INTRODUCTION TO PSYCHOLOGY

Introduction to Psychology

We’ll go straight to the point. What does ‘Psychology’ really mean?

-Definition: A scientific study of human behavior and mental process.

-A science based on observation and experience (Empirical Science). It relies on the evidence we gather from observation and experience to know how humans think, feel and behave.

This is the symbol for Psychology:

In Psychology, we’ll encounter, and use, many theories. But what are theories, exactly? Well, it’s a set of ideas used to explain something, like phenomena. Theories allows us to:

-offer reasons for relationships

-obtain information from explanations

-make predictions

Of course, what can psychology possibly do? The goals of psychology are to:

-Describe. To describe what had/has happened.

-Explain. To explain why had it happened.

-Predict. To predict when it will happen again.

-Control. To know how to control.

So, what exactly do Psychologists do?

Well. Psychologists practice in their profession, like doing counselling. Psychologists also teach other aspiring psychologists the ways of a psychologists. And more importantly, psychologists research. A lot. There are two kinds of research though. There are:

1)      Pure Research. It’s also called Basic Research. It is driven purely by curiosity and a desire to expand our knowledge.

2)      Applied Research. It’s a research used to answer (specific) questions that is related to the world.

So, you might be wondering how many fields psychology covers? When thinking of psychology, most would think towards counselling and maybe clinical, but that’s about it. Is there really nothing else? On the contrary, there are many fields in psychology, and putting some of them in a list would look like this:

-Clinical (A psychology that deals in medicine, basically. Like a Psychiatrist)

-Counselling (Exactly what it sounds like.)

-School (To help and support teachers and students alike in school)

-Educational (To teach others psychology)

-Personality (A psychologists that studies personalities)

-Social (To study how people around an individual contribute to their thoughts, feelings and reactions)

-Environmental (Focuses on how the environment and an individual interact with each other)

-Experimental (Using humans and animals to study a large variety of topics)

-Industrial:

·         Organizational (To use psychology to solve problems in a workplace)

·         Human Factors (Studies human behavior and capabilities to design products)

·         Consumer (To study why people buy things in the first place)

-Health (To study how the psychological, behavior and cultural factors affect our health)

-Sport (To study how sports affect us physically and psychologically)

-Forensic (Applies psychology to legal matters, like crimes and civil matters)

That’s a lot of stuff right there. But here’s the next question: Where does psychology come from?

History of Psychology

In the history of psychology, there was a big issue with philosophy and psychology called the ‘Nature vs Nurture Debate’, one of the oldest arguments in history. It was about whether a person’s nature is most influenced by genetics (nature) or the environment (nurture). Both sides provide good points, because although genetics can never be changed within a person, the environment plays a big role in how a person behaves too.

Besides the debate, what else is in the history of psychology? Why, the people who contributed to it of course! They are:

-Aristotle & Plato. They were both philosophers in Greece, but they both have different thoughts on psychology. Plato thought that the mind and soul were separate entities (dualism, or Nature over Nurture), while Aristotle thought that the opposite, that the mind and soul are connected (monism, or Nurture over Nature).

-Hippocrates. He was also from Greece. He was the first person to be credited that diseases were caused naturally by environmental factors, our diet and living habits, and not because of some punishment inflicted by the gods. He based his medical practice on observations and on the study of the human body.

-Galen. He was from Roman, and he contributed to the Hippocratic understanding of pathology. The Galen theory is that illness was caused by the imbalance of the four humours: blood, phlegm, black bile and yellow bile.

-Socrates. He was the teacher of Plato. He introduced Introspection, the act of consciously reflecting in one’s thoughts and feelings.

Psychology as a Laboratory Science

This guy here is Wilhelm Wundt. He founded modern experimental psychology, and founded the first psychology laboratory in Germany.

Structuralism

Structuralism breaks conscious experience into objective sensations, like sight or taste, and subjective feelings, like emotions, memories or dreams. According to structuralism, the mind combines both objective sensations and subjective elements of experience. It was a theory by Edward Titchener, Wundt’s student.

Functionalism

Functionalism focuses on human behavior along with the mind and consciousness. It is used for direct observations to supplement introspection. It is influenced by Darwin’s theory of evolution (called Metamorphosis) or natural selection. William James is who developed this, and he looks like the picture above.

Behaviorism

Behaviorism focuses on learning observable, also measurable, behavior. John Broadus Watson developed this.

John. B. Watson

Also, this is B.F. Skinner:

However, B.F. Skinner learned that behavior is behavior that is reinforced. Behaviorism is a scientific psychology that should focus only on observable behavior.

Gestalt Psychology

It was from Max Wertheimer, Wolfgang Köhler. Gestalt focuses on perception and its influence on thinking and problem solving. It teaches us the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. For example, the image down below shows a chalice of some sort, but with further insight shows that the black parts make up faces.

Psychoanalysis

Psychoanalysis is from Sigmund Freud. Psychoanalysis is psychology involving the influence of unconscious motives and conflicts.

The aforementioned, Sigmund Freud

Humanist Psychology

This psychology proves that people are more motivated towards growth, or self-actualization. It’s from Carl Rogers, Abraham Maslow.

How Psychologists Study Behavior and Mental Processes Research Methods

As the question asks, how do they study them? Well, there are a few ways.

Principles of Critical Thinking

-Be sceptical

-Insist on evidence

-Examine definitions of terms

-Examine the assumptions or premises of arguments

-Be cautious in drawing conclusions from evidence

-Consider alternative interpretations of research evidence

-Do not oversimplify

-Do not overgeneralize

-Apply critical thinking to all areas of life

The Scientific Method

-Formulate a research question

-State the hypothesis

-Test the hypothesis

-Draw conclusions based on findings

-Publish research

-Replicate study

Samples and Populations

-The population is an entire group targeted for study

-Samples are a segment of the population

-Representative samples allow for generalized findings

Random and Stratified Samplings

-Random Samples, which each member of the population has an equal chance of selection.

-Stratified Samples, which subgroups are represented proportionally.

-Volunteer Bias, which is bias represented by studying people who volunteer to participate.

Methods of Observation

-Case Study, which is gathering information about individuals or small groups. It is sometimes used to investigate rarities.

-Survey, which is used to collect information that cannot be observed directly.

-Naturalistic Observation, which is observing subjects in their natural environment in an unobtrusive measure. The observer may be bias though, and the limitations for this method is that there is no cause-effect or waiting for an event to occur.

-Laboratory Observation. EXACTLY what it sounds like.

Correlation Method

-It is a mathematical method to determine a relationship between variables.

-The correlation coefficient is the number between +1.00 and -1.00, and it indicates strength and direction of relationship between variables.

-There are positive and negative correlations, as shown down below:

Experimental Method

It demonstrates cause and effect through the method by the independent variable (The IV, treatment, manipulated) and the dependent variable (The DV, outcome, measure of assumed effect of the IV).

Ethics of Research with Humans

It involves with the ethical review committee and ethical standards to promote individual dignity, human welfare and scientific integrity, and it ensures no harm will come to the subjects. When experimenting with human subjects, there will be informed consent, confidentiality of the experiment itself, deception to the subjects about said experiment and a debriefing of the experiment to the subjects so they won’t harm themselves.

Ethics of Research with Animals

Animals are used as subjects when the research cannot be carried out with human subjects. Unlike humans though, the animals may be harmed when there is no alternative or the benefits of the research justify the harm.