals nervous system and triggered by certain stimuli. Initially big arguments with behaviorists.

Methods - Focus on study of animal behavior in natural habitats.

People - Tinbergen (1907 - 1988); Lorenz (1903 - 1989)

Psychobiology or Cognitive Neuroscience

Studies - The biological structures and processes underlying thought, feeling, motivation, and behavior.

Sample problems/questions:

What portion of the brain is active when a person learns the meaning of a new word?

Which neurochemicals are active in the brain when a person feels depressed?

How do various kinds of drugs affect the brain and behavior?

Methods - Rely heavily on highly controlled experimental research. Single-cell to complex organisms. Patients with brain damage to see how particular aspects of behavior are affected. Postmortem analysis of patients with pathological problems (dementia, schizophrenia, etc.)

Evolutionary Psychology

Studies - Given our own "psychology today", why is it that some of our skills have been passed down through the generations and other skills have not? What are the functions of various behaviors in terms of promoting the species?

Sample problems/questions:

What is the evolutionary basis for altruism or aggression?

What adaptive functions do higher-order cognitive skills serve? Why have they evolved?

What is the evolutionary basis for physical beauty?

Methods - Relies heavily on methods developed by physical anthropologists and archaeologists.

Cognitive Psychology

Studies - how people perceive, learn, remember, and think about information.

Sample problems/questions:

How do people perceive depth?

Why do people remember some facts but forget others?

How do people think when they play chess or solve everyday problems?

Methods - Controlled experiments, computer simulations, and mathematical models that predict or help explain thought and behavior. Both laboratory and field settings are used.

Fields of Psychology

(These are only examples; there are many more fields than these.)

Each field corresponds to one or more perspectives on human mind and behavior. You typically earn your Ph.D. in one (or more) of these fields

Developmental Psychology

Studies - How people develop over time through processes of maturation and learning

Sample problems/questions:

How much of the development of problem-solving skills is due to physical maturation and how much is due to learning?

How do children form attachments to their parents?

Methods - Elaborate laboratory experiments, intensive case-studies, and naturalistic observation are used. Longitudinal and cross-sectional studies employ survey data to study development over longer time periods.

Personality Psychology

Studies - Focuses on the personal dispositions that lead people to behave as they do, and also on how these dispositions interact with situations to affect behavior.

Sample problems/questions:

Why do some people seem nervous and tense, even in apparently safe settings, whereas other people are easygoing and relaxed?

What makes some people highly conscientious and others less so?

Methods - Paper-and-pencil tests, projective tests, and altering the conditions in the environment to study reactions.

Clinical Psychology

Studies - The understanding and treatment of abnormal behavior.

Sample problems/questions:

What behavior is just a little out of the ordinary, and what behavior is truly maladaptive?

What causes people to engage in behaviors that they themselves consider inappropriate and even abnormal and would like to stop if they could?

Methods - Use of case-studies, experimentation, and projective tests in an effort to develop taxonomies (classification systems). Some clinical psychologists engage only in research, others only in diagnosing and treating patients, and still others in a combination of the two.

The proverbial "other"

Cross-cultural psychology - extends the study of psychological topics to all cultures. Through it, mechanisms of mind and behavior can be compared in multiple cultures. Cross-cultural researchers endeavor to understand how culture and ethnicity affect human behavior.

Philosophical psychology - deals with the philosophical presuppositions and contentions underlying psychological theory and research, attempting to define the nature of psychological theories.

Mathematical psychology - deals with the application of quantitative models to the study of thought and behavior, such as predicting mathematically when learning should and should not occur.

Psycholinguistics- investigates the ways in which humans learn and use language.

Educational psychology - uses psychology to develop and improve curricula, school administration, and classroom teaching practices.

Organizational psychology - applies psychology to decision making about employees and in institutional settings, such as workplaces and businesses.

Engineering psychology - deals with human machine systems and how instruments such as computers and automobile dashboards can be made more user-friendly.