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scientific study of behabior and mental procseses.
psychology
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What does psychology seek to do?
describe explain predict and control the behavior and mental rpocesses
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What do psychologists mean by controlling behavior and mental processes?
NOT making people do their bidding like puppets on strings- use knowledge of what they learn about the influences on human behavior in order to help people calirfy adn meet their own gioals. (Committed to a bleief in the dignity of human beings)
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Descriptive terms and concepts are interwoven into ____
- theories (formulations of apparent relationships among observed events- allow us to derive explanations and predictions)
- EX: theores combine statements about behavior such as eating or agression, mental processes (attitudes and mental images), and biological processes
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For instance, many of our responses to drugs such as alcohol and marijuana can be measured as _____
overt behavior (and they are presumed to reflect the actions of these drugs and of our mental expectations about their effects
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What happens when our obesrvations cannot be explained by the given tehory?
consider revising or replacing it
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Psychologists share a keen interest in behavior. But, in other ways, they may differ markedly. Researchers engage primarily in ______.
Others engage in ______
Pure research (no immediate application to personal or social problems and therefore has been characterized as research for its own sake); applied research (designed to find solutions to specific personal or social problems)
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Influence of pure research
sparked by curiosity and the desire to know and understand, pure research enhances tomorrow's way of life- shown that learning often takes time and reptition and profits from repittion even after the learning goal has been reached)
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Influence of applied research
practicing psychology help individuals change their behavior so that they can meet their own goals more effectively
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psychologists are found in a number of different specialties:
helps people with psychological disorders adjust to the demands of life
- clinical psychologists (problems range from anxiety and depression to sexual dysfunctions to loss of goals)
- largest subgroup
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difference of clinical psychologists with psychiatrists and medical doctors?
psychiatrists specialize in the study and treatment of psychological disorders
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like clinical psychologists, they use itnerviews and tests to define their clients' problems. their clients typically have adjustmen problems but not serious psychological disorders
counseling psychologists (clients may have trouble making academic decisions or making friends in college)
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employed by school systems to identify and assist students who have problems that itnerfere with learning. (Social and family problems)
school psychologists
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attempt to facilitate learning but they usually focus on course planning and instructional methods for a school system rather than on individual children
educational psychologists
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study the changes (physical, cognitive, social, and personality) that occur throughout the life span)
- developmental psychologists (sort out the influences of heredity and the environment on development)
- EX: conduct research on issues such as effects of maternal use of drugs on an embryo, outcomes of patterns of chold rearing, conflicts during adolescence
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focus on goals such as identifying and measuring human traits, determining influences on human thought processes, feelings, and behavior
personality psychologists
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concerned with the nature and causes of individuals' thoughts, feelings and behavior in social sitautions
social psychologists (personality psychos look within person, social psychos focus on external influences)
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ways people and the environment (natural environment and human made environment) influence one another
environmental psychologists
EX: environmental psychologists study ways to encourage people to recycle and to preserve bastions of wilderness because we have learned taht initial resistance to recycling usuall gives way to cooperation as people come to accept it as the norm)
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specialize in basic processes such as the nervous system, sensation and perception, learning and memory, thought, motivation, and emotion.
- experimental psychologist
- EX: studied waht areas of the brain are invovled in processing math problems or listening to music- involved in labs with test subjeccts such as rats or pigeons
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industrial psychologists focus on the relationships between people and work. Organizational psychologists study the behavior of people in organizations such as business Human factors psychologists make technical systems such as automobile dashboards. Consumer psychologists study the behavior of shoppers in an effort to predict and influence their behavior. (help store managers)
lul
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examine the ways in which behavior and mental processes such as attitudes are related to physical health
health psychologists (effects of stress on hleath problems)
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improve performance in sports (concentrate on their performance and use cognitive strategies)
sport psychologists
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Knowledge of the history of psychology allows us to appreciate its theoretical conflicts, its place among the sciences, evolution of its methods, and its social and political roles
lul
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wrote Peri Psyches; argued that human behavior is subject to rules and laws; delved into the subject matter topic by topic: persoanlity, senation and perception, thought, intellgiecne, etc.
declared people are motivated to seek pleasure and avoid pain (remains as current today as it was in ancient Greece)
Aristotle
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suggested we could think of behavior in terms of a body and a mind; behavior is influenced external stimulation. Where do the influences of others end and our real selves begin?
Democritus
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"Know thyself"
we could not attain reliable self-knowledge through our senses, because the senses do not mirror reality exactly. Because senses provide imperfect knowledge, we should rely on ____
rational thought and introspection
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what is introspection?
careful examination of one's own thoughts and emotions to acheive self-knowledge
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published the landmark book Elements of Psychophysics.
Gustav Theodor Fechner
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What does Elements of Psychophysics talk about
we can scnetifically measrue the effect of physical events that relate to our psycholgoical sensation and perception (here we see how modern psychology has laboratory science)
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Wilhelm Wundt saw the mind as a natural event that could be studied scientifically like light/heat. He used introspection to try to discover the basic element of ___. What did he and his colleagues come up with?
experience; structuralism
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What is structuralism?
attempted to break conscious experience down into objective sensations such as sight or taste, and subjective feelings such as emotional responses, will, and mental images. Structuralists believed that the mind functions by combining objective and subjective elements of experience.
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What did William James come up with? What was it called?
functionalism
he focused on the relation between conscious experience and behavior: argued that the stream of consciousness is fluid and continuous- introspection convinced him that experience cannot be broken down into objective sensations and subjective feelings as structuralists maintained
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What is functionalism?
- school of psychology that emphasizes the use of functions of the mind rather than the elements of experience
- "How do behavior and mental processes help people adapt to the requirements of their lives?"
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James was also influenced by Charles Darwin's tehory of evolution. Functionalists adapt Darwin's theory and propose that adaptive behavior patterns and learned and maintained. Maladaptive behavior patterns tend to drop out, and only the fittest behavior patterns survive. THese adaptive actions tend to be repeated and become ____
habits (James wrote that habit is the enromous flywheel of society (keeps the engine of civilization running)
idea of learning by repetition is also basic to the behavioral tradition in psychology
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John Broadus Watson is the founder of _____. He believed that if psychology was to be a natural science, it must LIMIT itself to observable, measurable events (to behavior alone)
behaviorism- school of psychology that focuses on the learning and effects of observable behavior
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What does observable behavior include other than pressing lever or turning left or right?
behaviors that are observable by means of specialized instruments (blood pressure, heart rate, emission of brain waves)
behaviorists define psychology as the scientific study of behavior not of behavior and mental processes
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B.F Skinner was another major modern contributor to behaviorism. What did he do?
organisms learn to behave in certain ways because they have been reinforced for doing so-that is, their behavior has a positive outcome. (labortary animals can be trained to carry out behaviors through strategic use of reinforcers, such as food)
this idea was adopted for human behavior in terms of thousands of instances of learning through reinforcement
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In the 1920s, another school of psychology ____was prominent in Germany
Gestalt psychology- focused on perception and on how perception influences thinking and problem solving (claimed that we can cannot hope to understand human nature by focusing on only overt behavior nor can we explain human perceptions emotions or thought processes in terms of basic units.
We have to focus perceptions as wholes that give meaning to parts (context)
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Gestalt psychologists demonstrated that much learning especially in problem is accomplished by insight, not mechanical repetition (sudden reorganization of perceptions allowing the sudden solution of a problem)- "flash of insight." Kohler suggests taht we often manipulate the elements of problems until we group them in such a way that we believe we will be able to reach a goal
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Psychoanalysis (founded by Freud) differs from other schools in both background and approach. What is this idea based on?
idea that much of our lives are governed or limited by unconscious ideas and impulses that have their origins in childhood conflicts
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Examples that represent unconscious wishes?
verbal errors and dreams (Freud gained his understanding when was astounded at how little insight his patients seemed to have into their motives)
Freud came to believe that unconscious processes are more influential than conscious thought in determining human behavior (most of the mind is unconscious-a seething cauldron of conflicting impulses, urges, and wishes)
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What is Freud's theory of psychodynamic?
proposes tat the motion of underlying forces (people are motivated to gratify their seething cauldron of conflicting impulses as ugly as they may be, but at the same time people are motivated to see themselves as decent and hence may delude themselves about their true motives) of personality determines our thoughts, feelings, and behavior.
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Today we no longer find psychologists who describe themselves as structuralists or functionalists. The numbers of orthodox behaviorists and psychoanalysts have been declining. Now what are they?
contemporary psychologists in the behaviorist tradition look themselves as social cognitive theorists, and many psychoanalysts consider themselves neoanalysts rather than traditional Freudians. (today there are several broad, influential perspectives in psychology: biological, cognitive, humanistic-existential, psychodynamic, learning, and sociocultural perspectives. Each emphasizes different topics of investigation.
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How does our heredity tie in psychology?
provides a broad range of behavioral and mental possibilities: environmental factors interact with inherited factors to determine specific behavior and mental processes
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Modern evolutionary psychologists focus on the evolution of behavior and mental processes. (charles darwin- only the fittest organisms manage to reach maturity and reproduce). Individuals die, but species tend to evolve in adaptive directions.What do evolutionary psychologsits suggest is the key to human social behavior?
hereditary (inherited tendenceis sort of whisper in people's ears and tend to move them in certain directions)
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Psychologists assume that thoughts, fantasies, and dreams, the inborn or ____ behavior pattersn of various species, are made possible by what?
- instinctive; nervous system and especially by the brain
- (link behavior and mental processes to chemical activity of the brain, hormones etc)
- EX: Biological psychologists are also concerned with the influences of the endocrine system on behavior and mental processes (consists of glands that secrete hormones and release them into the bloodstream)
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Psychologists with a cognitive perspective venture into the realm of mental processes to understand ____
human nature (cognitive has to do with mental processes, such as sensation and perception, memory, intelligence, language, thought and problem solving)
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Let us consider each of the parts of this perspective: humanism and existentialism
humanism stresses the human capacity for self-fulfillment and the central roles of consciousness, self-awareness, and decision making (most important is personal or subjective experience). They beleive self-awareness, experience, and chjoice permit us to invent oruselves and our ways of relating to the world as we progress through life
existentialism views people as free to choose and be responsible for choosing ethical conduct (responsible for own behavior)
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Today, those following Freud's theories are called neoanalysts. Focused more on?
more on conscious choice and self-direction and less on unconscious processes
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behaviorists before emphasize environmental influences and the learning of habits through repetition and reinforcement (believed people idd things because of their learnnig histories, sitautions and rewards rather than conscious choice. Now?
Modern cognitive theorists suggest that people can modify or even create their environment: grant cognition a key role
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Women in psychology: Christine Ladd-Franklin, Margaret Fly Washburn, Helen Bradford Thompson, Mary Salter Ainsworth,
Black psychologistrs: Kenneth Clark and Mamie Phipps Clark (important roles in desegregation and education of African american children)
- CLF: formulated a theory of color vision
- MFW: first woman to receive PhD in psych: wrote The Animal Mind (behaviorism)
- HBT: psychologist to study gender differences (Mental Traits of Sex)
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Impact of African Americans on profession of psychology?
Robert Williams- offered insight into language differences that are found b/w European Americans and African Americans (shows that many African Americans sabotage their own performance on intelligence tests because of stereotype threat)
Tony Strickland- sutdies effects of psychoactive drugs on individuals with and without psychological disorders
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Contributions of women and members of diverse ethnic and racial groups have broadened our understanding of waht?
influences of gender and ethnicity on behavior and mental processes (what is true for men may not always be true for women) (what is true for European Americans may not be true for Americans from other backgrounds)
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