September 8

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September 8

• Due Now Hand in your contract sheet from the
  course information handout

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What do you know about
psychology?

• Fact or falsehood? Handout. Determine whether
  these common beliefs are true!

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What is psychology?

• Psychology- the scientific study of behavior and
  mental processes
• Behavior- observable objective actions
• Mental processes- Unobservable subjective actions

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The History and Scope of Psychology
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The History and Scope of Psychology

• Psychologys Roots
• Prescientific Psychology
• Psychological Science is Born
• Psychological Science Develops
• Contemporary Psychology
• Psychologys Big Debate
• Psychologys Three Main Levels of Analysis
• Psychologys Subfields

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Psychologys Roots

• Prescientific Psychology

Ancient civilizations deemed mental illnesses to
be a because of possessive evil spirits
In India, the Buddha pondered how sensations and
perceptions combined to form ideas.
In China, Confucius stressed the power of ideas
and of an educated mind.
Confucius (551-479 BCE)
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Prescientific Psychology

• Socrates (469-399 BCE) and Plato (428-348 BCE)

http//www.law.umkc.edu
http//www.law.umkc.edu
Socrates
Plato
Socrates and his student Plato believed that the
mind was separate from the body, that it
continued to exist after death, and that ideas
were innate.
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Prescientific Psychology

• Aristotle (384-322 BCE)

http//faculty.washington.edu
Aristotle suggested that the soul is not
separable from the body and that knowledge
(ideas) grow from experience.
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Prescientific Psychology

• Rene Descartes (1596-1650)

http//www.spacerad.com
http//ocw.mit.edu
Descartes, like Plato, believed in soul (mind)
body separation but speculated on how the
immaterial mind and the physical body
communicated.
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Prescientific Psychology

• Francis Bacon (1561-1626)

http//www.iep.utm.edu
Bacon was one of the founders of modern science,
especially the experimental method.
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Prescientific Psychology

• John Locke (1632-1704)

biografieonline.it/img/bio/John_Locke.jpg
Locke held that the mind is a tabula rasa or
blank sheet at birth and experience writes on it.
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Prescientific Psychology

• How are ideas formed?

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Psychological Science is Born

• Structuralism

Titchner (1867-1927)
Wundt (1832-1920)
Wundt and Titchner studied the elements (atoms)
of the mind by conducting experiments at Leipzig,
Germany in 1879.
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Psychological Science is Born

• Functionalism

James (1842-1910)
Influenced by Darwin, William James established
the school of functionalism, opposing
structuralism.
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Psychological Science is Born

• The Unconscious Mind

Freud (1856-1939)
http//loeillet.chez-alice.fr
Jung (1875-1961)
http//ot.re.kr
Sigmund Freud and his followers emphasized the
importance of the unconscious mind and its
effects on human behavior.
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Psychological Science Develops

• Behaviorism

Skinner (1904-1990)
Watson (1878-1958)
Watson (1913) and later Skinner emphasized the
study of overt behavior as the subject matter of
scientific psychology.
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Psychological Science Develops

• Humanistic Psychology

Maslow (1908-1970)
http//facultyweb.cortland.edu
Rogers (1902-1987)
http//www.carlrogers.dk
Maslow and Rogers emphasized current
environmental influences on our growth potential
and our needs for love and acceptance.
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Psychology Today

• We define psychology today as the scientific
  study of behavior (what we do) and mental
  processes (inner thoughts and feelings).

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Psychological Associations Societies

• American Psychological Association is the largest
  organization of psychology with 160,000 members
  world-wide, followed by The British Psychological
  Society with 34,000 members.

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Contemporary Psychology

• Psychologys Big Debate
• Nature versus Nurture

Darwin (1809-1882)
Darwin states that nature selects those traits
that best enable the organism to survive and
reproduce in a particular environment.
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Contemporary Psychology

• Psychologys Three Main Level of Analysis

• Psychological Influences
• learned fears and other learnt expectations
• emotional responses
• cognitive processing and perceptual
  interpretations

• Biological influences
• genetic predispositions
• genetic mutations
• natural selection of adaptive physiology and
  behaviors
• genes responding to environment

Behavior or mental process

• Social-cultural Influences
• presence of others
• cultural, societal, and family expectations
• peer and other group influences
• compelling models (such as media)

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Psychologys Current Perspectives(pg. 11 in text)
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Psychologys Current Perspectives
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Psychologys Current Perspectives
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Psychologys Subfields

• Research

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Psychologys Subfields Research
Data APA 1997
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Psychologys Subfields

• Applied

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Psychologys Subfields Applied
Data APA 1997
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Clinical Psychology vs. Psychiatry

• A clinical psychologist (Ph.D.) studies,
  assesses, and treats troubled people with
  psychotherapy.
• Psychiatrists on the other hand are medical
  professionals (M.D.) who use treatments like
  drugs and psychotherapy to treat psychologically
  diseased patients.

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Close-up
Your Study of Psychology Survey, Question, Read,
Review and Reflect (SQ3R)

• Survey what you are about to read, including
  chapter outlines and section heads
• Question Ask questions. Make notes.
• Read Make sure you read outlines, sections and
  chapters in entirety.
• Review Marginal definitions. Study learning
  outcomes.
• Reflect On what you have learnt. Test yourself
  with quizzes.

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Close-up
Additional Study Hints

• Distribute your time
• In class, listen actively
• Overlearn
• Be a smart test-taker