The science of psychology

Dr.Tahira Jibeen

Psychology
Scientific investigation of behaviour and mental processes
Behaviour includes all of our outward or overt behaviour, such as talking, facial expressions, and movement.

Psychology
Mental processes refers to all the internal, covert activity of our minds (thinking, feeling and remembering. Research in psychology seeks to understand and explain thought, emotion & behaviour. Observation is used to study behaviour & mental processes in both animals & human.

Psychologys Goals
Every science has goals. In Physics, the goals concern learning how the physical world works. In psychology there are four goals that aim at uncovering the mysteries of human and animal behaviour. 1-Description .....what is happening? It involves observing a behaviour and noting everything about it...

Psychologys Goals
What is happening? Where it happens, to whom it happens and under what circumstances it seems to happen? 2-Explanation: why is it happening? It refers to looking for explanation of behaviour. Finding explanation for behaviour is very important step in the process of forming theories of behaviour.

Psychologys Goals
A theory is a general explanation of a set of observation or facts. The goal of description provides the observations, and the goal of explanation helps to build the theory....(if all tests indicate that the young girl has a learning problem, the next step would be trying to predict what is likely to happen if the situation stay the same.

Psychologys Goals
3-Prediction... Determining what will happen in the future is a prediction. In the example, the psychologist or counsellor would predict that this little that this little girl will probably continue to do poorly in her schoolwork and may never be able to reach her full learning potential.

Psychologys Goals
Clearly something needs to be done to change this prediction , & that is the last point of the last of the four goals of psychology: changing or modifying behaviour. 4-Control: How it can be changed. The goal is to change a behaviour from an

Psychologys Goals
undesirable (failing in the school) one to a desirable (academic success) one. Not all psychological investigations will try to meet all four of these goals. For example a personality theorist may want to know what people are like(description) and what they might do in certain situation (prediction)

The History of Psychology

Before Psychology The word psychology is derived from the Greek word psyche, meaning 'soul' or mind. Psychology is a relatively new field in the realm of science, only about 125 years old.

The History of Psychology

Psychology evolved out of both philosophy and biology. Such discussions of the two subjects date as far back as the early Greek thinkers such as Aristotle and Socrates. Aristotle (384-322 B.C) wrote about the relationship of the soul to the body (with the two being aspects of the same underlying structure)

The History of Psychology

Plato (his teacher) suggested "dualism the concept that soul and body are separate and distinct. Rene Descartes (seventeen century, French philosopher and mathematician) agrees with Plato and believed that pineal gland (a small organ at the base of the brain) was the seat of the soul.

The History of Psychology

Philosophers tried to understand or explain the human mind and its connection to the physical body, while medical doctors And physiologist wondered about the physical connection between the body and the brain. Fechner performed scientific experiments that formed a basis for experimentations in psychology with his studies of perception.

The History of Psychology

Herman von Helmholtz performed groundbreaking experiments in visual& auditory perception.

Schools of Thought
Psychology quickly diversified from the late 19th century, leading to a number of distinct schools: Throughout psychology's history, a number of different schools of thought have formed to explain human thought and behaviour. These schools of thought often rise to dominance for a period of time. While these schools of thought are sometimes perceived as competing forces, each perspective has contributed to our understanding of psychology.

Wilhelm Wundt (1879)

The field and study of psychology was truly born when established the first psychology lab in Wilhelm Wundt Leipzig, Germany.

Mind is made up of thoughts, experiences, emotions, and other basic elements

In order to inspect these nonphysical elements, it is important to learn to think objectively about their own thoughts.

Wilhelm Wundt (1879)

This perspective relied heavily on the analysis (examining and measuring) of sensations and feelings through the use of objective introspection, a highly subjective process.

Wundt believed that properly trained individuals would be able to accurately identify the mental processes that accompanied feelings, and sensations.

Edward B. Tichener and Structuralism in America

One of Wundt's students, an man named Edward B. Tichener, would later go on to formally establish and name structuralism, although he broke away from many of Wundt's ideas.
He focused on breaking down mental processes into the most basic components.

Edward B. Tichener and Structuralism in America

Every emotion could be broken down into its individual emotions and sensations. Focused that Consciousness , the state of being aware of external events, could be broken down into its individual emotions and sensations. And introspection method could be used on thoughts just as it was on physical sensations.

Criticism of Structuralism
By todays scientific standards, the experimental methods used to study the structures of the mind were too subjectivethe use of introspection led to a lack of reliability in results. Structuralism was too concerned with internal behaviour, For example Wundt will give a rock into the hand of his student and ask him tell everything that he was feeling as a result of having the rock in his hand.

Criticism of Structuralism
Structuralism was a dominating force in the early days of psychology, but it eventually died out in the early 1900s, as the structuralists were fighting among themselves over just which key elements of experience were the most important.

2. Functionalism (William James, Harvard University (1842-1910) Formed as a reaction to the structuralism and was heavily influenced by the work of William James and the evolutionary theory of Charles Darwin.

2. Functionalism
Functionalists sought to explain the mental processes in a more systematic & accurate manner. Rather than focusing on the elements of consciousness, functionalists focused on the purpose of consciousness and behaviour. investigate purpose/function/use of consciousness It emphasized individual differences, which had a profound impact on education.

2. Functionalism
James focused on how mind allows people to function in the real world how people work, play and adapt to their circumstances or surroundings. Animals and people whose behaviour helped them to survive would pass those traits onto their off springs, perhaps by teaching or even by some mechanism of heredity.

Strengths of Functionalism
Influenced behaviourism and applied psychology (educational and industrial psychology) Influenced the educational system, especially with regards to John Deweys belief that children should learn at the level for which they are developmentally prepared.

Gestalt Psychology (Max Wertheimer)

Gestalt is German word meaning good form or good figure. He suggested that psychological events such as perceiving and sensing could not be broken down into any smaller elements . We see an effect of the whole event, not contained in the sum of the parts. For example a melody is made up of individual notes and can only be understood if the notes are in their correct

Gestalt Psychology
relationship to one another, so perception can only be understood as a whole , entire event. we are built to experience the structured whole as well as the individual sensations. And not only do we have the ability to do so, we have a strong tendency to do so. We even add structure to events which do not have gestalt structural qualities.

Gestalt Psychology
According to Gestalt psychology, the whole is different than the sum of its parts. Based upon this belief, Gestalt psychologists developed a set of principles to explain perceptual organization, or how smaller objects are grouped to form larger ones. These principles are often referred to as the "laws of perceptual organization."

Example
Have you ever noticed how a series of flashing lights often appears to be moving, such as strands of Christmas lights? According to Gestalt psychology, this apparent movement happens because our minds fill in missing information.

The Psychoanalytic Approach Sigmund Freud (Austria

Key features (1): Mind has 3 parts: conscious, unconscious and preconscious conscious: thoughts and perceptions preconscious: available to consciousness, e.g. memories and stored knowledge unconscious: wishes and desires formed in childhood, biological urges. Determines most of behavior

The Psychodynamic Approach

Personality has 3 components - id, ego & superego id: unconscious, urges needing instant gratification ego: develops in childhood, rational. Chooses between id and external demands superego: conscience, places restrictions on behavior.

The unconscious mental process

Much of the human mental activity occurs outside of awareness These activity influences behaviour and conscious thoughts but not available to voluntary recall The unconscious process represents drives, instincts and wishes, impulses, fantasies considered unacceptable.

 Freud suggested that repressed urges , in trying to surface, creates the nervous disorders in his patients. Freud stressed the importance of early six years of life , and if there were problems must have begun in those early years. Freudian psychoanalysis, is basis of much modern psychotherapy.

Psychic determinism
All mental activity is meaningful and is connected with previous life experiences. No mental activity is accidental or meaningless.

John Watson (1913) and Behaviorism

In early 1900s, Watson challenged structuralisms functionalism and psychoanalysis. Psychology is the scientific study of observable behavior. (The Science of Behavior) Behavior: any overt (observable) response or activity by an organism Subject of study is the objectively measurable behaviour (but internal behaviour-emotions and cognition could be monitor with instrumentation)

 Watson proposed all learning is due to the result of classical conditioning. Influenced by Pavlov. Differences in experiences alone account for differences in behavior. Behaviorism- Stimulus-Response Psychology
Stimulus- any detectable input from the environment

Behavior = an association between an event (stimulus) & subsequent behavior (response).

 emphasized the role of the environment in guiding behavior or learning verifiability, objective observation , empirism & experimentation

Pavlovs Classical conditioning Paradigm

Involves pairing a stimulus that naturally elicits a response (unconditioned stimulus or UCS) with a neutral stimulus (conditioned stimulus, CS), until the neutral stimulus (CS) comes to elicit the same response as the unconditioned stimulus

Pavlovs Classical conditioning Paradigm

Pavlovs example include teaching a dog to salivate in response to the sound of bell Response (salivation) that is customarily elicited by a given stimulus (food) will also be elicited by a substitute stimulus (bell) if the substitute is presented just prior to the original

Pavlovs Classical conditioning Paradigm

Normally, if hungry, a dog will salivate at the sight of food (Unconditioned) the food is unconditioned stimulus (US or UCS) and the salivation in response to the food is the unconditioned response Presence of food ----> salivation US/UCS ---->UR

Pavlovs Classical conditioning Paradigm

The conditioning model looks like this: bell---> presence of food---->salivation after repeated association bell----> salivation CS--->CR

Fraud and Watson

Freud believed that all behaviour stems from some unconscious motivation , whereas, Watson believed that all behaviour is learned.
Freud stated that a phobia , an irrational fear is a symptom of an underlying repressed conflict but Watson believed that phobias are learned through the process of conditioning

Edward Thorndike (1898)

influenced the behaviour theory by studying the learning behaviour of animals (cats) using puzzle boxes The boxes allowed the animals to obtain a rewards or to escape from the box by performing a simple act The laws he found applicable to animals learning would apply equally to human learning and called the learning pattern typical of both trial and error learning. The experimental subject would normally try many types of responses. Those proved effective in achieving the reward would be repeated and those were ineffective were eliminated

B. F.Skinner
Introduced Operant Conditioning A response that is voluntarily emitted and learned as the result of environmental consequences (rewards, costs) that follow it. Behaviour is determined by its consequences By contrast respondent occur as a result of pairing b/w unconditioned and conditioned stimuli. An event that increases a behaviour is reinforcer Positive mean stimulus is applied/ negative mean stimulus is removed.

 + reinforcement: increasing the probability of an action by a + stimulus (e.g. giving rewards) - reinforcement: increasing the probability of an action by removing an aversive event + punishment: decreasing the probability of an action by a negative stimulus - punishment: decreasing the probability of an action by removing a + stimulus

Evaluation:
Its practical focus has led to useful applications It has influenced theory development, e.g. in the area of learning It developed a standard scientific methodology, through the use of hypothesis testing and experimental control Its criticised for being mechanistic (ignoring mental processes) and overly environmentally determinist (it ignores biology)

The Psychodynamic Approach

Evaluation: Significant impact: theories of personality, motivation, development therapeutic techniques in clinical and counselling psychology captured the popular imagination, providing an accessible framework for everyday understanding
Unscientific? methodologically poor untestable (e.g. concept of denial) Limited impact on scientific psychology

The Humanistic Approach (C. Rogers)

Key features (1): Rejects determinism, and emphasizes free will Rejects the positivism of science (investigating others as detached objective observers) Investigates phenomena from the subjective experience of individuals An emphasis on holism: the need to study the whole person

The Humanistic Approach

School of thought that emphasizes the unique qualities of humans especially their freedoms and their potential for personal growth

People strive for actualization

Human behavior governed largely by ones sense of self (self-concept) Rogers: the self-concept consists of a perceived self and an ideal self. Psychological health is achieved when the two match

The Humanistic Approach

Maslow: Basic human need to evolve and fulfill ones potential. people have a hierarchy of needs. The goal of psychological growth is to meet the need to achieve self-actualization

The Humanistic Approach

Evaluation: Considerable influence on counseling development of client-centred therapy helped establish counseling as an independent profession development of research techniques to evaluate the effectiveness of treatment Unscientific Limited impact on mainstream psychology Limited evidence for theories

Evolution of Psychology: Recent Perspectives The Cognitive Approach (mid-1950s)

Key features: The main approach to experimental psychology
emphasis on the comprehension of behavior and

experience understanding how people acquire, store, and process information.

cognition- the mental process involves in acquiring information (mental images important in things like decision making, reasoning, and problem solving)

The Cognitive Approach

Emphasizes active mental processes the brain is seen as an information processor, using the analogy of mind to computers mental processes are based on discrete modules Uses experimental methods, but also computer modeling and neuropsychology
cognitive psychology, which investigates memory, language, perception, problem solving but also used for other areas, e.g. social, developmental psychology areas)

The Cognitive Approach

Evaluation (1): Has had a significant impact across experimental psychology Has led to useful applications, e.g. cognitive therapy Has introduced a range of rigorous research methods can compare results from different methods, and so have more faith in research findings

The Cognitive Approach

Evaluation (2): Lacks ecological validity based on artificial laboratory research but do the results apply to the real world? Has no overall framework there are separate theories in different areas, but there is no one framework for explaining cognition Doubts about the underlying metaphor is the mind really like a computer?

The Physiological Approach

Investigates: brain function in healthy and impaired individuals brain chemistry and psychology, e.g. serotonin & mood genes and psychology, e.g. twin studies & intelligence The common assumption is that biology underlies behavior much of an organisms functioning can be explained in terms of bodily structures and biochemical processes that underlie behavior primary nature of the brain in behavior and experience electrical stimulation of the brain

The Physiological Approach

Reductionist and deterministic reductionist: explanations at a more basic level deterministic: behavior directly determined by biology Evaluation (1): Productive has provided explanations in a range of areas of psychology, e.g. mental health, individual differences, social behaviour has provided therapeutic interventions, e.g. drug treatments for depression

The Physiological Approach

Popular has caught the public imagination genetic theories provide an accessible framework for understanding ourselves Overly reductionist it seems to replace explanations at a psychological level Problems with evolutionary explanations they ignore or underplay the effects of the environment they may naturalize behaviors that should be discouraged, e.g. sexual violence there is often limited evidence for evolutionary theories

Social Constructionist Approach

Key features: Challenges mainstream psychology Believes we construct our view of the world through social interaction Believes our constructions affect our actions e.g. construction of female affects view of female behaviour Investigates our constructions of the world through the analysis of language

Evolutionary Psychology: Human Adaptations

Natural selection occurs for behavioral, as well as physical, characteristics
Buss, Daly & Wilson, Cosmides & Tooby 80s and 90s
Mating preferences, jealousy, aggression, sexual behavior, language, decision making, personality, and development

Positive Psychology
Humanist concerns revisited Uses theory and research to better understand the positive, creative, and fulfilling aspects of human existence
Positive subjective experiences Positive individual traits Positive institutions and communities

Psychology Today: A Thriving Science and Profession Research: Seven major areas
Applied Psychology: Four major areas

Psychology Today: Research Areas

Developmental Social Experimental Physiological Cognitive Personality Psychometrics

Psychology Today: Professional Areas

Clinical Counseling Educational and School Industrial and Organizational

Clinical Psychology
Area of psychology concerned with the diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of psychological disorders and disturbances
Mental health disorders & conditions

Alcohol/Drug addiction Addiction Depression psychotherapy Down syndrome Mental retardation ADD/ADHD Eating disorders Alcohol/Drug addiction

Industrial and Organizational Psychologist

Studies the behavior and mental processes than take place in organizational settings (typically work situations), and the human factors that influence the work environment Sexual harassment Successful employment of workers with disabilities Workplace culture Workplace aggression

Leadership behaviors of management Personality traits in the hiring process Selection of law enforcement officers absenteeism

Counseling Psychology
Area of psychology that maintains an emphasis on the positive aspects of human development and are focused on exploring and facilitating the strengths and assets of individuals, groups, and organizational units Emphasizes the development of self-direction, life-stage coping skills, and educational strategies for change

Figure 1.9 Principal professional specialties in contemporary psychology

Counseling Psychology
Coping with personal, school, & community crises Role of feelings & emotional states in the learning process Consulting with parents & teachers Perfectionism Development & implementation of educational strategies Enhancement of self-awareness, & social & interpersonal skills in students

School/Educational Psychology
Study of learning, & the conditions under which it happens best School psychologists focus more on creating environments that support learning Educational psychologists work to understand how humans learn, & then to develop methods & materials to make learning happen

School/Educational Psychology
Prejudice, Diversity Self & Social Identity Group Behavior Conflict Resolution Interpersonal Relations Gender Social Influence Prosocial Behavior