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Module for the Course Introduction to Psychology
UNIT ONE
THE ESSENCE OF PSYCHOLOGY: WHAT IT IS? AND
HOW IT IS DEVELOPED?
INTRODUCTION
 To provide you with a reasonable answer to this complex question, this introductory chapter will take
a general look at the field of psychology and psychologists. We will trace the origin of the word “psychology”,
explore the beginning of psychology as a science, examine early and contemporary approaches to psychology and
describe research methods in psychology and identify some of psychology’s careers and areas of specialization.
Dear students, this unit heavily emphasizes the above points indicated as a prerequisite to know the essence of
psychology. Hence, give attention to the points.
Objectives
At the end of this unit you will be able to:
 Discuss how psychology has evolved as a science of behavior and mental processes.
 explain the meaning, approaches and functions of psychology and
 Use psychological theories and methods to explain behavior and mental processes.
Section-1: The Roots of Psychology and its Emergence as a Science
In this section you will learn mainly about the meaning and origin of the word “psychology”, goals and the
emergence of psychology as a science.
Objectives
After studying this section, you will be able to:
 define the term psychology and how it developed
 describe the goals of psychology
 Explain the emergence of psychology as a science.
1.1 Meaning and Origin of the Word ‘Psychology’
The word ‘psychology’ is of Greek origin: ‘psyche’ can be freely translated as ‘mind’ or ‘soul’, and ‘logos’ indicates
‘study’ or ‘line of teaching’; thus we have ‘ study of the mind’. This definition exemplifies what psychology was
essentially about up to the end of the nineteenth century. The word psychology is symbolized by the Greek letter
psi (φ).
1.2 Definition of Psychology

?
What is psychology?
Psychology is the scientific study of behavior and mental processes.
 What is science?
 What is the meaning of behavior?
 What is mind and mental processes?
1 Prepared by: Workneh Kebede (School of Psychology, AAU)

There are three aspects to the above definition: science, behavior, and mental processes. Let’s examine behavior
first. Behavior is everything we do that can be directly observed-two people kissing, a baby crying, sneezing are
examples. Mental processes are the thoughts, feelings and motives that each of us experiences privately, but
which can not be observed directly.
As science, psychology uses systematic methods to study behavior and mental processes. Psychology’s methods
are not casual. They are carefully planned and conducted.
1.3 Goals of Psychology
? What are the goals of psychology?
 The study of psychology, like other sciences, has four basic goals:
Describe – The first goal of psychology is to observe behavior and describe, often in minute detail, what was
observed as objectively as possible. It addresses the question, “How do people think, feel, and act in various
situations?”
Explain –While descriptions come from observable data, psychologists must go beyond what is obvious and
explain their observations. In other words, “Why did the subject do what he or she did? Why did this behavior
occur? Which factors influenced this outcome?” are treated under explanation.
Predict – Once we know what happens, and why it happens, we can begin to speculate what will happen in the
future. There’s an old saying, which very often holds true: "the best predictor of future behavior is past
behavior."
Control – Once we know what happens, why it happens and what is likely to happen in the future, we can
exert control over it. In other words, if we know you choose abusive partners because your father was
abusive, we can assume you will choose another abusive partner, and can therefore intervene to change this
negative behavior. Not only do psychologists attempt to control behavior, they want to do so in a positive
manner, they want to improve a person’s life, not make it worse. This is not always the case, but it should
always be the intention.
Compare
? and contrast the goals of psychology with the goals of science?
1.4 The Emergence of Psychology as a Science

1.4.1. The Beginning
? When did psychology emerge as a science?
Pre- Scientific Psychology

Rene Descartes (1596-1650), the French philosopher, had an important influence on the development of
psychology as a discipline distinct from philosophy. Before Descartes, human beings tended to be viewed by
philosophers as unique, mysterious products of God’s will, whose mental life was beyond rational explanation.
Influenced by scientific discoveries of the time in the field of medicine, Descartes adopted analytical stance. He
attempted to view a human beings as a machine which could be studied and whose workings could be understood
and explained. In his theory of interactive dualism, he made a distinction between the mind (thinking,
remembering, knowing) and the body (physiological processes). The interaction of mind and body, he believed,
took place in the brain and the seat of the mind was narrowed down to the pineal gland, a structure in the brain
which serves to initiate hormonal activity.
? Do you agree or disagree with the explanation of Descartes?
The 17th century also saw the birth of the British Empiricist Movement, led by a group of philosophers, the most
notable of whom were John Lock and Thomas Hobbes. The empiricists attempted to make sense of the human
mind through the use of systematic and objective methods of study, rather than through reasoning or intuition.
Mental life, they contended, was composed of ‘ideas’ which arose from sensory experience and entered the mind
by means of perception. In contrast to Descartes, who believed that some ideas are present at birth, the
empiricists saw the development of the mind as arising from experiences of and interaction with the environment.
In the early part of the 19th century there was a strong upsurge of philosophical opinion which contended that the
study of human mental activity was worthy of attention in its own right outside of the discipline of philosophy. This
move was greatly advanced by the work of a group of German physiologists - Weber who used weights to study
muscle sense, Helmholz (1982) who made an outstanding contribution to the study of vision & hearing and Fechner
(1985) who investigated visual discrimination and perception. The findings of these early physiologists greatly
influenced psychology as we know it today.
Scientific Psychology
Psychology as a scientific discipline has a short history. Although it dates back to the time of Plato and Aristotle
as a branch of philosophy, it was in 1879 that Wilhelm Wundt opened the first psychological laboratory in Leipzig,
Germany. It is generally agreed that this event heralded the beginning psychology as a scientific discipline in its
own right. Prior to this, Psychology had generally been regarded as a branch of philosophy.
Hence, credit for the establishment of psychology as a science usually goes to Wilhelm Von Wundt (1932-1920)
considered by many as the “father of psychology.”
During the first decades of psychology’s existence as a formal discipline, psychologists came to hold quite
different views about the nature of the mind and the best ways to study it. About the same time fundamental
questions were raised about what should be studied in Psychology: Should Psychology be the study of the mind,
should it study Behavior, or should both mind and Behavior be included? Different influential psychologists of the
time held quite different views on the nature of mind and the proper subject matter for psychology. Schools of
thought formed around these leaders as their students adopted their ideas. These schools of thought are known
as the schools of Psychology. Schools, in this context, can best be thought of as groups of psychologist who
held common beliefs about both the subject matter of psychology and what methods of study should be used. Most
schools developed in revolt against traditional methods and beliefs at the time. However, they did not always
replace earlier schools, but sometimes existed alongside them. Understanding these schools can help us make
sense of the multitude of ideas and methods which currently characterize psychology. Hence, a brief description
of these schools is given below.
1.4.2. The Early Schools of Psychology

The early history of the new discipline was marked by the emergence of competing approaches each of which
were supported and defended by charismatic leaders, who often were trained in both philosophy and physiology.
These approaches were known as schools of psychology, and included:

a) Structuralism
b) Functionalism
c) Behaviorism
d) Psychoanalysis, and
e) Gestalt psychology
? How are these schools different from one another?

What did each contribute to the field of study?
a. Structuralism
Inspired by the pioneering work of Fechner and other scientists, Wilhelm Wundt and his collaborators founded the
school of structuralism. Wundt believed that psychology should concern itself with the elementary processes of
conscious experience. The structure of consciousness and immediate mental experience, he contended, could be
broken down into basic elements and compounds in the same way that, in chemistry; one can describe the
structure of water or air.
The goal of the structuralists was to find out the units, or elements, which make up the mind. They thought that as
in chemistry, the first step in the study of the mind should be the description of the basic or elementary units of
sensation (sights, sounds, tastes, smells, and touch which arise from stimulation of the sense organs) image
(experiences not actually present), and feelings (love, fear, joy and so on) which compose the mind.
In an effort to study the elements of consciousness in what they believed was an analytical and objective way,
structuralists devised a technique known as introspection. This simply means that people were asked to consider
and report on their own mental processes as they experienced a particular object or event. This was to be done in
a pre specified and systematic way and required much training. For example, to be introspective about a flower,
the reporter would be asked to describe the sensations of experiencing it in terms of its shape, size, color,
texture, and so on.
The method of introspection proved difficult and inadequate, largely because of conflicting findings between
introspectionists in different laboratories. Reaching agreement on the basic elements of a particular mental
experience proved an impossible task and (predictably, perhaps) reporting on mental activity in humans was not
quite so straight forward as observing what happens in a test tube when two chemicals are combined.
Another prominent member of structuralists school, Edward Bradford Titchner, developed and extended Wundt’s
idea and later introduced them to the USA. Structuralism declined in the early 1920s.
b. Functionalism
 Whilst the structuralists emphasized the structure of the mental activity, the functionalists were concerned
with the purposes, functions, of the mental processes.
 Functionalism was influenced by biology and many of the concepts ‘borrowed’ from that discipline continue to
influence psychology today.
 The work and ideas of Charles Darwin had a monumental impact on the emergence of functional psychology.
His theory of evolution provided an account of the way living organisms change and develop over time
through a process of natural selection.

 According to Darwin, living organisms have characteristics such as extreme strength, speed of movement,
and temperament, which are variable even within the same species. Organisms whose characteristics were
best suited to their environment survived and reproduced, while organisms whose characteristics were less
adaptable died out. Survivors would transmit to the next generation those characteristics which enable them
to survive.
 In this way a particular species might change quite extensively over several generations and, in some cases
an entirely new species could evolve.
 William James (1842 -1910) was the leading figure in functional psychology. Influenced greatly by Darwin, he
held that the function of consciousness was to enable humans to behave in ways which would aid survival
through adaptation to the environment.
 Functionalists were interested in the fact that mind and Behavior are adaptive- they enable an individual to
adjust to a changing environment. Where these adaptive behaviours were repeated frequently they became
habits. Habits, James believed, provided stability and predictability in society.
 In addition to the study of the functions of consciousness and the role of habits, he turned his attention to
emotions, and to the concept of self.
 As with the structuralists, the main method of study was introspection, although functionalists although
encouraged the use of experimentation. The emphasis on the importance of observing similarities and
differences between varying species greatly influenced the development of comparative psychology.
c. Behaviorism
 This school of psychology came into being with John B. Watson ( 1878-1958). Other proponents include E.
Thorndike and B.F. Skinner.
 In his 1913 an influential paper, “Psychology as the behaviorist views it”, Watson attacked the structuralist
emphasis on consciousness and mental experience and also condemned the use of introspection as a method
which claimed to be reliable and objective.
 Psychology, he believed, should be about the study of observable behavior that all could agree upon. He
contended that psychologists should “… never use the terms consciousness, mental states, introspective
verify, imagery, and the like.”
 Behaviorists did not reject the existence of mind and consciousness as critics have sometimes suggested.
Rather they viewed these concepts as impossible to observe and contributing little to a scientific approach in
psychology.
Though Watson’s view of the nature of human beings was considered by critics to be mechanistic and
oversimplified, his focus on the study of observable behavior allowed him to formulate clear hypotheses
which could be tested by experimentation. This shift in emphasis towards the use of more objective and
systematic methods was one of his greatest contributions to psychology.
d. Psychoanalysis
 Psychoanalysis, which developed from the work and theories of Sigmund Freud (1856- 1939), proposed an
account of human mental activity which relied heavily on the notion of an unconscious mind.
 Freud originated his theory in response to patients whose symptoms, although real, were not based on
physiological malfunctioning. Hence, in the course of treating psychiatric patients over many years, Freud
became convinced that many of the nervous symptoms displayed by patients could not be explained purely
from a physiological point of view. Nor could the rational and systematic laws of science be applied to
irrational and self-defeating behaviors such as phobias and conversion hysterias (physical complaints that
have no apparent physiological cause).

 Just as people have conscious motives or wishes, Freud argues, they also have powerful unconscious
motives that underlie their conscious intentions.
 Freud considered the relation between conscious awareness and unconscious mental forces analogues to
the visible tip of an ice berg and the vast, submerged hulk that lies out of sight beneath the water.
 Freud argued that conscious awareness is merely the tip of the mental iceberg. Beneath the visible tip, he
said, lies the unconscious part of the mind, containing hidden wishes, passions, guilty secrets, unspeakable
yearnings, and conflicts between desire and duty. We are not aware of our unconscious urges and thoughts
as we go casually about our daily business, yet they make themselves known- in dreams, slips of the tongue,
apparent accidents, and even jokes.
 Before Freud’s time, most people believed their own and other’s actions were directed by their conscious
wishes and beliefs. In contrast, Freud emphasized that these conscious desires themselves may reflect
unconscious conflicts and compromises.
 The methods used by psychoanalysts flow from their aims. They seek to interpret meanings, that is, infer
underlying wishes, fears, and patterns of thought, from an individual’s conscious, verbalized, thought and
behavior. Based on this goal, a psychoanalyst observes a patient’s dreams, fantasies, posture, and subtle
behavior toward the therapist. Thus, psychoanalysis lends itself to the case study method.
 In classical psychoanalysis, therapy involves Transference, the client’s projection and displacement of
thoughts and feelings on to the analyst; Free association, where the client says whatever comes into mind,
no matter how trivial or irrelevant it may seem; and dream analysis, which involves the analyst interpreting
the content of the client’s dreams.
 Though the psychoanalytic process may sound quite straightforward, it is usually difficult and time
consuming.
 In conclusion, the discourse made by the structural, Gestalt, and functional schools of psychology have
become part of the general store of psychological knowledge; but the schools as such, have vanished.
Behaviorism and Psychoanalysis on the other hand are still, in modified forms among the current
psychological perspectives.
e. Gestalt Psychology
 The leading proponents of Gestalt view were Max Wertheimer (1880-1943), Kurt Koffka ( 1876- 1941) and
Wolfgang Kohler (1887 -1967).
 Gestalt psychologists opposed the atomist approach of the structuralists and later the behaviorists. They
argued that people perceive the world in ‘wholes’. “The whole is greater than the sum of its parts exemplifies
this view.
 These psychologists argued that the mind is not made up of a combination of elements. The German word
gestalt refers to form, whole, configuration or pattern.
 Accordingly, the Gestaltists maintained that the mind should be thought of as resulting from the whole
pattern of sensory activity and the relationships and organizations within this pattern.
 In brief, the Gestaltists acknowledged consciousness; they just refused to look at it in little pieces.
 Their goal was to understand the phenomenon of conscious experience in holistic terms and their subject
matter was subjective experience with emphasis on perception, memory and thinking.
 The tendency of the Gestalt psychologists to rely on subjective observations and reports of conscious
experience, rather than carefully controlled behavioral methods, attracted criticism from the behaviorists.
 Nonetheless the influence of gestalt psychology is great in some areas of contemporary psychology, for
example in the study of perception and problem solving.

Section-2: Theory, Methods and Sub-fields of Psychology

Psychology today is so rich in theories that it is capable of explaining every single behavior in many ways. Not only
has psychology become diverse in its approaches, but has also developed into a profession that renders practical
services people in different walks of life. What are its diverse perspectives for explaining behavior? How should
these perspectives be used to facilitate a better understanding of human behavior? What are the different fields
of specialization in which psychologists are trained to offer more practical services to people?
In this section, we will discuss these and other related questions. Read carefully and attempt the activities and
self- check exercise.
Objectives
At the end of this section, you should be able to:
 identify the six modern psychological perspectives
 compare and contrast these perspectives
 describe methods of psychology
 identify the application of the different academic and professional branches of psychology.
2.1. Theoretical Perspectives of Psychology

a. The Physiological Perspective
 Psychologists who subscribe to this approach look to biology as a means of describing and explaining
psychological functioning.
 This perspective holds that an understanding of the brain and the nervous system is central in the
understanding of behavior, thought and emotion. That is, our behavior, even what we think and feel, is
assumed to be linked to our physiological make up
 Some of the labels attached to researchers who take this approach, albeit in different ways, are
biopsychologist, neuropsychologist, psychobiologist, and physiological psychologist.
 Physiological psychologists are interested in a wide range of phenomena and issues. Research has
developed rapidly over recent years into the functions of the nervous system (particularly the brain)
and the hormonal system, and into how these two systems interact and influence behavior and mental
activity.
b. The Behaviorist Perspective
 Behaviorists or learning theorists focus on the influence of the environment. They choose not to be
concerned with the internal mechanisms which occur inside the organism. Put more simply, according
to this approach, learning and experience make the kind of person you become.
 The behaviorist approach to psychological functioning is rooted in the works of Pavlov, Thorndike,
Watson and Hull all of whom studied learning in the form of conditioning.
 Behaviorism had a profound influence on the course of psychology during the first half of the twentieth
century.
c. The Cognitive Perspective

 This approach contrasts sharply with that of both the psychoanalysts and the behaviorists.
 Cognitive psychologists believe that the event s occurring within a person must be studied if behavior is
to be fully understood.

 These internal events, often referred to as mediators, since they occur between the stimulus and the
behavior, include perception, thinking processes such as problem solving, memory and language.
 What cognitive psychologists have in common is an approach which stresses the importance of studying
the mental processes which affect our behavior and enable us to make sense of the world around us.
 Clearly the processes that cognitive psychologists study are not directly observable; one can not lift off
the top of an individual’s head and observe memory at work! However, it is recognized that insights into
mental processes may be inferred from an individual’s behavior, provided that such inferences are
supported by objective, empirical data. Therefore, the experimental method, with its emphasis on
objectivity control, and replicability, is often used.
 One of this perspective’s most important contributions has been to show how people’s thoughts and
explanations affect their actions, feelings and choices.
 The cognitive approach is one of the strongest forces in psychology today, and it has inspired an
explosion of research on the intricate workings of the mind.
d. The Socio-Cultural Perspective

 The socio-cultural perspective focuses on social and cultural forces outside the individual. It
emphasizes that culture, ethnicity, and gender are essential to understanding behavior, thought and
emotion.
 Most of us underestimate the impact of other people, group affiliations, and cultural rules on our
actions. We are like fish that are unaware that they live in water; so obvious is water in their lives.
 Socio-cultural psychologists study the water- the social and cultural environment that people
“swim” in everyday.
 Within this perspective, social psychologists focus on social rules and roles, how groups affect
attitudes and behavior, why people obey authority, and how other people- spouses, lovers, friends,
bosses, parents and strangers, affect each of us.
 Cultural psychologists examine how cultural rules and values- both explicit and unspoken- affect
people’s development, behavior and feelings.
e. The Psychodynamic Perspective
 This approach focuses largely on the role of motivation and past experience in the development of
personality and hence, behavior.
 It has arisen from Freud’s psychoanalytic theory. Freud’s pioneering approach was the impetus of many
similar theories, which share many of the same assumptions about human beings but which differ in
conceptual details. Hence, many of Freud’s original ideas have been adapted and modified by subsequent
psychodynamic theorists known as post-Freudians or Neo-Freudians. Some of these post Freudians
include Carl Jung, Adler, Anna Freud, Melanie Klien and others.
 However, almost all of them emphasize the unconscious aspects of the mind, conflict between biological
instincts and society’s demands, and early family experiences.
f. The Humanistic Perspective

 For many years psychology was dominated by two great schools: the psychoanalysts and the
behaviorists.
 Towards the middle of the 20th century, a third great force appeared which offered a view of human
beings as a free and generous individual with the potential for growth and fulfillment. This 3rd force
gave rise to the humanistic approach.

 Humanistic psychologists ( such has Carl Rogers and Abraham Maslow) believe that psychology
should be concerned with the subjective, conscious experience of the individual.
 They emphasize the uniqueness of human beings and their freedom to choose their own destiny.
 They regard the use of scientific methods as inappropriate for the study of human beings.
 A major aim of psychology, they believe, should be to help people maximize their potential for
psychological growth.
 The humanistic view is optimistic. Humans are seen as striving to achieve their potential- to achieve
the maximum personal growth within individual limitations.
 This has had its greatest influence in psychotherapy and in the human-potential and self-help
movements.
 In summary, although all the differences among the perspectives mentioned are real, not all
psychologists feel that they must wear allegiance to one approach or another.
 Many perhaps most, are eclectic, applying in their research or practice what they believe to be the
best features of diverse schools of thought.
2.2. Research Methods in Psychology

Psychology is not an absolute science and is often referred to as a 'Social Science' or a 'Soft Science.' This is
because it deals with human thoughts, feelings, and behavior, and as we are all aware, humans are not always
predictable and reliable. Instead, we interact with our environment in ways that alter how we behave, how we
think, and how we feel.
Nevertheless, research plays an extremely important role in psychology. Research helps us understand what
makes people think, feel, and act in certain ways; allows us to categorize psychological disorders in order to
understand the symptoms and impact on the individual and society; helps us to understand how intimate
relationships, development, schools, family, peers, and religion affect us as individuals and as a society; and helps
us to develop effective treatments to improve the quality of life of individuals and groups.
In this sense, psychological research is typically used for the following:

 Study development and external factors and the role they play on individuals' mental health
 Study people with specific psychological disorders, symptoms, or characteristics
 Develop tests to measure specific psychological phenomenon
 Develop treatment approaches to improve individuals' mental health
In the following sections, you will learn about how research is conducted and the different types of research
methods used to gather information
Naturalistic Observation
 In naturalistic observation, psychologists observe behavior, in real world settings and make no
effort to manipulate or control the situation.
 It often involves counting behaviors, such as number of aggressive acts, number of smiles, etc.
 Psychologists conduct naturalistic observations at football games, day care centers, kindergartens,
college dormitories, shopping malls, restaurants, and other places people live in and frequent.
Case Study
 A case study is an in-depth look at a single individual. It refers to following a single case, typically
over an extended period of time.
 It is used mainly by clinical psychologists when, for either practical or ethical reasons, the unique
aspects of an individual’s life can not be duplicated.

 A case study provides information about one person’s fears, hopes, fantasies, traumatic
experiences, upbringing, family relationships, health, or anything that helps the psychologist
understand the person’s mind and behavior.
 A case study can involve naturalistic observations, and include psychological testing, interviews and
the application of a treatment. A case study can gather extensive information, both qualitative and
quantitative and it can be helpful in better understanding rare cases or very specific interventions.
 In case study, usually only one case is involved, severely limiting the generalization to the rest of
the population. It can also be very time consuming and can involve other problems specific to the
techniques used, including researcher bias.
Survey
 Everyone has probably heard of this and some of you may have been involved in research
involving surveys. They are often used in the news, especially to gather viewer opinions such
as during a race for president.
 Psychologists use surveys to find out about people’s experience and attitudes by asking a large
sample of participants questions about their attitudes and behaviors.
 The two most frequently used tools of survey researchers are questionnaires, which
participants fill out by themselves, and interviews in which researchers ask questions using a
standard format.
 In surveys it is possible to gather large amounts of information in a relatively short time,
especially now with many surveys being conducted on the internet.
 However, survey data is based solely on subjects’ responses which can be inaccurate due to
outright lying, misunderstanding of the question, placebo effect, and even the manner in which
the question is asked.
Correlational Studies
 Correlation means relationship, so the purpose of a correlational study is to determine if a
relationship exists, what direction the relationship is, and how strong it is.
 This is a useful strategy because the more strongly events are correlated (related or
associated), the more effectively we can predict one from the other.
 However, based on results from correlational research one cannot make any assumptions of
cause and effect (explain how third variable can be involved, or how the variables can influence
each other).
Experimental Methods
 An experiment is a carefully regulated procedure in which one or more of the factors believed
to influence the behavior being studied are manipulated and all others are held constant.
 If the behavior under study changes when the factor is manipulated, we say that the
manipulated factor causes the behavior to change.
 Every experiment has two types of variables:
o Independent Variable (IV) – the variable that is manipulated by the experimenter
(input variable)
o Dependent Variable (DV) – the outcome variable (results of the experiment)

By defining our variables that we will use to test our theory we derive at our Hypothesis which is a testable form
of a theory.
As an example of this, let’s say that we have a theory that people who drive sports cars are more aggressive
during interactions with others. Our independent variable would be the type of car you drive (sports, sedan, SUV,
etc.). Our dependent variables, the outcome of our research, would be aggression. We would need to further
define aggression so that it is something we can test such as speeding or cutting other people off in traffic. We
now have the basics of our very simple experiment and can write our Hypothesis: People who drive sports cars
drive over the speed limit more frequently than people who drive other types of cars.
Research Biases in an Experiment

Now we have got a hypothesis which is the first step in doing an experiment. Before we can continue, however, we
need to be aware of some aspects of research that can contaminate our results. In other words, what could get in
the way of our results in this study being accurate? These aspects are called research biases, and there are
basically three main biases we need to be concerned with.
Selection Bias – occurs when differences between groups are present at the beginning of the experiment.
Placebo Effect – involves the influencing of performance due to the subject’s belief about the results. In
other words, if I believe the new medication will help me feel better, I may feel better even if the new
medication is only a sugar pill. This demonstrates the power of the mind to change a person’s perceptions of
reality.
Experimenter Bias – The same way a person’s belief’s can influence his or her perception, so can the belief
of the experimenter. If I’m doing an experiment, and really believe my treatment works, or I really want the
treatment to work because it will mean big bucks for me, I might behave in a manner that will influence the
subject.
Controlling for Biases
After carefully reviewing our study and determining what might affect our results that are not part of the
experiment, we need to control for these biases. To control for selection bias, most experiments use what’s
called Random Assignment, which means assigning the subjects to each group based on chance rather than
human decision. To control for the placebo effect, subjects are often not informed of the purpose of the
experiment. This is called a Blind study, because the subjects are blind to the expected results. To control for
experimenter biases, we can utilize a Double-Blind study, which means that both the experimenter and the
subjects are blind to the purpose and anticipated results of the study.
What we’ve focused on what is called Experimental Methods, the true experiment. It involves randomized
assignment of subjects, standardized instructions, and at least one IV and one DV. There are several other types
of research that are not as rigorous, but that you need to be aware of.
2.3. Psychology as a Profession: Practice

As psychology evolved as a science, its fields of specialization multiplied, and its educational and training
requirements became formalized. The fields of specialization in psychology can be divided into the following two
broad categories:
 Academic field of specialization, and
 Professional field of specialization.
Each field of specialization is further divided into sub- fields, which, in turn, contain sub- sub fields. So young
psychologists have hundreds of potential areas of specialization from which to choose. For example, a
psychologist specializing in the field of sensation and perception might be interested in the sub-field of vision, with
special interest in tents of sub-sub field of color vision.
2.3.1. Academic Fields of Specialization
Most of the Modules of this course will deal with the academic field of specialization in psychology as practiced
usually by psychologists working at colleges or universities. In fact, colleges and universities are the main
employment settings for psychologists.
Many academic psychologists prefer to conduct basic research, aimed at finding answers to psychological
questions out of intellectual curiosity. Many others prefer to conduct applied research aimed at using research
findings to prove the quality of life or to solve practical problems. Basic research and applied research, however,
are not mutually exclusive. Many psychologists conduct both kinds of research, and findings from basic research
can often be applied for solving practical problems. For example, basic research on learned taste aversions in
rats has led to applications in preventing cancer patients from becoming nauseated by food, which might make
them stop eating and become emaciated (thin and weak).While the cancer patients use different drugs or
chemicals before or after eating specific food, the drugs taken produce negative or unpleasant feeling that led to
dislike the food they eat. Aversion therapy is a method of treating habits or types of behavior that are not
desirable by causing the patient to connect them with unpleasant feelings.
The following are examples of the fields of academic specializations:
Experimental psychology: this is the largest field of academic specialization. Experimental psychologists restrict
themselves chiefly to laboratory research on basic psychological processes, including perception, learning,
memory, thinking, language, motivation, and emotion. Though this field is called experimental psychology, it is not
the only field that uses experiments. Psychologists in almost all fields of psychology use experiments in doing
their research.
Biopsychology: psychologists in the field of biopsychology study the biological basis of behavior and mental
process. the subject matter of this field will partly be discussed in module 2 in relation to biological foundations of
behavior.
Comparative psychology: this is a field that studies similarities and differences in the physiology, behaviors, and
abilities of animals including human beings. Comparative psychologists study motives related to eating, drinking,
aggression, courtship mating and parenting.
Developmental psychology: this field studies the factors responsible for physical, cognitive, and social changes
across the life span.
Personality psychology: this field is concerned with differences in behavior among individuals. This field seeks
answers to such questions as: are our personalities determined more by nature or by nurture? And to what
extent do people behave consistently from one situation to another? Personality psychologists also devise tests
for assessing personality, such as the famous Rorschach “inkblot test.”
Social psychology: it studies the effects people have on one another, factors affecting interpersonal attraction,
the problems of “groupthink” in making important decisions, and the reasons why people are often all too willing
to harm other human beings.

2.3.2. Professional Fields of Specialization

Professional psychologists commonly work in settings outside of college or university classrooms and
laboratories. The following are examples of these fields of specialization:
Clinical and counseling psychology: two of the largest fields of professional psychology are clinical psychology
and counseling psychology, which deal with the causes, prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of psychological
disorders. Clinical psychology and counseling psychology are so similar that even practitioners of both fields find
it difficult to specify the features that distinguish one from the other.
There is a tendency, however, for counseling psychologists to deal with problems of everyday living related to
career planning, academic performance, and marriage and family. In contrast, a clinical psychologist typically
treats more severe disorder, including phobias, alcoholism, drug abuse, and severe depression.
School psychology: psychologists who specialize in school psychology evaluate students for proper class
placement, set up programs to improve student academic performance and school behavior, and provide
counseling (often in cooperation with parents and teachers) to students who are having social or academic
problems. School psychologists work in elementary schools, and high schools.
Educational psychology: the allied field of educational psychology tries to improve the educational process,
including curriculum, teaching, and administration of academic programs. Educational psychologists are usually
faculty members of colleges or universities.
Industrial/organizational psychology: psychologists who practice industrial/ organizational psychology work
to increase productivity in businesses, industries, and government agencies. They do so by improving working
conditions, methods for hiring and training employee, and management techniques of administrators.
Forensic psychology: psychologists who practice forensic psychology participate in the legal system. They study
the validity of eyewitness testimony, the jury deliberation process, and the best ways to select jurors. Some
forensic psychologists train police officers to handle domestic disputes, negotiate with hostage takers, and cope
with job- related stress.
The above are examples of well- established fields of specialization in the area of professional psychology.
However, there are also some emerging fields of professional psychology such as sport psychology, health
psychology, and environmental psychology.

Summary
Once psychology has emerged as a science with five schools of thinking, it laid the foundation for development of
a more diversified and complete psychology. As a result psychology today has alternative theories and methods,
and wider applications.
Contemporary Perspectives
There are in general five psychological perspectives today. The psychoanalytic perspective, founded by Sigmund
Freud, emphasizes the influence of the biological motives of sex and aggression. Later psychoanalysts, called neo-
Freudians, down play the influence of biological motives in interpersonal relationship. The strict behavioral
perspective, championed by B.F Skinner, rejects the study of mental experiences in favor of the study of
observable behavior. But cognitive behaviorists accept the study of mental experiences as long as they are
carefully tied to observable behavior. The humanistic perspective, founded by Abraham Maslow and Carl Rogers,
arose as a “third force” in opposition to both psychoanalysis and behaviorism. It favors the study of subjective
mental experience and the belief that human beings are not merely puppets controlled by unconscious drives and
environmental stimuli. The cognitive perspective, influenced by the work of Jean piaget Herbert Simon, views the
brain as active processor of information. The bio psychological perspective, exemplified by the work of Wilder
Penfield and Roger Sperry, favors the study of the biological basis of behavior and mental experiences.
Psychology as a Profession
During its century of existence, psychology has seen the emergence of a wide variety of academic and
professional fields of specialization. The academic fields of specialization are chiefly concerned with basic
research, which aims to add to our fund of knowledge about behavior and mental processes. The major academic
fields of specialization include experimental psychology, biopsychology, and comparative psychology,
developmental psychology, personality psychology, and social psychology. The professional fields of specialization
are chiefly concerned with applied research, which tries to improve the quality of life. Among the major fields of
professional psychology are clinical psychology, counseling psychology, school psychology, educational
psychology, industrial/organizational psychology, engineering psychology, forensic psychology, health psychology,
and environmental psychology.
Goal of Scientific Research

In conducting research, psychologists pursue the goals of description, explanation, control and prediction.
Scientific descriptions are systematic and rely on operational definitions. Scientific predictions are probabilistic,
not certain. Scientists exert control over events by manipulating the factors that cause them. And scientific
explanations state the causes of events.
Methods of Psychological Research
Psychologist use descriptive, correlation and experimental research methods. Descriptive research methods
pursue the goal of description through naturalistic observation, case studies, surveys, and archival research. Co
relational research pursues the goal of prediction by uncovering relationships between variables. In using co
relational research, psychologists avoid confusing correlation with causation. Experimental research pursues the
goals of control and explanation by manipulating the independent variable and measuring its effect on a dependent
variable. The researcher assigns subjects to the experimental group and control group and gives the
experimental condition to the experimental group. The control group is used only for comparative purposes.


Self-Test Exercise Unit One
Part one: Match items listed in column B with those given in column A
A
1. Functionalism
2. Gestalt psychology
3. Structuralism
4. Psychoanalysis
5. Behaviorism
B
A. Early childhood experiences that are stored in the unconscious mind will affect our behavior throughout life.
B. Emphasized the importance of the unconscious causes of behavior
C. How the conscious mind helps the individual adapt the environment.
D. Claimed that we perceive and think about wholes rather than combination of separate elements.
E. Identify the components of the conscious mind
F. Detect stimuli from the body or surrounding
Part two: Complete the table below by providing the appropriate information in columns 2 (limitations) and 3
(contributions to modern psychology)
Schools of Psychology Limitations Contributions to Modern Psychology
Structuralism
Functionalism
Behaviorism
Classical psychoanalysis
Gestalt psychology

Part three: Complete the table by putting (√) sign for areas of specialization,
(Either academic or professional specialization)
No Sub-fields of specialization Academic specialization Professional specialization

1 Experimental psychology
2 Counseling psychology
3 Developmental psychology
4 Clinical psychology
5 Comparative psychology
6 Biopsychology
7 Sport psychology
8 Health psychology
9 Social psychology
10 Personality psychology

UNIT TWO
SENSATION AND PERCEPTION
INTRODUCTION
 Although intimately related, sensation and perception play two complimentary but different roles in
how we interpret our world. Sensation refers to the process of sensing our environment through touch, taste,
sight, sound, and smell. This information is sent to our brains in raw form where perception comes into play.
Perception is the way we interpret these sensations and therefore make sense of everything around us.
This chapter will describe various theories related to these two concepts and explain the important role they play
in the field of psychology. Through this chapter, you will gain a better idea of how our senses work and how this
information is organized and interpreted.
Objectives
At the end of this unit, you are expected to understand:
 the meaning of sensation and perception.
 the differences and similarities of sensation and perception
 the factors affecting sensation and perception
 the principles of sensation and perception
2.1 Sensation
Sensation is the process by which our senses gather information and send it to the brain. A large amount of
information is being sensed at any one time such as room temperature, brightness of the lights, someone talking,
a distant train, or the smell of perfume. With all this information coming into our senses, the majority of our world
never gets recognized. We don't notice radio waves, x-rays, or the microscopic parasites crawling on our skin. We
don't sense all the odors around us or taste every individual spice in our gourmet dinner. We only sense those
things we are able too since we don't have the sense of smell like a bloodhound or the sense of sight like a hawk;
our thresholds are different from these animals and often even from each other.
2.1.1 Sensory Thresholds
How much intense must a sound be for you to detect it?

?
How much changes in light intensity must occur for you to notice it?
Absolute Threshold
The absolute threshold is the point where something becomes noticeable to our senses. It is the softest sound we
can hear or the slightest touch we can feel. Anything less than this goes unnoticed. The absolute threshold is
therefore the point at which a stimuli goes from undetectable to detectable states to our senses.

Difference Threshold
Once a stimulus becomes detectable to us, how do we recognize if this stimulus changes. When we notice the
sound of the radio in the other room, how do we notice when it becomes louder. It's conceivable that someone
could be turning it up so slightly that the difference is undetectable. The difference threshold is the amount of
change needed for us to recognize that a change has occurred. This change is referred to as the Just Noticeable
Difference.
This difference is not absolute, however. Imagine holding a five pound weight and one pound was added. Most of us
would notice this difference. But what if we were holding a fifty pound weight? Would we notice if another pound
were added? The reason many of us would not is because the change required to detect a difference has to
represent a percentage. In the first scenario, one pound would increase the weight by 20%, in the second, that
same weight would add only an additional 2%. This theory, named after its original observer, is referred to as
Weber's Law.
Signal Detection Theory

Have you ever been in a crowded room with lots of people talking? Situations like that can make it difficult to
focus on any particular stimulus, like the conversation we are having with a friend. We are often faced with the
daunting task of focusing our attention on certain things while at the same time attempting to ignore the flood of
information entering our senses. When we do this, we are making a determination as to what is important to
sense and what is background noise. This concept is referred to as signal detection because we attempt to detect
what we want to focus on and ignore or minimize everything else.
2.1.2 Sensory Adaptation
? Given that each of your senses is constantly bombarded by stimulation, why do you notice only certain
stimuli?
The last concept refers to stimuli which has become redundant or remains unchanged for an extended period of
time. Have you ever wondered why we notice certain smells or sounds right away and then after a while they fade
into the background? Once we adapt to the perfume or the ticking of the clock, we stop recognizing it. This
process of becoming less sensitive to unchanging stimulus is referred to as sensory adaptation, after all, if it
doesn't change, why do we need to constantly sense it?
Sensory Deprivation and Sensory Overload

 Human brain requires a minimum amount of sensory stimulation in order to function normally.
 This need may help explain why people who live alone often keep the radio or television set running
continuously and why prolonged solitary confinement is used as a form of punishment or even torture.
 If too little stimulation (sensory deprivation) can be bad for you, so can too much sensory overload,
as it can lead to fatigue and mental confusion.

Activity -1
1. Indicate the three conditions under which you may not be able to sense a stimulus.
_____________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________
2. What does sensing involve?
_____________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________
2.2 Perception
? What is Perception?
As mentioned in the introduction, perception refers to interpretation of what we take in through our senses. The
way we perceive our environment is what makes us different from other animals and different from each other. In
this section, we will discuss the various theories on how our sensation are organized and interpreted, and
therefore, how we make sense of what we see, hear, taste, touch, and smell.
2.2.1 Visual Perception: Constructing the Visual World
In the brain, sensory signals that give rise to vision, hearing, taste, smell, and touch are combined from moment
to moment to produce a unified model of the world. This is a process of perception. Perception consists of three
basic processes:
a) Selection
b) Organization
c) Interpretation
a) Selection: the first step in perception is selection in which we select the stimuli to which we will attend.
In almost any situation there is an excess of sensory information, but the brain manages to sort out the
important messages from the senses and discards the rest- a process known as selective attention.
 There are, in general, environmental, psychological and physiological factors that influence the process
of selective attention.
How Environment Affects attention?

?
a) Environmental/stimulus factors: generally, the focus of attention is attracted to objects or events
that possess unusual characteristics or that provide strong stimulation to the sense organs. Some of
these qualities of objects/ events (stimuli) are the following.
 Intensity: the more intense the stimulus the more it will be attended. A bright color will attract us
more than a dull one.
 Size: we tend to notice larger compared to smaller ones.
 Contrast: what contrasts with the surrounding environment attracts attention easily. For example
a banana in a banana in a bowel of oranges.
 Repetition: a fleeting stimulus will not catch our attention as easily as one, which is repeated.
 Movement: something, which moves, is more likely to attract attention than something stationary.
 Novelty: a sudden or unexpected stimulus is likely to catch our attention more easily than the one
we have been expecting or that we have encountered.
b) Psychological factors: the focus of attention is also affected by certain characteristics of individuals. We will
mention some of them.
 Motivation: what we choose to hear or perceive is determined largely by your current level of
satisfaction or deprivation. For example when you are hungry, you are much more likely to notice TV
commercials for doughnuts, hamburger, or pizza than those for cars or detergent. In a similar way you
will find that when you are lonely, your perceptions will be so affected that it will seem that everyone is
part of a happy couple except you.
 Personality and interest: for example, in a football game, an ex-player may give attention to the
football game; his wife, a singer, may give attention to the music in the stadium; and a friend, a
commentator, may give attention to the way the referee is handling crisis situations in the play.
c) Physiological factors- one of the major physiological factors in selection is the presence of specialized cells
in the brain called feature detectors (or feature analyzers) that respond only to certain sensory information.
b) Organization
2.2.2 Gestalt Principles of Grouping
The German word "Gestalt roughly translates to "whole" or "form," and the Gestalt psychologist's sincerely
believed that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. In order to interpret what we receive through our
senses, they theorized that we attempt to organize this information into certain groups. This allows us to
interpret the information completely without unneeded repetition. For example, when you see one dot, you
perceive it as such, but when you see five dots together, you group them together by saying a "row of dots."
Without this tendency to group our perceptions, that same row would be seen as "dot, dot, dot, dot, dot," taking
both longer to process and reducing our perceptive ability. The Gestalt principles of grouping include four types:
similarity, proximity, continuity, and closure.
Gestalt psychologists said ‘the whole is more than the sum of its parts”. This simply means that
 what is perceived has its own new properties, properties that emerge from the organization, which
takes place.
Figure -1 Figure -2 Figure -3 Figure- 4
Similarity refers to our tendency to group things together based upon how similar to each other they are. In the
first figure above, we tend to see two rows of red dots and two rows of black dots. The dots are grouped
according to similar color. In the next figure, we tend to perceive three columns of two lines each rather than six

different lines. The lines are grouped together because of how close they are to each other, or their proximity to
one another. Continuity refers to our tendency to see patterns and therefore perceive things as belonging
together if they form some type of continuous pattern. In the third figure, although merely a series of dots, it
begins to look like an "X" as we perceive the upper left side as continuing all the way to the lower right and the
lower left all the way to the upper right. Finally, in the fourth figure, we demonstrate closure, or our tendency to
complete familiar objects that have gaps in them. Even at first glance, we perceive a circle and a square.
2.2.3 Form Perception

 Refers to the way sensations are organized into meaningful shapes and patterns.
 Gestalt Psychologists first studied form perception systematically in Germany in the early 20th century.
Gestalt Psychologists were concerned with meaningful patterns or wholes.
The meaningful shapes or patterns or ideas that are made perhaps out of meaningless
 and discrete or pieces and bits of sensation refer to form perception.
 They argued that perceptions are more than the sum of their sensory parts. They proposed six major
perceptual rules the brain follows automatically and unconsciously as it organizes sensory input into
meaningful wholes:
1) Figure and ground: According to this principle, dividing visual displays into figure and ground is a
fundamental way in which we organize visual perceptions. The figure stands out from the rest of the
environment. For example, while reading this material your eyes are receiving sensations of black lines
and white paper, but your brain organizes these sensations and perceives letters and words against a
backdrop of white pages- the letters are the figure and the pages are the ground.
2) Proximity/Nearness: states that objects or stimuli that are near each other in place or time tend to be
grouped together even though they are dissimilar.
3) Similarity: objects that are alike in some way (for example in color, shape or size) tend to be perceived
as belonging together.
4) Closure: the brain tends to fill in gaps in order to perceive complete forms. That is we tend to perceive
a complete object even though parts of it may be obscured or missing. Someone listening to a
conversation over a very bad telephone connection may hear only bits and pieces of what the other
person is saying, but he will fill in the gaps and perceive these sounds as whole words and sentences.
5) Good Continuation/ Continuity: States that lines, patterns or objects tend to be seen as continuing in
one direction even if interrupted by another object.
2.2.4 Movement Perception

In our daily life, we perceive movements and use the information we get for various things. For instance we move
out of the way for oncoming cars or we avoid collusion with hurrying people. Occasionally our perceptual
processes are fouled by objects that look as if they are moving when they are not moving. So, there are two kinds
of movements:
I- Real movement- the perception of real movement is the result of an actual change in the object’s position
in space. Basically, there are two ways in which we perceive real movement: 1- an image moves across
the retina, and 2- the eyes move in the head, to follow the path of the moving object.

II- Apparent movement- occurs when an object is static but we perceive it as moving. There are 3 major
types of apparent movement.
1- Phi-phenomena/ stroboscopic movement- a succession of still pictures projected fast on a
screen gives a false impression of movement.
2- Auto-kinetic movement- a movement, which is self generated. It is caused by the slight
movement of the eye’s focal point.
3- Induced movement/ Movement aftereffect- occurs when a moving object creates apparent
movement on a relatively static object.
2.2.5 Perceiving Distance

We determine distance using two different cues: monocular and binocular. Monocular cues are those cues which
can be seen using only one eye. They include size; texture, overlap, shading, height, and clarity.
Size refers to the fact that larger images are perceived as closer to us, especially if the two images are of the
same object. The texture of objects tend to become smoother as the object gets farther away, suggesting that
more detailed textured objects are closer. Due to overlap, those objects covering part of another object is
perceived as closer. The shading or shadows of objects can give a clue to their distance, allowing closer objects
to cast longer shadows which will overlap objects which are farther away. Objects which are closer to the bottom
of our visual field are seen as closer to us due to our perception of the horizon, where higher (height) means
farther away. Similar to texture, objects tend to get blurry as they get farther away; therefore, clearer or crisper
images tend to be perceived as closer (clarity).
Binocular cues refer to those cues in which both eyes are needed to perceive depth. There are two important
binocular cues; convergence and retinal disparity. Convergence refers to the fact that the closer an object, the
more inward our eyes need to turn in order to focus. The farther our eyes converge, the closer an object appears
to be. Since our eyes see two images which are then sent to our brains for interpretation, the distance between
these two images, or their retinal disparity, provides another cue regarding the distance of the object.
2.2.6 Maintaining Perceptual Constancy

Imagine if every time an object changed we had to completely reprocess it. The next time you walk toward a
building, you would have to re-evaluate the size of the building with each step, because we all know as we get
closer, everything gets bigger. The building which once stood only several inches is now somehow more than 50
feet tall.
Luckily, this doesn't happen. Due to our ability to maintain constancy in our perceptions, we see that building as
the same height no matter what distance it is. Perceptual constancy refers to our ability to see things
differently without having to reinterpret the object's properties. There are typically three constancies discussed,
including size, shape, brightness.
Size constancy refers to our ability to see objects as maintaining the same size even when our distance from
them makes things appear larger or smaller. This holds true for all of our senses. As we walk away from our
radio, the song appears to get softer. We understand, and perceive it as being just as loud as before. The
difference being our distance from what we are sensing.

Everybody has seen a plate shaped in the form of a circle. When we see that same plate from an angle, however, it
looks more like an ellipse. Shape constancy allows us to perceive that plate as still being a circle even though
the angle from which we view it appears to distort the shape.
Brightness constancy refers to our ability to recognize that color remains the same regardless of how it looks
under different levels of light. That deep blue shirt you wore to the beach suddenly looks black when you walk
indoors. Without color constancy, we would be constantly re-interpreting color and would be amazed at the
miraculous conversion our clothes undertake.
Perceptual illusion (visual illusion)

It occurs when two objects produce the same retinal image but are perceived as different images. It is an
inappropriate interpretation of the physical reality. Some of the most common types of illusions include.
 Visual Illusion: occurs when two objects produce almost the same retinal image but are perceived as
different images.
1. Ponzo illusion
2. Horizontal-vertical illusion
3. Muller-Lyer illusion
4. Moon illusion
Fig-2
The figure often products an illusory
Fig-1 Fig-3 .
judgment of length. Which line is
The ponzon illusion are the The Muller –Lyer illusion. Most people see the vertical
longer, the horizontal or the
horizontal lines the same line even though as being longer even though they are
vertical line? Actually, they are the
the same length. The shorter lines give an illusion of
same length
depth, as in the two books on the right.
The above illusion intentionally manipulate the cues that we use in visual perception in create a false or illusory
perception. They are instructive, therefore, in showing us more about the process of perception and for
showing us in yet another way that what we see is not always the same as the visual information that enters
the eyes. For examples, are the two horizontal lines in figure 1 (the Ponzo illusion) the same size? (They are even
though the upper line look longer). How about the two lines in figure 2 (the horizontal vertical illusion) most
people see the vertical line as longer, even though they are the same length. Consider the Muller-Lyer illusion
the two vertical lines on the left of fig. 3 are of the different because of the context they are in ordinarily
the short lines at the end of the longer lines would be cues to depth, as in the two booklets show on the
right side of fig. 3 we see the vertical line as longer when the cues suggest that it is farther away.

The moon illusion is based partly on the same principle when the moon is over head, not only does it appear
closer due to its vertical position, but we have no distance cues, so depth cues do not accurately influence our
perception of the moon’s size.
c) Interpretation
 This final stage of perception is called interpretation. After selectively sorting out incoming sensory
information and organizing it into patterns, the brain uses this information to explain and make judgments
about the external world.
 Like selection, the process of interpretation is also influenced by several factors. The following can be
examples.
 Beliefs: What we hold to be true about the world can affect the interpretation of ambiguous sensory
signals.
 Emotions: Our emotions or moods also influence our interpretations of sensory information.
 Expectations: Previous experiences often affect how we perceive the world. The tendency to perceive
what to expect is called perceptual set. Human beings follow the selection, organization and
interpretation stages of perceptual processes in their understanding of environmental stimuli. Keeping
these stages, some people use their extrasensory organs for sensation and perception. This
phenomenon of using sensory or other body parts for perception of something with out the presence of
sensory stimuli is called extrasensory perception.
Extrasensory Perception (ESP)

 Eyes, ears, Tongue, nose, skin we rely on these organs for our experience of the external world.
 Some people, however, claim they can send and receive messages about the world without relying on
the usual sensory channels, by using Extrasensory Perception (ESP).
 Reported ESP experiences fall into four general categories:
 Telepathy is a direct communication from one mind to another without the usual visual, auditory
and other sensory signals.
 Clairvoyance is the perception of an event or fact without normal sensory input.
 Precognition is the perception of an event that has not yet happened.
 Psycho kinesis is the ability to affect the physical world purely through thought. Persons with such
abilities claim to move or affect objects with out touching them.
 Normal perception depends on the ability to detect changes in energy in the physical world. Claims for most
forms of ESP, however, challenge everything we currently now know to be true about the way the world and
the universe operate.
? Have you ever heard such phenomena? What specific type? Do you believe it is true? Do you think
psychologists and scientists believe in ESP? Why?

 Self –Check Exercise Unit Two
PART I- COMPARE AND CONTRAST

1. Form perception and depth perception
____________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________
2. Perceptual constancy and perceptual illusion
____________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________
Part II- Look at the following figures and then indicate what they represent. Indicate also the law of perceptual
organization that is at work in each of them.
Fig. A Fig. B
 What do you see? _______ What do you see? _____

 Which law works here? _______ Which law works here? ______

UNIT THREE
LEARNING

In this unit, you will study the foundations of learning and explore the nature of learning. The contents of
this unit are presented in two sections. In the first section, you will explore the nature of learning and in the
second you will focus on the theories of learning and their applications.
Objectives
After you have studied this unit, you will be able to
 identify the characteristics of learning
 discuss some of the theories designed to explain the characteristics of learning and
 use these theories to explain the different types of learned behavior.
 describe what learning is and what it is not
 distinguish learning from other related concepts and activities such as instinct, maturation and
growth.
Section 1: The Nature of Learning
Learning is involved in everything we think and do. Quite literally we learn all our lives. As babies, we learn to
recognize the faces around us. Then we learn to speak and play. We learn knowledge, we learn emotions of love,
hate, or fear… Generally, human skills, appreciations and reasoning, hope, aspirations, and attitudes are generally
the outcomes of learning.
1.1 What is learning

There are many definitions of learning. But the most widely accepted definition is the one given below.
 Learning, we may define it as any relatively permanent change in behavior occurring as a

result of experience or practice
Let us elaborate on this definition

First, learning is marked by a change. That is, after learning, learners are capable of doing something that they
have not been able to do before the leaning experience. In fact, the change could be smaller or bigger in intensity,
gradual or fast in rate or speed, desirable or undesirable in type or goal.
Second, the change is a change in behavior. Behavior, for our present purpose, may mean both covert mental
activities including attitude and knowledge and overt activities like skills or actions or performances, or simply
responses.
Third, the change in behavior coming as a result of learning is relatively permanent. That is, it is neither
transitory temporary) nor fixed once and for all. Apart from learning, other events may modify behavior, such as
fatigue, illness and drugs. Obviously these events and their effects come and go quickly as learning stays until
forgetting occurs over time or until new learning displaces old learning. Thus, temporary states may modify
behavior, but with learning, the modification is relatively permanent. However, the duration of the modification

that results from either learning or temporary body states cannot be given exactly. It is just like asking “how long
is long or how short is short?” A person who takes a drink at a party and who becomes highly sociable for the
duration of the effects of the alcohol is not considered to have learned social behavior. The transitory change in
behaviors explained in terms of the temporary removal of inhibitions that ordinarily interfere with social life is
not a learned behavior rather it is temporary change of behavior that does not qualify learning.
Fourth, the relatively, permanent change in behavior must come from experience or practice than other factors
such as growth, maturation, injury. For example, a child who is talking and walking at an appropriate age can be
considered to develop these behaviors solely as a result of learning. It is as well the result of growth and
maturation.
Furthermore, changes due to sensitization and habituation must not be accepted as examples of learning. Though
both are examples of behavior modification or change that result from experience, both are short lived.
Sensitization is the process whereby an organism is made more responsible to certain aspects of this
environment. An organism that may not ordinarily respond to a certain sound may respond after receiving a
shock. The shock has, therefore, sensitized the organism. Habituation is the process whereby and organism
becomes less responsive to the environment. For example, there is a tendency which is referred to as orienting
reflex and is exemplified when a dog turns in a direction of a sound that suddenly occurs. After attending to the
sound for some time, however, the dog will eventually ignore it (assuming that it poses no threat or danger) and
go about its other business. We say, in this case, the dog’s response to sound has habituated.
Section -2: Theories and Application of Learning

This section makes a further attempt to discuss the nature of learning, types and mechanisms of learning. It will
introduce you to the different definitions, types, methods, principles and applications of learning. Beginning with
the simple forms of learning, which even animals can make, you will proceed to the more complex form of
learning that is typically human. In doing so, you will consider three principles and theories with their possible
implications and applications, classical conditioning, operant conditioning and cognitive learning.
Objectives
When you have completed this section, you will be able to:
 describe the major principles and procedures of classical or operant conditioning;
 list down the limitation of classical conditioning
 describe the principles, procedures and applications of operant conditioning
 list down the limitation of operant conditioning
 compare and contrast classical and operant conditioning
 compare and contrast conditioning and cognitive learning.
2.1 Classical Conditioning
 Classical conditioning was the first kind of learning to be studied systematically.
 At the turn of the 19th century the Great Russian physiologist was studying salivation in dogs as part of a
research program on digestion.
 One of his procedures was to make a surgical opening in a dog’s cheek and insert a tube that conducts saliva
away from the animals salivary gland so that the saliva could be measured.
 To stimulate the reflexive flow of saliva, Pavlov placed meat powder or other food in the dog’s mouth.

 During the salivation studies, one of Pavlov’s students noticed something that most people would have
overlooked or dismissed as trivial.
 After a dog had been brought to the laboratory a number of times, it started to salivate before the food was
placed in its mouth. The sight or smell of the food, the dish in which the food was kept, even the sight of the
person who delivered the food each day or the sound of the person’s footsteps were enough to start the
dog’s mouth watering.
 At first, Pavlov treated the dog's salivation as just an annoying secretion. But, he quickly realized that his
student had stumbled onto an important phenomenon, one that Pavlov came to believe was the basis of a
great deal of learning in human beings and other animals. He called that phenomenon a conditional reflex-
conditional because it depended on environmental conditions.
 Later, an error in the translation of his writings transformed conditional into conditioned, the word most
commonly used today.
 Pavlov soon devoted what he had been doing and turned to the study of conditioned reflexes, to which he
devoted the last three decades of his life. Why were his dogs salivating to things other than food?
 At first Pavlov speculated about what his dogs might be thinking and feeling to make them salivate before
getting their food. Eventually, however, he decided that speculating about his dog’s mental abilities was
pointless.
 Instead, he focused on analyzing the environment in which the conditioned reflex arose. The original salivary
reflex, according to Pavlov, consisted of an unconditioned stimulus (US), food, and unconditioned response
(UR), salivation.
 By unconditioned stimulus, Pavlov meant an event or thing that elicits a response automatically or reflexively.
By an unconditional response, he meant the response that is automatically produced.
 Learning occurs, said Pavlov, when a neutral stimulus is regularly paired with an unconditioned stimulus. The
neutral stimulus then becomes a conditioned stimulus (CS), which elicits a learned or a conditioned response
(CR) that is usually similar to the original, unlearned one.
 In Pavlov’s laboratory, the sight of the food dish, which had not previously elicited salivation, became a CS for
salivation. The procedure by which a neutral stimulus becomes a conditioned stimulus became known as
Classical Conditioning, also called Respondent conditioning.
 Since Pavlov’s day, many automatic involuntary responses besides salivation have been classically
conditioned- for example, heartbeat, stomach secretions, blood pressure, reflexive movements, blinking, and
muscle contractions.
 The optimal interval between the presentation of the neutral stimulus and the presentation of the US depends
on the kind of response involved; in the laboratory, the interval is often less than a second.
 In general for classical conditioning to be most effective, the stimulus to be conditioned should precede the
unconditioned stimulus rather than follow it or occur simultaneously with it. The diagram below summarizes
the steps involved in classical conditioning.
Steps in Classical conditioning

Before Conditioning
Neutral Stimulus (CS) No Response/ Irrelevant Response
(Bell)
Unconditioned Stimulus (US) UR (Salivation)
(Meat)

During Conditioning
NS (CS?) (Bell)
+
US (Meat) UR (Salivation)
After Conditioning
CS (Bell) CR (Salivation).
Factors that Affect Classical conditioning

Several factors influence the extent to which classical conditioning will occur. These include the inter stimulus
interval, the individual’s learning history and the organism’s preparedness to learn.
1. Interstimulus interval: This is the duration of time between the presentation of the CS and the US. For most
motor and skeletal responses, the optimal interval between the CS and the US is very brief. The temporal
relationship between the CS and US- i.e. which stimulus comes first- is also crucial. Maximal conditioning
occurs when the onset of the CS (Bell) precedes the US (meat), known as forward conditioning. Less effective
than forward conditioning is simultaneous conditioning, in which the CS (Bell) and US (meat) are presented at
the same time. A third pattern, backward conditioning, is the least effective of all. Here, the CS is presented
after the US has occurred.
2. The individual’s learning history: An extinguished response tends to be easier to learn the second time
around because the stimulus was once associated with the response. Sometimes previous conditioning can
also hinder learning. Consider a dog that has been conditioned to salivate at the sound of a bell. The
researcher now wants to condition the dog to associate the food with an additional stimulus, a flash of light.
The dog will probably have difficulty learning this new association. This phenomenon is known as blocking. It is
failure of a stimulus to elicit a CR when it is combined with another stimulus that is already effective in
eliciting the response.
3. Preparedness to learn: An organism's preparation for learning affects the learning processes. A dog's
readiness to expect a food immediately after the ringing of bell increases the probability of learning the
association of a bell sound and the food.
Principles of Classical Conditioning

 Extinction and Spontaneous Recovery: Extinction in classical conditioning refers to a condition by
which a CR is weakened by presentation of the CS without the US. Without the continued association with
the US the CS loses its power to illicit CR. In other words, if after conditioning, the CS is repeatedly
presented without the US, the CR eventually disappears, and extinction is said to have occurred. Pavlov
rang the bell repeatedly in a single session and did not give the dog any food. Eventually, the dog stopped
salivating.
 Extinction is not always the end of the CR. After extinction a CR may suddenly reappear even without
further conditioning trials. This is referred to as Spontaneous Recovery. The day after Pavlov
extinguished the conditioned salivation at the sound of a bell, he took the dog to the laboratory and rang
the bell, still not giving the dog meat powder. The dog salivated, indicating that an extinguished response
can spontaneously recur. The spontaneous recovery of CR is short lived however, will rapidly extinguish
again without renewed pairings of the CS and US.
 Stimulus Generalization and Discrimination: After a stimulus becomes a conditioned stimulus for
some response, other, similar stimuli may produce a similar reaction- a phenomenon known as
stimulus generalization. It occurs when an organism produces a CR to other stimuli that have not been
paired with the original US. For instance, in Watson and Rayner’s experiment, the pairing of the rat and
the loud noise produced a fear in little Albert not only of the rat but also of other furry or hairy objects,
including the rabbit, the dog, the fur coat, and other similar objects. As one might guess, the more a
stimulus resembles the original CS, the more likely stimulus generalization will take place.
 The capacity for stimulus generalization is highly adaptive. A child who associates feelings of comfort
and relief with the neighborhood police officer will seek out other officers when she needs help because
they, too, evoke feelings of relief. Generalization is not always adaptive however. A major component of
adaptive learning is knowing when to generalize and when to be more specific or discriminating.
Maladaptive patterns in humans often involve inappropriate generalization from one set of
circumstances to others, as when a person who has been frequently criticized by a parent responds
negatively to all authority figures.
 Most of the time, however, people do not generalize quite so broadly. Instead like other animals, they
discriminate between stimuli. Stimulus discrimination is the opposite of stimulus generalization. Pavlov’s
dog did not salivate in response to just any sound.
 Higher Order Conditioning: Sometimes a neutral stimulus can become a CS by being paired with an
already established CS, a procedure known as higher order conditioning.
Activity-2
Describe the following terms in your own words

1. Classical conditioning _______________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________
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2. Neutral stimulus___________________________________________________________
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3. Neutral response _________________________________________________________
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4. Unconditioned stimulus/Natural stimulus __________________________________________

_____________________________________________________________________
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5. Unconditioned response/Natural response _________________________________________
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6. Conditioned stimulus _______________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________

_____________________________________________________________________
7. Conditioned response _______________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________
8. Higher-order conditioning ____________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________
9. Stimulus generalization ______________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________
10. Stimulus discrimination ____________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________
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11. Extinction _____________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________
12. Spontaneous recovery _____________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________
2.2. Operant Conditioning

 An emphasis on environmental consequences is at the heart of Operant Conditioning (also called
Instrumental Conditioning), the second type of conditioning studied by Behaviourists.
 In operant conditioning, the organism's response operates or produces effects on the environment. These
effects, in turn, influence, whether the response will occur again.
 Operant conditioning has been studied since the start of the 20th century, although it was not called that until
later. Edward Thorndike set the stage by observing cats as they tried to escape from a complex “puzzle box”
to reach a scrap of fish located just outside the box.
 In this study a hungry cat was placed in a small cage, or “puzzle box” with food available just outside. The cat
could escape to obtain the food by performing a simple response, such as pulling a wire or depressing a
lever. After each escape, the cat was rewarded with a small amount of food and then returned to the cage
for another trial.
 Thorndike monitored how long it took the cat get out of the box on each trial- over a long series of trials. If
the cat could "think", Thorndike reasoned, there would be a sudden drop in the time required to escape when
the cat recognized the solution to the problem.

 Instead of a sudden drop, Thorndike observed a very gradual, uneven decline in the time it took the cats to
escape from his puzzle boxes. The decline in solution time showed that the cats were learning but, Thorndike
concluded that their learning did not depend on thinking and understanding.
 Instead he attributed this learning to a principle called the law of effect. According to the law of effect, if a
response in the presence of a stimulus leads to satisfying effects, the association between the stimulus and
the response is strengthened.
 This general principle was elaborated and extended to more complex forms of behavior by B.F Skinner. He
moved beyond Thorndike by arguing that this principle governs complex human learning as well as simple
animal learning.
 Skinner argued that to understand behavior we should focus on the external causes of an action and the
action’s consequences. To explain behavior, he said, we should look outside the individual, not inside.
 In Skinner’s analysis, a response (“operant”) can lead to three types of consequences: such as a) A
neutral consequence b) A reinforcement c) punishment
a) A neutral Consequence that does not alter the response.
b) A reinforcement that strengthens the response or makes it more likely to recur. A reinforcer is any
event that increases the probability that the behavior that precedes it will be repeated. There are two
basic types of reinforcers or reinforcing stimuli: primary and secondary reinforcers.
o Primary reinforcers: Food, water. Light, stroking of the skin, and a comfortable air temperature
are naturally reinforcing because they satisfy biological needs. They are, therefore, known as
primary reinforcers. Primary reinforcers, in general, have the ability to reinforce without prior
learning.
o Secondary Reinforcers: Behaviours can be controlled by secondary reinforcers. They reinforce
behavior because of their prior association with primary reinforcing stimuli. Money, praise,
applause, good grades, awards, and gold stars are common secondary reinforcers.
 Both primary and secondary reinforcers can be positive or negative. Positive reinforcement is the process
whereby presentation of a stimulus makes behavior more likely to occur again.
 Negative reinforcement is the process whereby termination of an aversive stimulus makes behavior more
likely to occur. The basic principle of negative reinforcement is that eliminating something aversive can itself
be a reinforser or a reward. For example, if someone nags you all the time to study, but stops nagging when
you comply, your studying is likely to increase- because you will then avoid the nagging.
 This can be an example of what is called escape learning. In escape learning animals learn to make a
response that terminates/stops a noxious, painful or unpleasant stimulus. Another kind of learning, which is
similar, but not the same as escape learning is Avoidance Learning, which refers to learning to avoid a
painful, noxious stimulus prior to exposure.
Schedules of reinforcement
 When a response is first acquired, learning is usually most rapid if the response is reinforced each time it
occurs. This procedure is called continuous reinforcement.
 However, once a response has become reliable, it will be more resistant to extinction if it is rewarded on an
intermittent (partial) schedule of reinforcement, which involves reinforcing only some responses, not all of
them. There are four types of intermittent schedules.
1. Fixed-ratio schedules: A fixed ratio schedule of reinforcement occurs after a fixed number of
responses. They produce very rate of responding. Employers to increase productivity often use
fixed ratio schedules. An interesting feature of a fixed ratio schedule is that performance
sometimes drops off just after reinforcement.
2. Variable-Ratio Schedule: A variable ratio schedule of reinforcement occurs after some average
number of responses, but the number varies from reinforcement to reinforcement. A variable ratio
schedule of produces extremely high steady rates of responding. The responses are more resistant
to extinction than when a fixed ratio schedule is used.
3. Fixed Interval Schedule: A fixed interval schedule of reinforcement occurs only if a fixed amount
of time has passed since the previous reinforcer.
4. Variable Interval Schedule: A variable interval schedule of reinforcement occurs only if a variable
amount of time has passed since the previous reinforcer.
 A basic principle of operant conditioning is that if you want a response to persist after it has been learned,
you should reinforce it intermittently, not continuously. Because the change from continuous reinforcement
to none at all will be so large that the animal or person will soon stop responding. But if you have been giving
the reinforcement only every so often, the change will not be dramatic and the animal/ person will keep
responding for a while.
c) Punishment- is a stimulus that weakens the response or makes it less likely to recur. Punishers can be any
aversive (unpleasant) stimuli that weaken responses or make them unlikely to recur. Like reinforcers, punishers
can also be primary or secondary.
 Pain and extreme heat or cold are inherently punishing and are therefore known as primary punishers.
 Criticism, demerits, catcalls, scolding, fines, and bad grades are common secondary punishers.
 The positive-negative distinction can also be applied to puishment. Something unpleasant may occur following
some behaviour (positive punishment), or something pleasant may be removed (negative punishment).
The Pros and Cons of Punishment

When Punishment works:
 Immediacy – When punishment follows immediately after the behavior to be punished.
 Consistency- when punishment is inconsistent the behaviour being punished is intermittently
reinforced and therefore becomes resistant to extinction.
 Intensity- In general terms severe punishments are more effective than mild ones. But, there are
studies that indicate that even less intense punishments are effective provided that they are
applied immediately and consistently.
When punishment fails

1. People often administer punishment inappropriately or mindlessly. They swing in a blind rag or shout
things they do not mean applying. Punishment is so broad that it covers all sorts of irrelevant behaviors.
2. The recipient of punishment often responds with anxiety, fear or rage. Through a process of classical
conditioning, these emotional side effects may then generalize to the entire situation in which the punishment
occurs- the place, the person delivering the punishment, and the circumstances. These negative emotional
reactions can create more problems than the punishment solves. For instance,a teenager who has been
severely punished may strike back or run away. Being physically punished in childhood is a risk factor for
depression, low self-esteem, violent behavior and many other problems.
3. The effectiveness of punishment is often temporary, depending heavily on the presence of the punishing
person or circumstances
4. Most behavior is hard to punish immediately.
5. Punishment conveys little information. An action intended to punish may instead be reinforcing because it
brings attention.
Shaping
 For a response to be reinforced, it must first occur. But, suppose you to train a child to use a knife and a
fork properly. Such behaviors, and most others in every day life, have almost no probability of appearing
spontaneously.
 The operant solution for this is shaping. Shaping is an operant conditioning procedure in which
successive approximations of a desired response are reinforced.
 In shaping you start by reinforcing a tendency in the right direction. Then you gradually require
responses that are more and more similar to the final desired response. The responses that you
reinforce on the way to the final one are called successive approximations.
Principles of Operant Conditioning

 Extinction: In operant conditioning, extinction refers to the gradual weakening of and disappearance of a
response tendency because the response is no longer followed by a reinforcer.
 Spontaneous Recovery: Just as in a classical conditioning, animals and people whose operant behaviors
have been extinguished may recover them. This is called spontaneous recovery.
 Stimulus Generalization: Stimulus generalization describes the phenomenon whereby an animal or a person
has learned a response to one stimulus and then applies it to other similar stimuli.
 Stimulus Discrimination: The tendency for a response to occur in the presence of a stimulus but not in the
presence of other, similar stimuli that differ from it on some dimension.
Do you agree with the notion that punishing children whenever they do wrong would improve their
? behavior?
_______________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________
2.3 Cognitive Learning Theories
Both classical and operant conditioning have traditionally been explained by the principle of contiguity i.e. the
close association of events in time and space. Contiguity has been used to explain the association of a conditioned
stimulus and unconditioned stimulus in classical conditioning and the association of a behavior and its
consequences in operant conditioning.
Cognitive learning may take three forms:
1. Observational learning
2. Latent learning
3. Insight learning (gestalt learning or perceptual learning)
 For half a century, most American learning theories held that learning could be explained by specifying the
behavioral “ABCs” – Antecedents (events preceding behavior), Behaviors, and Consequences.
 In the 1940s, two social scientists proposed a modification they called social learning theory. Most human
learning, they argued, is acquired by observing other people in social context, rather than through standard
conditioning procedures.
 By 1960s and 1970s, social learning theory was in full bloom, and a new element had been added: the human
capacity for higher level of cognitive processes.

 Its proponents agreed with behaviorists that human beings, along with the rat and the rabbit, are subject to
the laws of operant and classical conditioning. But, they added that human beings, unlike the rat and the
rabbit, are full of attitudes, beliefs and expectations that affect the way they acquire information, make
decisions, reason, and solve problems.
 These mental processes affect what individuals will do at any given moment and also, more generally the
personality traits they develop.
1. Learning by Observing
 Refers to learning by watching what others do and what happens to them for doing it).
 Behaviorists have always acknowledged the importance of observational learning, which they call vicarious
conditioning, and have tried to explain it in stimulus response terms.
 But social cognitive theorists believe that in human beings, observational learning cannot be fully understood
without taking into account the thought processes of the learner.
 They emphasize the knowledge that results when a person sees a model- behaving in certain ways and
experiencing the consequences.
 Many years ago, Albert Bandura and his colleagues showed just how important observational learning is,
especially for children who are learning the rules of social behavior.
? What are the implications of the finding on children watching violence shown on TV?
________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________
2. Latent Learning
 ‘Latent’ means hidden, and thus latent learning is learning that occurs but is not evident in behavior until
later, when conditions for its appearance are favorable.
 It is said to occur without reinforcement of particular responses and seems to involve changes in the way
information is processed.
 In a classic experiment, Tolman and C.H Honzic(1930) placed three groups of rats in mazes and observed
their behavior each day for more than two weeks.
 The rats in Group 1 always found food at the end of the maze. Group 2 never found food. Group 3 found no
food for ten days but then received food on the eleventh. The Group 1 rats quickly learned to head straight the
end of the maze without going blind alleys, whereas Group 2 rats did not learn to go to the end. But, the group
of three rats were different. For ten days they appeared to follow no particular route. Then, on the eleventh
day they quickly learned to run to the end of the maze. By the next day, they were doing, as well as group one,
which had been rewarded from the beginning.
 Group three rats had demonstrated latent learning, learning that is not immediately expressed. A great deal
of human learning also remains latent until circumstances allow or require it to be expressed.

3. Insight Learning
 It is cognitive process whereby we reorganize our perception of a problem. It doesn’t depend on
conditioning of particular behaviors for its occurrence. Sometimes, for example, people even wake from
sleep with the solution to a problem that they had not been able to solve during the day.
 In a typical insight situation a problem is posed, a period follows during where no apparent progress is
made, then the solution comes suddenly. What has been learned in insight learning can also be applied
easily to other similar situations.
 Human beings who solve a problem insightfully usually experience a good feeling called an 'aha'
experience.
Summary
In unit 3 of this module you examined the environmental foundation of mind and behavior. Describing
environmental foundations in terms of learning, an attempt was made to examine the nature of learning and the
theories and applications of learning.
Learning is a relatively permanent change in knowledge, attitude and behavior as a result of practice or
experience.
Learning differs from instinct reflex, growth and maturation because the latter are biological in nature. Learning,
on the other, is external in that it represents the interaction of an individual with his environment. Learning
involves arousal or motivation, performance and reinforcement to result in behavioral changes.
Some of the ways in which learning occurs include trial-and-error, observation or imitation, and instruction,
training, advice, or tutoring. These three methods of learning are used in the different types of learning.
Conditioning, for example, is based on trial and-error while cognitive learning involves observation and
instruction.
There major groups of theories exist regarding learning
 The classical conditioning model,
 The operant conditioning mode, and
 The cognitive learning theories
According to Pavlov's classical conditioning model, or respondent learning, learning is the process of controlling
reflexes. Classical conditioning is a form of learning in which the originally neutral stimulus inherits the
characteristics of the two stimuli. Pavlov’s classical conditioning model assumes that all of our behaviors are
reactions we make to the environment acting as-stimulus-response learning.
The popular Harvard University professor B.F. Skinner argued that Pavlov’s model explains only the situation of
elicited responses. However, humans can show behaviors without specific stimuli preceding them. These groups
of response are known as emitted responses. According to Skinner, responses that are reinforced are likely to
occur again. Behavior for Skinner is acquired, as a means of getting certain desired end states. He introduced
concepts like positive and negative reinforcement, punishment, and extinction as mechanisms of shaping human
behaviors, Skinner’s model is in general described as response-stimulus learning.
Both skinner and Pavlov’s learning show the formation of associations between response and stimuli. Other
psychologists disagree with this rather simplistic view. Cognitive theorists are cases in this point. They say that
learning is a more complex mental process and less observable activities. They have identified three such types of

learning-insight learning, latent learning, and observational or social learning. In all these types of learning, the
most important factors are thinking and problem solving but not learning association.
 Self –Test Exercise unit three

Answer the following questions in the spaces provided.
1. Compare and contrast
1.1 Stimulus generalization and discrimination
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1.2 Conditioning and extinction
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1.3 Extinction and spontaneous recovery

___________________________________________________________________________________________________
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2. Compare and contrast classical and operant conditioning models
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3. Compare and contrast conditioning and cognitive learning
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UNIT FOUR
MEMORY
INTRODUCTION
 Dear student what comes to your mind about memory? What is the meaning of memory? What is the
function of memory in your studying?
Intelligent life does not exist without memory. Imagine what life could mean to a person who is unable to recall
things that are already seen, tested, heard before. If you don’t have a memory, you cannot remember whatever
information you acquire that makes your life disorganized, confused and meaningless.
Your memory provides the function that your life to have continuity in place and time, adapt to the new situations
by using previous skills and information, enriches your emotional life by recoiling your positive and negative life
experiences.
Objectives
At the end of this unit, you will be able to:
 define memory
 comprehended the nature of memory including its meaning and types
 explain the process that are at work in memory functions, and
 explain the factors underlying the persistence, and loss of memory.
Memory is the retention of information/what is learned earlier over time. It is the way in which we record the
past for later use in the present. Memory is a blanket label for a large number of processes that form the bridges
between our past and our present. To learn about the nature of memory, it is useful to separate the process
from the structure.
4.1 Memory Processes

? How do you form the memory of events you sense?
Memory process is the mental activities we perform to put information into memory, to keep it there, and to make
use of it later. This involves three basic steps:
a) Encoding: Taken from computer science, the term encoding refers to the form (i.e. the code) in which
an item of information is to be placed in memory. It is the process by which information is initially
recorded in a form usable to memory. In encoding we transform a sensory input into a form or a
memory code that can be further processed.
b) Storage: To be remembered the encoded experience must leave some record in the nervous system
(the memory trace); it must be squirreled away and held in some more or less enduring form for later
use. This is what memory specialists mean when they speak of placing information in storage. It is the
location in memory system in which material is saved. Storage is the persistence of information in
memory.
c) Retrieval: is the point at which one tries to remember to dredge up a particular memory trace from
among all the others we have stored. In retrieval, material in memory storage is located, brought into
awareness and used.

? Try to explain the three memory processes with examples?
Failure to remember can result from problems during any of the three phases of the memory process. If, fore
example, you encode a new item of information only as a sound pattern, there would be no memory trace of its
meaning. If both the sound and the meaning were encoded and held for the length of the retention interval, the
item might have been misfiled in memory. If so, the item might be impossible to retrieve even though it is still
stored in memory.
 Memory is the process by which information is encoded (phase1), stored (phase 2) and
later retrieved (phase 3).
4.2 Structure/Stages/Forms of Memory
 Memory structure is the nature of memory storage itself- how information is represented in
memory and how long it lasts and how it is organized.
 Although people usually refer to memory as a single faculty, the term memory actually covers a
complex collection of abilities and processes.
 The cognitive perspective has dominated psychology’s view of memory for the past years although in
recent years it has become integrated with understanding of the neuro-psychology of memory. Many
cognitive psychologists relate the mind to an information processor, along the lines of a digital
computer that takes items of information in; processes them in steps or stages, and then produces an
output.
 Consider how the computer works; First, it takes in information (for instance via keystrokes) and
translates the information into an electronic language, then the computer permanently stores the
information on a disc, and finally it retrieves the information (file) stored on a disc on to a working
memory (which also receives new information from the keyboard) and the information is put on to the
screen as part of the working memory.
 Models of memory based on this idea are Information processing theories. Like the computer, we also
store vast amounts of information in our memory store house. From this storehouse, we can retrieve
some information onto a limited capacity working memory, which also receives information from our
current experience. Part of this working memory is displayed on the mental “screen” we call
consciousness. A number of such models of memory have been proposed. One of the most important
and influential of these is the one developed by Richard Atkinson and Richard Shiffrin(1968). According
to Atkinson and Shiffrin, memory has three structures:

1) Sensory Memory/Sensory Register: It is the entry way to memory. It is the first information storage area.
Sensory memory acts as a holding bin, retaining information until we can select items for attention from the
stream of stimuli bombarding our senses.
It gives us a brief time to decide whether information is extraneous or important. Sensory memory includes a
number of separate subsystems, as many as there are senses. It can hold virtually all the information reaching
our senses for a brief time.
For instance, visual images (Iconic memory) remain in the visual system for a maximum of one second. Auditory
images (Echoic memory) remain in the auditory system for a slightly longer time, by most estimates up to two
second or so.
The information stored sensory in memory is a fairly accurate representation of the environmental information
but unprocessed.
Most information briefly held in the sensory memory simply decays from the register. However, some of the
information that has got attention and recognition pass on short-term memory for further processing.
2) Short-term Memory: is part of our memory that holds the contents of our attention. Unlike sensory
memories, short-term memories are not brief replicas of the environmental message. Instead, they consist the
by-products or end results of perceptual analysis. STM is important in a variety of tasks such as thinking,
reading, speaking, and problem solving. There are various terms used to refer to this stage of memory, including
working memory, immediate memory, active memory, and primary memory.
? Why do we call STM as a working memory?
Short term memory is distinguished by four characteristics:

 It is active- information remains in STM only so long as the person is consciously processing,
examining, or manipulating it. People use STM as a “workspace” to process new information and to call
up relevant information from LTM.
 Rapid accessibility - Information in STM is readily available for use. In this respect, the difference
between STM and LTM is the difference between pulling a file from the top of a desk versus searching for
it in a file drawer, or between searching for information in an open computer file versus file stored on
the hard drive.
 Preserves the temporal sequence of information- STM usually helps us to maintain the information
in sequential manner for a temporary period of time. It keeps the information fresh until it goes to
further analysis and stored in LTM in meaningful way.
 Limited capacity- Years ago, George Miller (1956) estimated the capacity of STM to be “the magic
number seven plus or minus 2”. That is, on the average, people can hold about seven pieces of
information in STM at a time; with a normal range from five to nine items. Some researchers have
questioned whether Miller’s magical number is so magical after all. Everyone agrees, however, that the
number of items that short-term memory can handle at any one time is small.

According to most models of memory, we overcome this problem, by grouping small groups of information into
larger units or chunks. Chunking is the grouping or “packing” of information into higher order units that can be
remembered as single units. Chunking expands working memory by making large amounts of information more
manageable. The real capacity of short-term memory, therefore, is not a few bits of information but a few chunks.
A chunk may be a word, a phrase, a sentence, or even a visual image, and it depends on previous experience.
STM memory holds information (sounds, visual images, words, and sentences and so on) received from SM for up
to about 30 seconds by most estimates. It is possible to prolong STM indefinitely by rehearsal- the conscious
repetition of information. Material in STM is easily displaced unless we do something to keep it there.
3. Long Term Memory
It is a memory system used for the relatively permanent storage of meaningful information. The capacity of LTM
seems to have no practical limits. The vast amount of information stored in LTM enables us to learn, get around in
the environment, and build a sense of identity and personal history. LTM stores information for indefinite periods.
It may last for days, months, years, or even a lifetime.
Activity-3
Attempt to describe each type of information, its capacity and characteristics in the following tables.
Type of memory Type of information Capacity Characteristics Duration
1. Sensory Memory
2. Short- term Memory
3. Long –term Memory
The LTM is assumed to be composed of different sub systems:

 Declarative/ explicit memory- the conscious recollection of information such as specific facts or
events that can be verbally communicated. It is further subdivided into semantic and episodic
memories.
 Semantic memory- factual knowledge like the meaning of words, concepts and our ability to do math.
They are internal representations of the world, independent of any particular context.
 Episodic memory- memories for events and situations from personal experience. They are internal
representations of personally experienced events.
 Non-declarative/ implicit memory- refers to a variety of phenomena of memory in which behaviour
is affected by prior experience without that experience being consciously recollected. One of the most
important kinds of implicit memory is procedural memory. It is the “how to” knowledge of procedures
or skills: Knowing how to comb your hair, use a pencil, or swim.
Activity-4
1. Regarding the importance of human memory
1.1 What do you think will happen to you if you are without memory of any kind?
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1.2 What do you think the usefulness of memory?

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1.3 Do you think that animals have memory?
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2. How many types of memory do we have?
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2.1 Classify memory using
2.1.1. Time spent in memory information?

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2.1.2. Type of information we have?

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3. List out the different sub systems of long term memory and their characteristics?
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Serial Position Effect

 The three-box model of memory is often invoked to explain interesting phenomenon called the serial
position effect. If you are shown a list of items and are then asked immediately to recall them, your
retention of any particular item will depend on its position in the list. That is, recall will be best for items
at the beginning of the list (the primacy effect) and at the end of the list (the recency effect). When
retention of all the items is plotted, the result will be a U-shaped curve.
 A serial position effect occurs when you are introduced to a lot of people at a party and find you can
recall the names of the first few people you met and the last, but almost no one in between.
 According to the three-box model, the first few items on a list are remembered well because short-term
memory was relatively “empty” when they entered, so these items did not have to compete with others
to make it into long term memory. They were thoroughly processed, so they remain memorable.
 The last few items are remembered for a different reason: At the time of recall, they are still sitting in
STM. The items in the middle of the list, however, are not so well retained because by the time they get
into short-term memory, it is already crowded. As a result many of these items drop out of short-term
memory before they can be stored in long-term memory.

? What account for the serial-position effect?
Forgetting
Dear students why do human beings forget information? In what way and how do we forgot that information? Is
forgetting bad or good for us?
From the store house of information, most of us forget the names of individuals, names of places and other
information’s. In our daily living, we encounter so much information. if we attempt to encode, store and recall all
the information we face daily, we are in trouble. Hence, we are selective in storing and forgetting information.
Sometimes we are motivated to forgot something and recall what we want to remember. Psychologists call this
phenomenon as motivated forgetting?
 Psychologists generally use the term forgetting to refer to the apparent loss of information already
encoded and stored in the long-term memory.
 The first attempts to study forgetting were made by German psychologist Hermann Ebbinghaus
(1885/1913). Using himself as his only subject, he memorized lists of three letter non-sense syllables-
meaningless sets of two consonants with a vowel in between, such as FIW and BOZ.
 By measuring how easy it was to relearn a given list of words after varying periods of time from initial
learning had passed., he found that forgetting occurred systematically.
 The most rapid forgetting occurs in the first hours, and particularly in the first hour. After nine hours,
the rate of forgetting slows and declines little, even after the passage of many days.
 Ebbinghaus’s research had an important influence on subsequent research, and his basic conclusions
had been upheld. There is almost always a strong initial decline in memory, followed by a more gradual
drop over time.
 Furthermore, relearning of previously mastered material is almost always faster than starting from a
scratch, whether the material is academic information or a motor skill such as serving a tennis ball.
 Psychologists have proposed five mechanisms to account for forgetting: decay, replacement of old
memories by new ones, interference, motivated forgetting, and cue dependent forgetting.
Activity-5
1. Do you think lost memories can be recovered? How
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2. How can we improve our memories?

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1. The Decay Theory

 The decay theory holds that memory traces or engram fade with time if they are not “accessed” now
and then. This explanation assumes that when new material is learned a memory trace or engram- an
actual physical change in the brain- occurs.
 In decay, the trace simply fades away with nothing left behind, because of the passage of time. We have
already seen that decay occurs in sensory memory and that it occurs in short term memory as well,
unless we rehearse the material. However, the mere passage of time does not account so well for
forgetting in long-term memory. People commonly forget things that happened only yesterday while
remembering events from many years ago.
 Although there is evidence that decay does occur, it does not seem to be the complete explanation for
forgetting. Memory specialists have proposed an additional mechanism: Interference.
? Is time a factor in forgetting?
2. Interference
 Interference theory holds that forgetting occurs because similar items of information interfere with one
another in either storage or retrieval. The information may get into memory, but it becomes confused
with other information.
 There are two kinds of interference that influence forgetting: proactive and retroactive. In Proactive
Interference, information learned earlier interferes with recall of newer material. If new information
interferes with the ability to remember old information the interference is called Retroactive
Interference.
3. New Memory for Old/ Displacement Theory

 This theory holds that new information entering memory can wipe out old information, just as recording
on an audio or videotape will obliterate/wipe out the original material. This theory is mostly associated
with the STM, where the capacity for information is limited to seven plus or minus chunks. It cannot be
associated with the LTM because of its virtually unlimited capacity.
4. Motivated Forgetting
 Sigmund Freud maintained that people forget because they block from consciousness those memories
that are two threatening or painful to live with, and he called this self-protective process Repression.
 To day many psychologists prefer to use a more general term, motivated forgetting.
5. Cue Dependent Forgetting

 Often when we need to remember, we rely on retrieval cues, items of information that can help us find
the specific information we’re looking for.
 When we lack retrieval cues, we may feel as if we have lost the call number for an entry in the mind’s
library. In long-term memory, this type of memory failure may be the most common type of all.
 Cues that were present when you learned a new fact or had an experience are apt to be especially
useful later as retrieval aids.
 That may explain why remembering is often easier when you are in the same physical environment as
you were when an event occurred: Cues in the present context match from the past. Cues present
during the initial stage of learning help us to recall the content of the specific learning materials in an
easy manner.
 Your mental or physical state may also act as a retrieval cue, evoking a state dependent memory. For
example if you are intoxicated when something happens, you may remember it better when you once
again have had a few drinks than when you are sober.
 Like wise, if your emotional arousal is specially high or low at the time of an event, you may remember
that event best when you are once again in the same emotional state.
? What environmental factors are important in loosing information from memory?
Improving Memory
 Someday in the near future, drugs may be available to help people with memory deficiencies to
increase normal memory performance. For the time being, however, those of us who hope to improve
our memories must rely on mental strategies.
 Some simple mnemonics can be useful, but complicated ones are often more bothersome than they
are worth. A better approach is to follow some general guidelines.
 Pay Attention: It seems obvious, but often we fail to remember because we never encoded the
information in the first place. When you do have something to remember, you will do better if you
encode it.
 Encode information in more than one way: The more elaborate the encoding of information, the
more memorable it will be
 Add meaning: The more meaningful the material, the more likely it is to link up with information
already in long-term memory.
 Take your time: If possible, minimize interference by using study breaks for rest or recreation. Sleep
is the ultimate way to reduce interference.
 Over learn: Studying information even after you think you already know it- is one of the best ways to
ensure that you’ll remember it.
 Monitor your learning: By testing yourself frequently, rehearsing thoroughly, and reviewing
periodically, you will have a better idea of how you are doing.
Summary
An important dimension of humans’ intelligent life (or mind and behavior) that normally follows sensation and
perception is memory a warehouse of our past life events.
Memory has different forms and hence it is classified into different types.
 Sensory short-term and long-term memory
 Procedural and declarative memory
 Episodic and semantic memory, and
 Explicit and implicit memory

Whatever from it may take, memory is a time-stages process of acquiring, storing and retrieving information.
Different factors affect the success of memory formation in each stage e.g. attention, rehearsal, organization and
retrieval clues.
The difference between the amount of acquired information and the information that is retrieved is called
forgetting. Forgetting occurs not only because of absence of the acquired information. It may also occur because
of distortion of the acquired information disremembering.
There are different methods of improving our memory: paying attention, encoding information in more than one
way, add meaning to the new information, minimize interferences, over learning and monitoring of your learning.
 Self- Test Exercise Unit Four

Part one: Matching
A B
1. Encoding A. Working memory
2. Retrieval B. Memory code
3. Sensory register C. Loss of information
4. Short-term memory D. Permanent storage
5. Long-term memory E. Sensory memory
6. Forgetting F. Remember
7. Semantic memory G. Meanings of words
H. Decoding
Part two: Give Short Answers
1. Why we call short-term memory as a working memory?
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2. What is Chunking?
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3. List out the factors that help us to memorize new information?
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UNIT FIVE
MOTIVATION
INTRODUCTION
 A number of factors and process may affect knowing and memory. But the most important ones are
forces within the individual himself/her self. These forces are motivation and emotion.
Every behavior is intended to serve certain purpose. And these underling purposes of behavior represent
motivation.
This section attempts to discuss motivation along with the different theories. It also examines motivational
conflict as common problems of human beings.
Objectives
At the end of this section, you are expected to:-
 define motivation
 comprehend the nature of motivation
 compare and contrast theories of motivation
 explain Sources of individual differences in motivation
 identify the limitations of each theories of motivation.
5.1 The Nature of Motivation

o The word motivation comes from a Latin root meaning “to move” and the psychology of motivation is
indeed the study of what moves us, why we do what we do.
o In other words, motivation refers to the forces that initiate and direct behavior, and the variables that
determine the intensity and persistence of that behavior. It is concerned with factors that direct and
energize the behavior of humans and other organisms.
o When we are hungry, for example, we initiate food seeking. This initiation can be prompted from within
the individual or the external environment- we might be hungry because of low blood sugar level
(internal) or because we just saw a delicious dessert (external). Motivation also directs our behavior.
When we are hungry we seek food rather than read a newspaper. Motivation also determines the
intensity and persistence of our behavior. Intensity has to do with the strength of the behavior. For
instance you might be a little hungry and if food is readily available, you would eat, but if there is no food
in the immediate vicinity, you would probably engage in some other behavior. On the other hand, if you
are extremely hungry, you will most likely engage intensively in food seeking behavior, doing what ever it
took to obtain it. How motivated we are, still influences our persistence. Sometimes we will persist in
obtaining a goal for a long time, while at other times; we’ll give up after a brief time.
? What are the behavioral functions of motivation?

 An important characteristic of motives is that we never observe them directly. Psychologists often
measure motivation by observing what individuals do (initiation), how they make choices (direction),
noting the strength of their behavior (Intensity) and how long they engage in them (persistence).
“Motivation for human beings is like a fuel for a car?” Do agree or disagree, why?
?
5.2 Some Theories of Motivation

a) Drive Theories- Push theory of motivation
 According to drive theories, when we experience a drive, we are motivated to pursue actions that will lead to
drive reduction. A drive is an internal state of tension that motivates (pushes) an organism to engage in
activities that should reduce this tension.
 In general drive theories state the following: When an internal driving state is aroused, the individual is
pushed to engage in behavior which will lead to goal that reduces the intensity of the driving state. In human
beings, at least, reaching the appropriate goal, which reduces the drive state, is pleasurable and satisfying.
 According to drive theories motivation is said to consist of
1. a driving state
2. the goal directed behaviour initiated by the driving state.
3. the attainment of an appropriate goal and
4. the reduction of the driving state and subjective satisfaction and relief when the goal is reached.
After a time the driving state builds up again to push behaviour toward the appropriate goal. This
sequence of events is sometimes called the motivational cycle.
5.
? What underlines a motivational cycle in motivation?
b) Incentive Theories- Pull theory of motivation
 This theory suggests that motivation is not primarily a matter of being pushed from within by various urges;
rather, it is more a question of being pulled from without by expectations of attaining desired outcomes
(incentives).
 Incentive theories appear to explain why many people engage in complex effortful or even painful behaviours
such as working many hours on their jobs, or studying long into the night.
 Incentive theory has been applied to many aspects of human motivation. Perhaps, though, it has found its
most important practical use with respect to work motivation- the tendency to expend energy and effort on
one’s job.
? What are the main causes for motivation for drive and incentive theories of motivation?
c) Opponent Process Theory

 The opponent process theory takes a hedonistic view of motivation. Basic to this theory is the
observation that many emotional-motivational states are followed by opposing, or opposite states.
 Opponent process theory of motivation seeks to explain the motivation behind such phenomena as drug
addiction and the psychological and emotional reactions that occur as a result of extremes of physical
danger, as in skydiving.

 According to this theory, stimuli that first produce increases in arousal later produce an opposite
calming reaction in the nervous system, where as stimuli that first produce decreases in arousal later
produce an increase in arousal. Moreover, with each exposure to a stimulus, the original response to the
stimulus remains fairly stable or perhaps even declines, while the opponent process- the reaction to the
original response- tends to grow in strength.
 In sum, opponent process theory helps explain why people hold strong motivation for behaviour that on
the surface has few benefits. It is frequently the opponent process not the initial reaction, which
maintains the motivation to carry out such behaviour.
? Does opponent process theory explain all human behavior? Why and why not?
d) Arousal theories/ optimal level theories/just right theories
 Arousal theories seek to explain behavior in which the goal is the maintenance of or an increase in
excitement. These theories say that there is a certain optimal, or best level of arousal that is
pleasurable.
 According to arousal theory, each of us tries to maintain a certain level of stimulation activity. As with
the drive reduction model, if our stimulation and activity levels become too high, we try to reduce them.
But the arousal model also suggests something quite different from the drive reduction model: If the
levels of stimulation and activity are too low, we will try to increase them by seeking stimulation.
 Arousal theory has significant applications to a variety of fields. For example, students who are highly
anxious while taking tests on complex material may perform well below their ability because of their
high level of arousal.
d) Maslow’s Hierarchy: Motivational Needs

 Abraham Maslow, a prominent humanistic theorist, proposes that human motives are organized into a
hierarchy of needs, a systematic arrangement of needs according to priority, which assumes that
basic needs must be met before less basic needs are aroused.
 Maslow’s model considers different motivational needs to be ordered in a hierarchy, and it suggests
that before more sophisticated, higher order needs can be met, certain primary needs must be
satisfied.
 The model can be conceptualized as a pyramid in which the more basic needs are at the bottom and
the higher levels needs are at the top.
 The most basic needs are those described as primary drives: needs for water, food, sleep, sex and the
like. In order to move up the hierarchy, the person must have these basic physiological needs met.
 Safety needs come next in the hierarchy; Maslow suggests that people need a safe, secure
environment in order to function actively. Safety needs reflect concern about long-term survival.
 Safety and security needs motivate adults to seek a stable job, to buy insurance, and to put money in
their savings accounts.
 Physiological and safety needs compose the lower order needs. Only when the basic lower order
needs are met can a person consider fulfilling higher order needs, consisting of love and
belongingness, esteem and self-actualization.
 Love and belongingness needs include the need to obtain and give affection and to be a contributing
member of some group or society. After these need are fulfilled the person strives for esteem.

 In Maslow’s thinking esteem relates to the need to develop a sense of self worth by knowing that
others are aware of ones competence and value. People with esteem needs become concerned about
their achievement, the recognition, respect and status that they earn.
 Once these four sets of needs are fulfilled- no easy task- the person is ready to strive for the higher
level need, self-actualization.
 Self- actualization is a state of self-fulfillment in which people realize their highest potential. The
important thing in self-actualization is that people feel at ease with themselves and satisfied that they
are using their talents to the fullest.
 In a sense, reaching self-actualization produces a decline in the striving and yearning for greater
fulfillment that marks most people’s lives and instead provides a sense of satisfaction with the
current state of affairs.
? Give examples for each needs Maslow?
5.3 Classification of Motives

 Motives can be divided into three major categories:
1. Primary / Biological /Physiological Motives
 Theses motives are, to a large extent, rooted in the physiological state of the body.
 Primary motives are innate in nature and must be met for survival.
 The most important primary motives include hunger, pain avoidance, a need for oxygen, sleep,
elimination of wastes, and regulation of body temperature.
 Many biological motives are triggered, in part, by departures from balanced physiological conditions of
the body. The body tends to maintain a state of equilibrium called homeostasis in many of its internal
physiological processes.
2. Stimulus Motives: Motives to know and to be effective
 These are motives to
o seek variety in stimulation,
o process information about the world around us,
o explore and to be effective in mastering challenges from the environment.
 The purpose of stimulus motives seems to be to provide the nervous system with useful information and
stimulation.
 The stimulus motives cause the individual to seek out sensory stimulation through interaction with the
environment. They include activity, curiosity, exploration, manipulation, and physical contact.
 Because these motives are so persistent and seem to exist to one degree or another in everyone they
are often considered innate, part of the human species heritage. In a sense, these motives are behind
our greatest human accomplishments and also, unfortunately, our greatest failure.
3. Social Motives
 Social motives are the complex motive states, or needs that are the sources of many human actions.
 They are called social because they are learned in social groups, especially in the family as children
grow up and because they usually involve other people.

 These human motives can be looked upon as general states that lead to many particular behaviors. Not
only do they help to determine much of what a person does, they persist never fully satisfied, over the
years. No sooner is one goal reached than the motive is directed toward another one.
 Thus, social motives are general persisting characteristics of a person, and since they are learned, their
strength differs greatly from one individual to another.
 Consequently, social motives are important components of personality.
 Many social motives have been proposed. Some of these include needs for achievement, affiliation,
power, approval, status, security, and aggression.
Activity-6
Part one: Dear students try to match the following concepts with the major theories of motivation.
A B
1. Drives A. Drive theories
2. Good outcomes expectation B. Incentive theories
for doing something C. opponent process theory
3. Stimulation and level of D. arousal theories
excitement E. safety needs
4. Opposite effect of initial stimuli F. Physiological need
on our behavior G. Esteem need
5. Saving and insurance H. Love need
6. Water and food I. Self-activation
7. Recognition as status J. Abraham Maslow
8. Affection K. Sigmund Freud
9. Sense of good self and
Self-worth
10. Motivational needs
Part two: Give at least three examples for each type of motives
1. Primary/biological motives
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2. Stimulus motives
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3. Social motives
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5.4 Frustration
? What is frustration, student?
 The term frustration refers to the blocking of any goal directed behavior. If motives are frustrated, or
blocked, emotional feelings and behavior often result. People who cannot achieve their important goals
feel depressed, fearful, anxious, guilty, or angry. Often they are simply unable to derive ordinary
pleasure from leaving.
? What are the factors that induce frustration in people?
5.4.1 Sources of Frustration
 Environmental forces: Environmental factors can frustrate the satisfaction of motives by making it
difficult or impossible for a person to attain a goal.
 Personal inadequacies: Setting unattainable goals can be important sources of frustration. People are
often frustrated because they aspire to goals- have a level of aspiration- beyond their capacity to
perform.
 Conflict of motives: Conflict exists whenever a person has incompatible or opposing goals. The
frustration comes from being unable to satisfy all the goals. Whatever goal the person decides to
satisfy, there will be frustration, most likely preceded by turmoil, doubt, and vacillation.
 Of the three general sources of frustration described above the one that often produces the most
persistent and deep-seated frustration in many individuals is motivational conflict. There are about four
basic kinds of motivational conflicts.
1. Approach- Approach Conflict
? Dear student, do you come across choosing one from the two positive alternatives in your life?
 Occurs when one is simultaneously/ equally attracted to two or more desirable goals/ outcomes.
 Generally, such conflicts cause little distress and are easily resolved. The reason is that although we
must choose one alternative now, we can often obtain the other at a later time.
Example: The parents of Almaz asked her to decide either to go to college to study her favorite field of study or
like to marry her be loved boyfriend.

2. Avoidance- Avoidance Conflict:

 This conflict occurs when we are motivated to avoid each of two (or more) equally unattractive choices,
but must choose one.
 Avoidance- avoidance conflicts tend to involve a great deal of vacillation and hesitation. Moving closer to
one of the unattractive choices increases our discomfort and leads us to retreat. This retreat brings us
closer to the other unattractive alternative, and we retreat in the opposite direction.
Example: For his unethical behavior, Abebe is asked by his boss to choose either his salary is cut or
demoted for his current position.
3. Approach avoidance conflict
 This kind of conflict occurs when a person is motivated to both approach and avoid the same goal.
 In these kinds of conflicts both attraction and repulsion are typically strongest when you are nearest
the goal.
 The closer you are to something appealing, the stronger your desire to approach it; the closer you are
to something unpleasant, the stronger your desire to flee.
 As with avoidance-avoidance conflicts, vacillation is common in these conflicts. Often however the
negative valence is not repellent enough to stop the approach behaviour.
 In such cases people reach the goal but much more slowly and hesitantly than they would have without
the negative valence; until the goal is reached there is frustration.
 Even after the goal is reached, an individual may feel uneasy because of the negative valence attached to
it.
 Wherever a person is frustrated by not reaching it at all, emotional reactions such as fear, anger, and
resentment commonly accompany approach avoidance conflicts.
Example: Aster didn't like studying at all, but she is supposed to take a test that requires hard work. she
wants to pass the test with good results.
4. Multiple approach-avoidance conflicts
 Such conflicts are the ones we most often face in life. These involve situations in which several options
exist, with each one containing both positive and negative elements.
 Not surprisingly these are the hardest to resolve and the most stressful.

Activity-7
Match the following
A B
1. Approach – Approach conflict A. Highly stressful & difficult to solve (positive & negative in each choices)
2. Avoidance – Avoidance conflict B. High vacillation and hesitation (Selection from the two evils)
3. Approach- avoidance conflict C. Little distress& worry (Selection from the two positive things)
4. Multiple approach- avoidance D. Strong attraction and repulsion
conflicts E. No making of choices
Self- Check Exercise Unit Five


Part-I: Matching
A B
1. Motivation A. An energy that pushes a person to do something
2. Drive Theories B. Just right theories
3. Social motives C. Push theory of motivation
4. Incentive theories D. Motivational needs
5. Optimal level theories E. Pull theory of motivation
6. Abrham Maslow F. Status/approval
7. Conflict of motives G. Sources of frustration
G. Primary motives

Part – II
1. Discuss the effect of motivation on human behavior
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2. If you have to classify motives in to two, what are the possible ways of making these classifications?
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3. How can you motivate a person for an activity?

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4. Which one of all the theories is the best?

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5. Elaborate on the definition of frustration given in the text with examples?
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6. How do you help a person who is frustrated because of conflict of motives?
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UNIT SIX
EMOTION AND STRESS
Section-1: Emotion
This section specifically analyzes the emotional aspect of mental life. It attempts to answer questions like the
following
 What are emotions?
 What are the important dimensions of emotions?
 What theories do we have to explain the nature of human emotions?
Objectives
You are expected to be able to do the following after the end of this section
 distinguish emotion from motivation, instinct, and reason.
 identify the components of emotion
 understand the meaning of happiness, emotional stress.
1.1 The Meaning of Emotion

? What are emotions? What does it mean when you say Mr. X is emotional? Are emotions referring only to
feelings?
 Defining an emotion is not an easy task. It almost seems as if there are as many definitions of emotions
as there are writers on the subject. There is general agreement among scientists who have studied
emotions, however, that they involve three major components:
1. Physiological components- This refers to internal bodily changes associated with emotions. Examples
include shifts in heart rate, blood pressure, breathing digestion etc.
2. Subjective Experience – This involves the personal experience we label as emotions. It is what it feels like
to be angry, sad, happy or elated.
3. Emotional Expression – This refers to outward signs of internal bodily reactions. That is, the ways in which
emotions are expressed in language, facial expression and gestures etc.
 Emotions are personal. No one can truly share our subjective experiences. Yet we are able to recognize the
presence of various emotions in others, and we are able to communicate our own feelings to them as well.
This occurs because of the presence of nonverbal cues-out-ward, observable signs of others’ internal
emotional states.
 Several decades of research on nonverbal cues suggests that this kind of communication occurs through
several basic channels or paths simultaneously. The most revealing of these consists of facial expressions,
eye-contact, body movements and posture, and touching.
Facial Expressions
 One of the main ways of showing emotions is through facial expression. It is possible to learn much
about others’ current moods and feelings from their facial expressions. That is, moods and feelings are
often reflected in the face and can be read there from specific expressions. Facial expression is a
valuable source of feedback to a speaker and can indicate that others are interested and listening
 It appears that there are six different emotions, which are clearly represented on the face. These are
anger, fear, sadness, disgust, happiness and surprise. Of course, this in no was implies that we are
capable of showing only six different facial expressions.
 Until recently, it was widely assumed that basic facial expressions such as those for happiness, anger,
or disgust are universal: they are recognized as indicating specific emotions by persons all over the
world.
 However, a recent review of the evidence on this issue (Russel, 1994) suggests that the interpretation of
facial expressions may be strongly influenced by cultural factors and that recognition of them may not
be as universal as was previously assumed.
Eye contact
 We do often learn much about others feelings from their eyes. For example, we interpret a high level of
gazing from another as a sign of liking or friendliness. In contrast, if others avoid eye contact with us,
we may conclude that they are unfriendly, don’t like us, or are shy.
 While a high level of eye contact from others is usually interpreted as a sign of liking or positive feelings,
there is one important exception to this general rule. If another person gazes at us continuously and
maintains such contact regardless of any actions we perform, she/he can be said to be staring. Staring
is often interpreted as a sign of anger or hostility.
Body Language
 Our current mood or emotion is often reflected in the gesture, posture, position, and movement of our
body. Together, such non-verbal behaviors are termed as Body Language.
 Gestures tell us a great deal about the emotional state of the other person. For example a nervous
interviewee may wring the hands, fidget the fingers by fiddling with objects or hair, wriggle or curl the
toes- such involuntary gestures expressed because the true feeling leak out at the edges.
Embarrassment is shown by a hand over the mouth, anger by clenched hands, and shame by covering
the eyes.
 When we like someone we tend to use more open gestures than when we do not. Open gestures are
those which do not create barriers between us and others. Thus crossed arms and crossed legs signal
that we are unsure/uneasy/ defensive/ do not like the other person, and are called closed gestures.
 In addition, body posture, the way in which we sit or stand is a good indicator of the way we feel. For
example a drooping body posture can show that a person is very depressed, while a taut, upright
position might show extreme anxiety.
Touching
 The amount and type of touch which is acceptable varies according to sex and society. But, in general
growing evidence indicates that when one person touches another in a manner that is considered
acceptable in the current context, positive reactions generally result.
Emotion is a motivated state that is marked by physiological arousal, expressive behavior,
 and mental experience and that varies in its intensity and pleasantness or unpleasantness

Activity-8
1. Have you heard of lie detectors? What are they? How do they work?
___________________________________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________________________
2. Do you think that lie detectors tell the truth? Why?
___________________________________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________________________
3. Give examples of body movements and facial expressions each showing a positive feeling and negative feeling.
___________________________________________________________________________________________________
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___________________________________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________________________
1.2 Some Theories of Emotion

1) James – Lange Theories (William James and Carl Lange)
 This theory suggests that subjective emotional experiences are actually the result of physiological changes
within our bodies (internal changes in the autonomic nervous system or movements of the body. You feel
frightened for instance, when making a public speech because you notice that your heart is racing, your
mouth is dry and soon.
2)Cannon – Bard Theory (Walter Cannon and Philip Bard)

 This theory suggests that various emotion provoking events induce simultaneously the subjective
experiences we label as emotions and the physiological reactions that accompany them.
 In contrast with the James – Lange theory, this theory holds that bodily reactions and the felt emotion are
independent of each other in the sense that bodily reactions are not the basis of the felt emotion.
3) Schachter –Singer Theory (Stanley Schachter & Jerome Singer)

 According to this view, emotion-provoking events produce increased arousal. In response to feelings of
arousal, we search the external environment in order to identify the causes of such feelings. The causes we
then select play a key role in determining the label we place on our arousal, and so in determining the
emotion we experience.

 If we feel aroused after a near-miss in traffic, we’ll probably label our emotion as ‘fear’ or perhaps “ anger”
If, instead we feel aroused in the presence of an attractive person, we may label our arousal as “attraction”
or “love”
 In short, this theory holds that the emotion we feel is due to our interpretation of an aroused or “stirred up
“bodily state.
4) Lazarus Theory
Lazarus Theory states that a thought must come before any emotion or physiological arousal. In other words, you
must first think about your situation before you can experience an emotion.
Example: You are walking down a dark alley late at night. You hear footsteps behind you and you think it may be
a mugger so you begin to tremble, your heart beats faster, and your breathing deepens and at the same time
experience fear.
5) Facial Feedback Theory
According to the facial feedback theory, emotion is the experience of changes in our facial muscles. In other
words, when we smile, we then experience pleasure, or happiness. When we frown, we then experience sadness.
It is the changes in our facial muscles that cue our brains and provide the basis of our emotions. Just as there
are an unlimited number of muscle configurations in our face, so to are there a seemingly unlimited number of
emotions.
Example: You are walking down a dark alley late at night. You hear footsteps behind you and your eyes widen,
your teeth clench and your brain interprets these facial changes as the expression of fear. Therefore you
experience the emotion of fear.
? Which do you think you are going to experience first in the following case?
Events in the environment trigger a psychological state or an emotion, which in turn give rise to
 physiological responses.
? How do you know how your fellow student feels? And how do they know how you feel?

Activity-9
Compare and contrast the James- Longe and Cannon-Bard theories of emotion
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
Section: 2 - Stress and coping

Dear student, this section is aimed to elaborate what is stress and how individual cope from stress. Have a good
reading time.
Objective:
At the end of this section you will be able to:
 define stress
 list types of stressors
 describe mechanisms of coping from stress
2.1 Stress and Coping

 Stress is an internal state, which can be caused by physical demands on the body (disease conditions,
exercise, extremes of temperature, and the like) or by environmental and social situations, which are
evaluated as potentially harmful, uncontrollable or exceeding our resources for coping.
 It refers to a challenge to a person’s capacity to adapt to inner and outer demands, which may be
physiologically arousing and emotionally taxing and call for cognitive or behavioral response.
 In other words, stress can be defined as any circumstances that threaten or are perceived to threaten our
well being and that there by tax our coping abilities.
 The threat may be to our immediate physical safety, our long-range security, our self-esteem, our
reputation, our peace of mind, or many other things that we value.
 The experience of feeling threatened depends on what events we notice and how we choose to appraise and
interpret them. Events that are stressful for one person may be routine for another.
 Generally, the major factors that influence our subjective appraisals of potentially stressful events are
familiarity with the challenge, the controllability of the events, and the predictability of the events.
 The less familiar you are with a potentially stressful event, the more threatened you are likely to feel. In
short, familiarity with a challenge can make yesterday’s crisis today’s routine. Similarly, events are usually
less stressful when we see them as being under our control. We also prefer predictable stress over surprise
packages.
2.1.1. Major types of stressors
? What are stressors?
 Stress is unavoidable part of life. Events that often lead to stress are called stressors. Although they are
not entirely independent, the four principal types of stressors are:-
1. Life changes
2. pressure
3. conflict of motives

4. frustration
1. Life changes/Life events

 Life changes are any noticeable alternations in one’s living circumstances that require
readjustment. One of the most significant sources of stress is change. Virtually any event that
requires someone to make a readjustment can be a stressor. According to researchers,
changes in personal relationships, changes at work, so on can be stressful even when the
changes are welcomed.
2. Pressure
 Pressure involves expectations or demands that one behave in a certain way. Pressure can be
divided into subtypes. You are under pressure to perform when you are expected to execute
tasks and responsibilities quickly, efficiently, and successfully. Pressures to conform to other’s
expectations are also common in our lives. E.g. Military cadets are expected to adhere to their
commanders.
2.1.2 Coping with Stress
? How people cope with stress?
 Coping consists of all things people do to control, tolerate or reduce the effects of life is
stressors-perceived threats, existing problems, or emotional losses. It is not single strategy
that applies to all circumstances The techniques people use change over time and circumstance,
depending on the nature of the stressor and the particular situation.
 Researchers often distinguish three types of coping strategies:
1. Efforts to Change the Situation
 Efforts to cope by changing the situation typically involve problem solving. The individual may try to remove
the stressor, plan ways of resolving the situation, or seek advice or assistance from others in changing the
situation.
 People high in problem solving ability and who have a problem solving orientation (a tendency to define
potential problems as challenging and to confront them directly) tend to report less stress and fewer
psychological symptoms than other subjects.
2. Efforts to alter one’s cognition about the situation
 Coping by changing one’s cognition or appraisal of the situation often involves reframing an event mentally to
make it seem less threatening.
 This can be done through turning problems to challenges, loses to unexpected gains, considering experiences
as lessons, making social comparisons.
3. Efforts to alter the unpleasant emotional consequences of the stress.
 A third way people cope with stressful situations is by trying to relive the associated emotional state.
 This can be done through relaxation, body massage, and physical exercise

Activity-10
1. Write the four principal types of stressors?
___________________________________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________________________
2. Elaborate the three types of coping strategies?

___________________________________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________________
Summary
Emotion concept that is some how similar but at the same time different from motives, instinct, and reflexes.
Emotion is better experienced than defined as a concept. There is no agreement in defining what it is. The general
agreement is that it has physiological, cognitive and behavioral components. Different theories have emerged
capitalizing on each of these dimensions: James- Lange theory, cannon-Bard theory (Physiological theories),
facial- feedback theory (behavioral theories), and Schachter- Singer theory. As the case is in all other
psychological theories, there is no one that is best. Each of them helps to understanding some aspect of emotion.
Complete understanding of emotions necessitates these theories in combination.
 Self- Check Exercise Unit Six

Part –I
1. Are cognitions essential to emotion? Why? What about physiological arousal and behaviors?
___________________________________________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________________________________
2. When do verbal and non-verbal expressions contradict?

___________________________________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________________________
Matching
Part –II Match column A with column B
A B
1. Polygraph A. Frustration
2. Body language B. Facial expression
3. Life change C. Marriage
4. Expressive behavior D. Lie detector
5. Stressor E. Movement of our body
F. Emotion

UNIT SEVEN
PERSONALITY
INTRODUCTION
What is Personality?
 Personality refers to a distinctive pattern of behavior (thoughts, motives and emotions) that
characterizes an individual’s adaptation to the situations of his or her life. It includes the behavior patterns a
person shows across situations or the psychological characteristics of the person that lead to those behavior
patterns.
The term personality is used in two different, but related ways. On the one hand personality refers to the
characteristics that differentiate people- or to those behaviors that make an individual unique.
On the other hand, personality is used as a means of explaining the stability in a persons behavior that leads
him/her to act uniformly both in different situations and over extended periods of time.
Objectives
At the end of this unit, you are expected to:
 explain what personality is in general
 comprehend the general / common features of personality
 explain personality differently using the different theories
 identify the basic features of personality theories
Personality has been studied in a number of different ways. Some have developed broad theories to explain the
origins and make up of personality. Others have focused only on one or two issues, such as the influence of
heredity on personality.
The first approach, theory construction was popular for many years. As a result, we have many personality
theories. Most of these broad theories can be grouped into the following four categories:
1. Type and trait Theories
Type and trait theories of personality both focus on people’s personal characteristics. However, various type
theorists and trait theorists differ in the ways they use those characteristics to describe people.
Type Theories: Classifying people into types is one device many of us use to try to make sense out of others’
behavior and anticipate how they will act in the future.
One of the first type theories that we know of was proposed about 400 B.C by Hippocrates. He grouped people
into four temperament types: Sanguine- cheerful, vigorous, confident, optimistic; Melancholic- depressed,
morose; Choleric- hot-tempered, and Phlegamitic- slow moving, calm, unexcitable

Activity-11
Using the Hyppocratus’ ideas, identify the four temperament types and their corresponding characteristics.
___________________________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________________________
Since the time of Hippocrates, countless other ways of grouping people into types have been tried. The groupings
or sets of types are called ______________________________________________________________________
Trait theories: If someone were to ask you to characterize another person, it is probable that you would come up
with a list of that individual’s personal qualities, as you see them. But how would you know which of these qualities
were most important in determining the person’s behavior?
Personality psychologists have asked similar questions themselves. In order to answer them, they have developed
a sophisticated model of personality known as Trait Theory. Traits are enduring dimensions of personality
characteristics along which people differ.
Trait theorists do not assume that some people have a trait and others do not; rather they propose that all people
have certain traits, but that the degree to which the trait applies to specific person varies and can be quantified.
For instance, you might be relatively friendly, whereas I might be relatively unfriendly. But, we both have a
“friendliness” trait, although you would be quantified with a higher score and I with a lower one.
The major challenges for trait theorists has been to identify the specific primary traits necessary to describe
personality.
? Are there central traits across people?
2. Dynamic Personality Theories

 Involve a search for the process by which needs, motives and impulses- often hidden from view-
interact to produce the individual’s behavior.
 According to these groups of personality theories, our behavior is triggered largely by powerful forces
within us which we are not aware.
 These hidden forces, shaped by childhood experiences, play an important role in energizing and directing
our everyday behavior.
 The most important theorist to hold such a view, and indeed one of the best-known figures in all
psychology is Sigmund Freud. He is the originator of the theory called psychoanalytic theory in the early
1900s.
Freud’s Psychoanalytic Theory
This is the first systematic and comprehensive theory of personality. It attempts to explain personality,
motivation, and psychological disorders by focusing on the influence of early childhood experiences, unconscious
motives and how people cope with their sexual and aggressive urges.

Freud’s psychoanalytic theory has three major parts:

1. Structure of personality
2. Personality dynamics
3. Psychosexual Stages of development
1. Structure of Personality
To describe the structure of personality, Freud developed a comprehensive theory, which held that personality
consisted of three separate, but interacting components: the id, the ego, and the super ego.
Although Freud described these in very concrete terms, it is important to realize that they are not actual physical
structures found in certain part of the brain. Instead, they represent aspects of general model of personality that
describes the interaction of various processes and forces with in one’s personality that motivate behavior.
The id: The id is the raw unorganized, inherited part of personality whose sole purpose is to reduce tension
created by primitive drives related to hunger, sex, aggression, and irrational impulses. These drives are fueled by
“psychic energy” or libido, as Freud called it.
The id operates according to the pleasure principle, in which the goal is the immediate reduction of tension and
the maximization of satisfaction.
Unfortunately for the id- but luckily for people and society-reality prevents the demands of the pleasure principle
from being fulfilled in most cases. Instead, the world produces constraints: we cannot always eat when we are
hungry, and we can discharge our sexual drives only when time, place-and-partner- are willing.
To account for this fact of life, Freud suggested a second part of a personality, which he called the ego.
The Ego: The ego provides a buffer between the id and the realities of the objective, outside world. In contrast to
the pleasure seeking nature of the id, the ego operates according to the reality principle, in which instinctual
energy is restrained in order to maintain the safety of the individual and helps integrate the person into society.
In a sense, then, the ego is the “executive” of personality: It makes decisions, controls actions, and allows thinking
and problem solving of higher order than the id is capable of.
The ego is also the seat of higher cognitive abilities such as intelligence, thoughtfulness, reasoning, and learning.
The superego: the final personality structure to develop, represents the rights and wrongs of society as handed
down by a person’s parents, teachers and other important figures.
It becomes part of personality when children learn right from wrong and continues to develop as people begin to
incorporate into their own standards the broad moral principles of the society in which they live.
The super ego actually has two parts, the conscience and the ego ideal. The conscience prevents us from doing
morally bad things, while the ego ideal motivates us to do what is morally proper.
The super ego helps to control impulses coming from the id, making them less selfish and more virtuous.
? Give examples of id, ego and superego?

2. Personality Dynamics and Levels of Consciousness

Freud did not intend to divide personality into three separate components but rather to convey a lively, ongoing
interplay among the id, the ego and the super ego. In this interplay Freud saw the ego acting as a sort of mediator
between the id-with its blind demands for instant gratification- and the superego-with its rigid, often irrational
rules, prohibitions and ideals. The ego’s task of satisfying both id and super ego requires a somewhat risky
balancing act. The ego’s task often involves finding a compromise between the instinctual gratification sought by
the id and the strict rule- following sought by the superego.
Thus, Freud’s general notion that our behavior's influenced by biological drives (id), social rules (super ego), and
mediating thought processes (ego) may not seem farfetched. However, his heavy emphasis on the primitive,
sexual nature of human drives and energy (libido) helped make his theory very controversial.
Less controversial but equally novel was Freud’s notion of unconscious processes. He used this concept to explain
why people often act in ways that seem irrational.
Freud proposed three levels of consciousness, awareness: the conscious, the preconscious, and the
unconscious.
 At the conscious level, we are aware of the certain things around us and of certain thoughts. At the
preconscious level are memories or thoughts that are easily available with a moment’s reflection.
 In contrast, the unconscious contains memories, thoughts, and motives, which we cannot easily call up.
Many of life’s experiences are painful, and the unconscious provides a “safe” haven for our recollection
of such events, a place where they can remain without continually disturbing us. Similarly, the
unconscious contains instinctual drives: infantile wishes, desires, demands, and needs that are hidden
from conscious awareness because of the conflicts and pain they would cause us if they were part of
our everyday lives.
 The entire id is unconscious; the ego and the superego include material at all three levels of
consciousness.
? Compare, contrast, and show relationships of the conscious, subconscious and unconscious
mind with examples?
3. Psychosexual Stages of Development
? What is the meaning of human development?
 Freud strongly believed that if people look at the development of their behavior, they could gain insight
into their current behavior.
 This belief led him to an elaborate stage theory of personality development. According to him the first
five years of life have a decisive effect on the development of the adult personality.
 Freud put a heavy emphasis on biological development in general and on sexual development in
particular. Freud’s idea was that from birth on we have an innate tendency to seek pleasure, especially
through physical stimulation and particularly through stimulation of parts of the body that are sensitive
to touch: the mouth, the anus, and genitals. Freud called these parts of the Erogenous Zones.
 Freud argued that all people pass through five critical stages of personality development.

 What is especially noteworthy about the stages is that they suggest how experiences and difficulties
during a particular childhood stage may predict specific sorts of idiosyncrasies in adult personality. The
theory is also unique in focusing each stage on a major biological function, which is assumed to be the
focus of pleasure in a given period.
 We turn now to a description of theses stages of personality called psychosexual stages.
The Oral Stage (12-18 months)
 In this first period of development the baby’s mouth is the focal point of pleasure. The infant at this
stage interacts with the world mainly through eating.
 Infants at this stage suck, and bite anything that will fit into their mouth.
 To Freud this behavior suggested that the mouth was the primary site of a kind of sexual pleasure, and if
infants either overly indulged or frustrated in their search for oral gratification, they might become
fixated at this stage.
 Fixation refers to an unresolved conflict or emotional hang-up caused by overindulgence or frustration.
Displaying fixation means that an adult shows personality characteristics that are related to an earlier
stage of development.
 For example fixation at the oral stage might produce an adult who was an usually interested in overtly
oral activities- eating, talking, smoking- or who showed symbolic forms of oral interests being “bitingly”
sarcastic or being very gullible (“swallowing” anything).
? What are the behaviors that can be formed in the oral stage?
The Anal Stage (12-18 until 3 years of age)
 This stage occurs when parents are toilet training their children and teaching them to avoid prohibited
behavior connected with excretion.
 At this point, the major source of pleasure changes from the mouth to the anal region, and children
derive considerable pleasure from both retention and expulsion of feces.
 If toilet training is particularly demanding, the result may be fixation. If fixation occurs during the anal
stage, Freud suggested that adults might show unusual rigidity, orderliness, punctuality- or extreme
disorderliness or sloppiness (carelessness, negligence).
? What skills are expected to develop during the anal stage of development?
Phallic Stage (age 3 to 5/6 years )
 This time, interest focuses on the genitals and the pleasures derived from fondling them. During this
stage pleasure, presumably, comes from masturbation, sex play, and other genital stimulation.
 This is a stage of one the most important points of personality development, according to Freudian
Theory, the Oedipal Conflict.
 As children focus their attention on their genitals, the differences between female and male anatomy
become more salient. Furthermore, at this time Freud believed that the male begins to develop sexual
interests toward his mother, starts to see his father as a rival, and harbors a wish to kill his father.
 But he views his father as too powerful; he develops a fear of retaliation in the form of “castration
Anxiety.” Ultimately, the fear becomes so powerful that the child represses his desires for his mother
and instead chooses identification with his father, trying to be as much like him as possible.

 For girls, the process is different. Freud reasoned that girls begin to feel sexual arousal toward their
fathers and that they begin to experience Penis Envy. They wish they had the anatomical part that
seemed most clearly “missing” in girls.
 Blaming their mothers for lack of a penis, they come to believe that their mothers are responsible for
their castration.
 As with males though they find that in order to resolve such unacceptable feelings, they must identify
with the same sex parent by behaving like her and adopting her attitudes and values.
 If difficulties arise during this period, all sorts of problems are thought to occur from this including
improper sex-role behavior, and the failure to develop a conscience.

? What makes phallic stage different from other stages?
Latency Stage (age 5 or 6 to 11 years)

 During this period, little of interest is occurring; sexual concerns are more or less put to rest, even in
the unconscious. As the child learns more about the world, sexuality is largely repressed and the ego
expands.
Genital Stage (age 11/12 and above)
 During adolescence sexual feelings reemerge, marking the start of the final period, the genital stage
that extends until death.
 The focus in the genital stage is on mature, adult sexuality, which Freud defined as sexual intercourse.
? What are the differences between genital and phallic stages?
Defense Mechanisms
 Defense mechanisms are normal coping processes that distort reality in the process of reducing
anxiety. They are unconscious strategies people use to reduce anxiety by concealing the source from
themselves and others.
 People use defense mechanisms to reduce their anxiety and guilt. Psychoanalytic theory holds that
because the id’s unconscious demands are instinctual, infantile and amoral they must often be blocked
by the ego and the superego. Because of this conflict and the persistence of unsatisfied demands,
anxiety (vague fearfulness) and guilt are aroused.
 The person then seeks way to protect the ego from this anxiety by setting up defenses. Freud described
several defense mechanisms by which the ego disguises, redirects, hides, and otherwise copes with the
id’s urges. The dynamic theorists who followed Freud have added others.
 Many psychologists do not agree with Freud’s view that defense mechanisms originate in conflicts
among the id, ego, and superego. However, many do agree that these mechanisms account for some of
the ways people cope with their problems.
 Thus, defense mechanisms- an intellectual bequest from the dynamic theories- are generally accepted
as a useful way of looking at how people handle stressful situations and conflicts.

In this section we’ll try to see some of these mechanisms.

 Repression: Repression is an active mental process by which a person “forgets” by “pushing down”
into the unconscious any thoughts that arouse anxiety. “We forget and then forget that we forgot.”
 Regression: In the face of a threat, one may retreat to an earlier pattern of adaptation, possibly a
childish or primitive one. This is called regression. This is to state that people using regression behave
as if they were in an earlier stage of development.
 Reaction Formation: Reversal of motives is another method by which people attempt to cope with
conflict. A motive that would arouse unbearable anxiety if it were recognized is converted into its
opposite.
 Projection: Blaming others or projection is a way of coping with ones unwanted motives by shifting
onto some one else. The anxiety arising from the internal conflict can then be lessened and the problem
dealt with as though it were in the external world.
 Rationalization: This defense mechanism substitutes an acceptable conscious motive for unacceptable
unconscious one. Put another way, “we make excuses” giving a reason different from the real one for
what we are doing.
 Intellectualization: Related to rationalization is intellectualization, which involves reasoning. In
intellectualization, however, the intensity of the anxiety is reduced by retreat into detached,
unemotional, abstract language.
 Displacement: In displacement, the motive remains unaltered, but the person substitutes a different
goal object for the original one. Often the motive is aggression that for some reason, the person cannot
vent on the source of the anger.
 Sublimation: Sublimation consists of a redirection of sexual impulses to socially valued activities and
goals.
Activity-12
Match Column A with column B
A B
1. Id A. Reality principle
2. Ego B . Moral principle
3. superego C. Defense mechanisms
4. psychosexual stages D Sigmund Freud
5. Repression E. Hippocrates
F.Pleasure principle

3. Learning Approaches
 Learning approaches to personality focus on the outer person. According to strict learning theorists,
personality is simply the sum of learned responses to the external environment.
 Internal events such as thoughts, feelings and motivations are ignored; though there existence is not
denied, learning theorists say that personality is best understood by looking at features of a person’s
environment.
B.F Skinner’s learning theory of personality

 According to the most influential of the learning theorists B.F. Skinner, personality is a collection of
learned behavior patterns. Similarities in response across different situations are caused by similar
patterns of reinforcement that have been received in such situations in the past.
 Strict learning theorists such as Skinner are less interested in the consistencies in behavior across
situations, however, than in ways of modifying behavior. Their view is that human beings are infinitely
changeable.
 If one is able to control and modify the patterns of reinforcers in a situation, behavior that other
theorists view as stable and unyielding can be changed and ultimately improved.
 Learning theorists are optimistic in their attitudes about the potential for resolving personal and
societal problems through treatment strategies based on learning theory.
Social Learning Theories of Personality

 Not all learning theories of personality take such a strict view in rejecting the importance of what is
“inside” the person by focusing on solely on the “outside.”
 Unlike other learning theories of personality, social learning theory emphasizes the influence of a
person’s cognitions- their thoughts, feelings, expectations, and values- in determining personality.
 According to Albert Bandura, the main proponent of this point of view, people are able to foresee the
possible outcome of certain outcomes in a given setting without actually having to carry them out. This
takes place mainly through the mechanism of observational learning- viewing the actions of others
and viewing the consequences.
 Bandura places particular emphasis on the role-played by self-efficacy, learned expectations regarding
success, in determining the behavior we display. Self- efficacy underlies people’s faith in their ability to
carry out behavior, regardless of how successful they have been in the past or what barriers currently
lie in their paths. The greater the person’s sense of self- efficacy, the more likely it is that success will
take place.
 Compared with other learning explanations of personality, social learning theories are distinctive in the
emphasis they place on the reciprocity between individuals and their environment. Not only is the
environment assumed to affect personality, but also people’s behavior and personalities are assumed to
“ feed back” and modify the environment-, which in turn affects behavior in a web of reciprocity.
 In fact, Bandura has suggested that reciprocal determinism is the key to understanding behavior. In
reciprocal determinism, it is the interaction of environment, behavior, and individual that ultimately
causes people to behave in the ways that they do.

4. Humanistic Theories of Personality

 The term “ humanistic psychology” was coined by Abraham Maslow to describe a position that focuses
on the creative potentialities inherent in human beings and that seeks ways to help them realize their
highest and most important goals. Virtually all of the humanistic theories postulate the existence of an
innate growth mechanism within individuals that will move them toward realization of their potentialities
if environmental conditions are right. This growth process has been variously labeled by its numerous
proponents as the drive toward self-actualization, self-realization or self-hood.
 The roots of the humanistic movement can be found in the writings of Jung, Adler, Horney, Kohut, Allport,
Maslow, Rogers, May, and others. These theorists emphasize the uniqueness of individuals and believe
that all individuals should be free to make their own choices about the direction they want to take in
their own lives.
 People should be allowed to organize and control their own behavior; they should not be controlled by
society. Society is generally seen as the “bad guy”- the enforcer of rules and regulations that stifle
personal growth.
 According to the humanists, a benevolent, helpful attitude toward people enables them to grow and
prosper. Most societies, they believe, by their very nature coerce individuals into behaving
appropriately- that is, normally. The result is rather dull, conventional people who usually obey, without
much question, the moral prescriptions of the majority. In other words, the result is the average, law-
abiding man or woman.
 The humanistic psychologists argue, instead, for allowing individuals to develop their fullest potential.
They see people as naturally striving to be creative and happy rather than mediocre and conventional. Of
course, the assumption that what is mediocre and what is conventional is open to question, especially in
a society that encourages people to strive for excellence.
 Another assumption underlying many of the humanist positions is that the universal set of values can be
specified that will provide people with a moral anchor so that they can decide what is right or wrong and
good or bad. Such a set of values, rooted in biology, would allow people to make moral decisions by
looking inside themselves, instead of relying on the judgments of society.
 Yet philosophers or psychologists have never been able to agree on a universal set of values, although
numerous attempts to devise such a list have occurred.
 In general, according to the humanistic theorists, all of the theories of personality that we have
previously discussed share a fundamental misperception in their views of human nature.
 Instead of seeing people as controlled by unconscious, unseen forces (as does psychoanalytic theory), a
set of stable traits (trait theory), or situational reinforcements and punishments (learning theory),
humanistic theory emphasizes people’s goodness and their tendency to grow to higher levels of
functioning.
 It is this conscious, self-motivated ability to change and improve, along with people’s unique creative
impulses that makes up the core personality.
 The major representative of the humanistic point of view is Carl Rogers. Rogers suggests that people
have a need for positive regard that reflects a universal requirement to be loved and respected.
Because others provide this positive regard, we grow dependent on them. We begin to see and judge
ourselves through the eyes of other people, relying on their values.
 According to Rogers one outgrowth of placing importance on the values of others is that there is often
some degree of mismatch between a person’s experiences and his or her self-concept, or self-

impression. If the discrepancy is minor, so are the consequences. But, if it is great, it will lead to
psychological disturbances in daily functioning, such as the experience of frequent anxiety.
 Rogers suggests that one way of overcoming the discrepancy between experience and self –concept is
through the recipient of unconditional positive regard from another person – a friend, a spouse or a
therapist.
 Unconditional positive regard refers to an attitude of acceptance and respect on the part of an
observer, no matter what a person says or does. This acceptance, says Rogers, allows people the
opportunity to evolve and grow both cognitively and emotionally, as they are able to develop more
realistic self-concepts.
 To Rogers and other humanist personality theorists, an ultimate goal of personality is self-actualization.
Self- actualization is a state of self-fulfillment in which people realize their highest potential.
 This, Rogers would argue, occurs when their experience with the world and their self-concept are
closely matched. People who are self-actualized accept themselves as they are in reality, which enables
them to achieve happiness and fulfillment.
Maslow’s Self-actualization Theory

 Maslow believed that each person has an essential nature that “presses” to emerge, like the “press”
within an acorn to become an oak tree.
 Maslow laid the groundwork for his theory of self-actualization by assuming that in each of us is an
intrinsic nature that is good or at least neutral. Because this inner nature is good or neutral, he argued,
encouraging its development enables individuals to maximize their potential. Healthy development is
likely, however, only in a society that “ offers all [the] necessary raw materials and then gets out of the
way and stands aside to let the … organism itself utter its wishes and demands and make its choices.”
 If the environment is restrictive and minimizes personal choice, the individual is likely to develop in
neurotic ways, because this inner nature is weak, and subject to control by environmental forces.
Maslow believed that our inner nature, though weak, remains and continuously presses toward
actualization
 In his view we all have higher-level growth needs-such as the need for self actualization and
understanding of ourselves- but these higher needs only assume a dominant role in our lives after our
more primitive needs (physiological needs, safety needs, needs for love and “belongingness” and self-
esteem needs are satisfied.
 Maslow directed most of his attention to establishing a psychology of personal growth and creative
striving, and he studied the behavior of psychologically healthy people in order to learn more about the
growth process.
 Maslow posited a universal stage emergent theory of personal development, in which the individual
must satisfy, at least to a certain extent, the lower needs before higher ones can become operative.
 The emergence or nonemergence of the stages depends on a considerable degree on the environment.
Environments that threaten the individual and do no allow for the satisfaction of basic needs are
detrimental to growth, whereas environments that support and gratify these needs promote growth
toward self-actualization.
 In Maslow’s view, environment is crucial in the early stages of development when people are struggling
to gratify basic needs. The needs for safety, love and belongingness all depend on the cooperation of
other people for gratification.

 Later on, as the higher needs emerge, people become, less dependent on the environment and on
rewards or approval from others.
 They rely increasingly on their own to guide behavior- and on their inner nature, capacities,
potentialities, talents and creative impulses.
Summary
With the assumption that the various dimensions of mind and behavior operate in interaction than in isolation, an
attempt is made to discuss in this unit personality as a by- product of such interaction.
Personality is a psychological name of an individual emerging as a result of the individual’s unique way of
integrating the various psychological dimensions. Personality is personified as a psychological integration having
the nature of distinctiveness and regularity.
An attempt is made also to survey the different theories of personality. Among the type of theories, trait
theories, psycho analytic theory and its variants and learning theories are given emphasis. These theories
commonly try to define the nature, causes and developments of personality but with different emphasis. Some of
these theories focus on the content of personality, others on biological and hereditary causes, while the rest
focus on environmental factors. Still others center on personality development. As indicated in the discussion,
personality is such a complex psychological functioning that the various theories need to be used in combination
for a better understanding of its nature.
 Self - Check Exercise Unit Seven

1. Discuss the similarities of personality theories?
___________________________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________________________
2. What are the differences between the theories of personality?

___________________________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________________
3. Which theory is correct and which is wrong? Why?
___________________________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________________________
4. Compare and contrast the major theories of personality in relation with their assumptions, themes,
supporters, contributions and limitations.
___________________________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________________________
5. When does a person lack distinctive personality?

___________________________________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________________________
6. What it means if we say that personality is the psychological name of an individual? explain it with
examples
_________________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________
7. If personality is about unique behavior of individuals, then do babies have unique personalities?
___________________________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________________
8. What happens to the uniqueness of the personalities of individuals as with age? Is it going to increase or
decrease? Why?
________________________________________________________________________________________

UNIT EIGHT
ABNORMAL PSYCHOLOGY
INTRODUCTION
Consider the following cases

A young woman who showed great academic promise in high school begins to have difficulty with her
studies in college. She feels lonely and becomes increasingly depressed and withdrawn.
A middle-age business man fed up with his stressful job and the demands of his suburban life-style, packs a small
bag and flees to the mountains determined to life in isolation.
How many of these people have a psychological disorder and need psychotherapist help? These are some of the
questions addressed in this unit. We begin by exploring the nature (definition and causes) of psychological
disorders first and then their types next.
Objectives
At the end of this unit, you are expected to:
 know the criteria used for defining what psychological disorders are
 explain the causes of psychological disorders
 identify the different types, characteristic features and symptoms of psychological disorders
 use different theories to explain the nature of abnormality
8.1 Definition and Causes of Psychological Disorders Overview

Dear student, try to examine and gives the reasons that can justify that the two cases mentioned above have
psychological problems, what makes people to behave way and the criteria used to give the judgments.
8.1.1 Definition of Psychological Disorders

People who exhibit abnormal patterns of feelings, thinking and behavior most likely suffer from some kind of
psychological disorders.
By the way what are the criteria used for determining that person has a psychological problem
? /disorder?
We generally have three main criteria: abnormality, maladaptiveness, and personal distress.
1. Abnormality
? Does a behavior deviate from the behavior of the “typical” person, the norm?
Abnormal behavior deviates from the behavior of the ‘typical’ person the norm. A society’s norm can be
qualitative and quantitative. When someone behaves in culturally unacceptable ways and the behaviors he/she
exhibit violates the norm, standards, rules and regulations of the society, this person is most likely to have a
psychological problem. Only abnormal behavior can not be sufficient for the diagnosis of psychological problem.
Hence, we need to consider the context in which a person’s behavior happens.
The context in which ‘abnormal’ behavior occurs must be considered before deciding that
 it is symptomatic of psychological disorders.
2. Maladaptiveness
? Does a person’s behavior seriously disrupt the social, academic, or life of an individual?
Maladaptive behavior in one way or another creates a social, personal and occupational problem on those who
exhibit the behaviors. These behaviors seriously disrupt the day-to-day activities of individuals that can increase
the problem more.
3. Personal Distress
Does a person’s behavior cause personal distress including feelings of anxiety, depression,
? hopelessness and self-defeating thoughts?
Our subjective feelings of anxiety, stress, tension and other unpleasant emotions determine whether we have a
psychological disorder. These negative emotional state arise either by the problem itself or by events happen that
on us. But, the criterion of personal distress, just like other criteria, is not sufficient for the presence of
psychological disorder. This is because of some people like feeling distressed by their own behavior. Hence,
behavior that is abnormal, maladaptive, or personally distressing might indicate that a person has a psychological
disorder.
8.2. Perspectives on Psychological Disorders Causes

8.2.1 The Biological Perspective
? Do you think that psychological disorders can be caused by biological factors?
Current researchers believe that abnormalities in the working of chemicals in the brain, called
neurotransmitters, may contribute to many psychological disorders. For example, over activity of the
neurotransmitter dopamine, perhaps caused by an overabundance of certain dopamine receptors in the brain,
has been linked to the bizarre symptoms of schizophrenia.
8.2.2 Psychological Perspectives

Do you think that psychological factors cause behavior disorders?
?
In this part, we will examine three psychological perspectives: the psychoanalytic perspective, the learning, and
the cognitive behavioral perspectives.

A. Psychoanalytic perspective
 Sigmund Freud, the founder of the psychoanalytic approach, believed that the human mind consists of
three interacting forces: the id (a pool of biological urges), the ego (which mediates between the id and
reality), and the superego (which represent society’s moral standards).
Abnormal behavior, in Freud’s view, is caused by the ego’s inability to manage the conflict between the
 opposing demands of the id and the superego. Especially important is the individuals’ failure to manage
the conflicting of id’s sexual impulses during childhood, and society’s sexual morality to resolve the
earlier childhood emotional conflicts that determine how to behave and think later.
B. Learning perspective
 Most mental and emotional disorders, in contrast to the psychoanalytic perspective, arise from
inadequate or inappropriate learning. People acquire abnormal behaviors through the various kinds of
learning
C. Cognitive perspective
 Our quality of internal dialogue whether we accept or not ourselves build ourselves up or tear ourselves
down has profound effect on our mental health. The main theme of this perspective is that self-defeating
thoughts lead to the development of negative emotions and self-destructive behaviors. People's ways
thinking about events inn their life determines their emotional and behavioral patterns. Most of the time
our thinking patterns in one way or another affects our emotional and behavioral well being in either
positive or negative ways. Hence, if there is a disturbance in on our thinking, it may manifest in our
display of emotions and behaviors. Our environmental and cultural experiences in our life plays a major
role in the formation of our thinking style.
? What are the main themes of psychoanalytic, learning and cognitive perspective?
8.2.3. Classification of Psychological Disorder

Classifying psychological disorders involves identifying sets of symptoms that tend to occur together. Each set of
symptom forms a syndrome. Thus, when we talk about anxiety, mania or depression, we are talking about
syndromes that clinicians have classified on the basis of their observations.
For the sake of limited space and convenience, we are just listing out the types of psychological disorder only
here.
A. Anxiety disorders
1) Panic disorder
2) Phobic disorders
3) Generalized anxiety disorder
4) Obsessive compulsive disorder
B. Somatoform disorders
1) Hypochondriasis
2) Conversion disorder
C. Dissociative disorder
1) psychogenic amnesia
2) Psychogenic fugue

D. Personality disorders
1) Antisocial personality disorder
2) Narcissistic personality disorder
3) Borderline personality disorder
E. Mood disorders
1) Depressive disorders
2) Bipolar disorders
2.1. Manic-depression
F. Schizophrenia
1) Disorganized type
2) Catatonic type
3) Persecutory type
4) Undifferentiated type
Summary
Abnormality manifests itself in one’s emotions, thinking and behaviors. The above major psychological disorders in
one way or another way express its symptoms in the patients’ emotions, thinking and behavior. The assignment of
the names of the disorders is based on the typical disorder’s emotional, behavioral and mental symptoms.
 Self-Check Exercise Unit Eight
1. Explain with examples how the three criteria of defining psychological problems are used. Show also the
problems of each criterion along with possible solutions.
2. Compare and contrast the three psychological perspectives discussed in this section.

 Answers Key - Unit One

The Essence of Psychology
Part One: Matching
1. C
2. D
3. E
4. B
5. A
Part Two
Schools Limitations Contribution to modern psychology
Structuralism Human mind, knowledge or consciousness is so complex It introduced a method of introspection and experimental
that it can’t be understood fully by studying elementary study in psychology,
sensations
Functionalism It does not suggest specific ways in which human mind It has helped psychologists to begin to apply psychology to
functions and effects behavior solving practical problems
Behaviorism It totally neglects the importance of studying human mind, It introduced the need for objectivity in psychological
heredity etc research. It also helped in designing theories of learning
Gestalt psychology It neglects the importance of studying behavior, the effect It emphasized how human mind actively processes
of sensation information, and perceives the reality
Psychoanalysis It minimizes the role of the conscious mind in affecting It brought to psychology a theory explaining the role of the
behavior. Everything is reduced to the unconscious mind unconscious mind and methods of studying it and a
technique for helping people that have problems.
Part Three
No Sub-fields of Specialization Academic Specialization Professional Specialization
1 Experimental psychology 
2 Counseling psychology 
3 Developmental psychology 
4 Clinical psychology 
5 Comparative psychology 
6 Biopsychology 
7 Sport psychology 
8 Health psychology 
9 Social psychology 
10 Personality psychology 

 Answers Key - Unit Two

Sensation and Perception
Activity-1
1. You may not be able to detect a stimulus
a. If the intensity of a stimulus is lower than the absolutes threshold.
b. if the change in intensity of stimulation is lower than the difference threshold , and
c. if the stimulation is unchanging or sensory adaptation.
2. Sensing dominantly involves detecting the physical energy (i.e. the stimulus) that is acting on the body.
Self- Check
Part -I
1. Form perception is about perception of two dimensional or flat objects and depth- perception is about
perception of three- dimensional figures having width, length and height.
2. perceptual constancy suggests that the size, colour, and shape of objects remain unchanged
despite changes in the distance, location, and perspective of the observer, Perceptual illusion
suggests, however, an exception to this phenomena, that the size, color and shape of objects may
change corresponding with changes in distance, location and perspective observers.
Part -II
About the figures
o Fig A is a triangle, not just a set of broken dots
o The law that works is the law of closure
o Fig B is a set of three pairs of parallel lines, not just six vertical lines.
o The law that works is the law of proximity.
 Answers Key- Unit Three

Learning
Activity-2
You may refer to the module text on operant conditioning for stimulus generalization, stimulus discrimination,
extinction, and spontaneous recovery.
1. Compare and Contrast
1.1 Stimulus generalization implies learning similarities between stimuli and stimulus discrimination
implies learning differences between stimuli.
1.2 Conditioning and extinction: conditioning is a process of converting a neutral stimulus into a
conditioned stimulus while extinction is converting the conditioned stimulus back to a neutral
stimulus
1.3 Extinction is something like forgetting and spontaneous recovery is something like remembering
2. Classical and Operant Conditioning
Classical Operant
 The founder is Pavlov  The founder is B.F skinner
 Sometimes called respondent learning  Sometimes called instrumental learning
 It implies stimulus learning  It implies response learning

 Response is containment on the stimulus  Stimulus is contingent on the response responses are
 Response are elicited emitted
3. Conditioning and Cognitive Learning
Conditioning Cognitive Learning

 Learning associations between events  Learning concepts, principles
 Reinforcement is directly involved  Reinforcement is indirect
 Learning is simple  Learning is complex
 Is common even in animals  Is dominantly a human learning
 Answers Key- Unit Four

Memory
Activity-3
Type of memory Type of information Capacity Characteristics Duration
1.Sensory memory First (original) information, un processed High capacity Acts as holding bin for a brief seconds (2
information seconds)
2.Short term memory Attended and recognized Information Low capacity  activeness For a longer seconds (30
from sensory memory  accessible seconds)
 sequential
arrangement of
information
 limited capacity
3.Long –term memory Permanent information No limit in  it is associated For a long period of time
capacity with meaningful  days
words,  months
concepts,  years
events  lifetime
(indefinite
periods)
Activity-4
1. Regarding the importance of memory
1.1 If you are without memory, then you are going to have no past, no experience, no learning, no behavior,
or simply no personality. Whatever you experience, you experience it in isolation from other
experiences and as new. Hence, you don’t benefit from it for your subsequent life.
1.2 Memory serves many purpose. First and foremost, it provides continuity to your life, behavior and
personality. Moreover, your memory helps you adapt to situation by letting you use the past
learning. Your memory still adds emotion to your life by helping you to relate good and bad
moments of the past.
1.3 Animals have the capacity to process information that enable them to recall and adapt in their
environments. Hence, if they have the capacity to recall the previous information we can say they
can memorize information.
2. Regarding types of memory, there are three major types of memory namely sensory memory, short term
memory and long term memory. More over, LTM has different subtypes such as declarative/ explicit memory,
semantic memory, episodic memory, and nondeclarative /implicit memory.

2.1 Regarding classification of memory

2.1.1 We can classify memory into three using the time spent for memory formation: sensory,
short-term and long term memory
2.1.2 Using the type of information to be memorized, we may classify it into procedural and
declarative memory; declarative memory being further divided into episodic and
semantic memory.
3. You can refer the different subtypes of LTM and their characteristics from module.
Activity-5
1. Recovering lost memories
Memory impairment takes different forms. It may be a normal daily experience or it may be more serious
occurring because of brain changes. If it occurs as a result of brain changes, it is more likely to be irreversible.
In normal forgetting, on t he other hand, the situation is less rigidly determined, and the questions can be raised
as to whether, and to what extent, lost memories can be recovered. Imagine that you ask a friend to list
everything she did last Sunday afternoon, and she could not say anything about meeting an old friend on the
street, which in fact she did. Can you conclude then that the event never happened but that she has lost her
memory of it? What if you ask her whether she did meet a friend and she now responds affirmatively? Would
this not suggest that your friends memory only appeared to be lost?
With respect to the question of recovering lost memories, the logic of the situation is there fore simple: if the
information stored about a fact has been radically changed, or erased altogether, as in brain changes, then
there is no way it can be recovered, and no way it can be stored. If on the other hand, retrieval fails because
of inadequate retrieval cues, then it is quite possible that the provision of more effective cues could enable a
person to recover a lost memory.
2. Improving your memory
A century ago, William James (1890/1981) criticized those who claimed that memory ability could be improved
by practice. To James, memory was a fixed, inherited ability and not subject to improvement.
Regardless of the extent to which memory ability is fixed and inherited, we can certainly make better use of
the ability we have by improving our study habits and by using mnemonic devices. Let us see separately how
these two strategies work out.
Study habits
Given two students with equal memory ability, the one with better study habits will probably perform better in
school. To practice good study habit, you would begin by setting up a schedule in which you would do the bulk
of your studying when you are most alert and most motivated. You should also study in a quiet, comfortable
place, free of distractions.
As for particular study techniques, you might consider the SQ4R method (Robinsn, 1970). SQ4R stands for Survey
Question, Read, Recite, and Review. This method has proved helpful to students in college.
You might also apply other principles. First, take advantage of over learning; studying the material until you feel
you know all of it and then going over it several more times. Also, use distributed practice instead of massed
practice.

Mnemonic devices
These are techniques for organization information to be memorized to make it easier to remember. Below are
some of the mnemonic devices.
i. Method of loci: a method in which items to be recalled are associated with landmarks in familiar
place and then recalled during a mental walk from one land marks to another. For example, in
using the method of loci to recall a shopping list, you would pair each item on the list with a
familiar place. You would then take a mental tour, retrieving items as you go.
ii. Acronym- involves forming a term from the first letters of a series of words that are to be
recalled.
iii. Page word method – a method that involves associating terms to be recalled with objects that
rhyme with the numbers 1,2,3 and so on, to make the items easier to recall.
Part one: Matching
1. B 2. F 3. E 4. A 5. D 6. C 7. G
Part two: short-answer
1. Short –term memory is active easily accessible, preserves temporal sequence of information and
limited capacity.
2. It is the clustering or packing of related information into higher order units that can be remembered as
single unit
3. Memory improvement can be enhanced via:
 Paying attention
 Addition of meaning
 Encoding information more than once
 Over learning/practice
 Monitoring of learning activities
 Answers Key- Unit FIVE

Motivation
Activity-6
Part- I Matching
1. A 2. B 3. D. 4. C 5. E 6. F 7. G 8. H 9. J 10. K
Part- II Short Answer

1.
 Hunger
 Pain for avoidance
 Sleep and oxygen
2.
 Curiosity ( interest to know 5th )
 Exploration of the environment
 Manipulation of the environment
3.
 Academic achievement
 The need for power/ status
 Need for approval by other
Activity-7
1. C 2. B 3. D 4. A
Self-check Exercise
Part- I
1. A 2. C 3. F 4. E 5. B 6.D 7. G
Part – II
1. Motivation as an underlying factor or human behavior affects behavior in many ways. First, it initiates a
behavior. Second, it gives direction to behavior. Third, it strengthens a behavior. And, fourth, it sustains a
behavior in action. Hence, motivation is everything about human behavior: an originator, a director and
energizer of a behavior. Understanding its motivational patterns.
2. All human motives may be classified into any one of the following types.
 Internal and external motives, or
 Learned and unlearned (or primary and secondary motives), or
 Conscious and unconscious motives, or
 intrinsic and extrinsic motives, or
 Tension-reduction and arousal motives.
3. We can motivate a person for and activity first and foremost by helping him/her visualize and drive meaning
and purpose in the activity. Then the person is helped to be performed. Goal setting are the establishment of
a particular level of performance to achieve in the future. Goals increase motivation and improve
performance by providing incentives. The goals help person to focus his/her attention increase his/her to
develop strategies for reaching them. Management by objectives, in which employees participate in setting
goals, has been especially effective in increasing productivity.
4. There is no one best theory of motivation. Each of them can help us understand some aspects of our
behavior. Because human behavior is complex, we need to use all the theories combined to fully understand
this complexity.
5. Frustration is a state of psychological disturbance because of:
 Inability to reach one’s goal-blockage of a goal directed behavior-as in the case of a student who
works hard to get a highly valued college diploma but get academic dismissal for lack of ability.
 Pursuing a goal originally perceived as a substitute for the valued one later discovered it is- not
diversion from a goal –as in a student who has a strong material need but stays long in a colleges
for getting his first, second and terminal degrees hoping higher degrees bring better paying jobs.
 Losing an already achieved goal quite early –as in a loss of property because of theft, destruction
by fire of accidents or loss of and intimate love partner before consuming the emotional
investment.
6. There are a number of things, to be done for helping a person frustrated with conflict of motives. Some of
these include the following

 Helping the person understand the source and extent of the problem
 Helping the person to capitalize on the positive aspect of the achieved goal
 Helping the person down play the importance of the rejected goal
 Helping the person look for substitute mechanisms for reducing the negative side –effects of the
achieved goal
 Helping the person accept the inevitable
 Helping the person learn to look forward and stop backward
 Helping the person to see the unsuccessful past not as a failure but as a lesson or as on
opportunity for knowing what decisions could not work out.
Answers Key - Unit Six

Emotion and Stress
Activity-8
1. Lie detectors are machines that try to measure physiological changes in an individual under some kind of
stimulations e.g. they register sympathetic like changes of increase in heart rate, dilation of the pupils,
increase in blood pressure. They are used to detect lies in a sense that the person is asked questions
relating to the event he/she is suspected of lying.
2. Lie detector may prove effective in less sophisticated and inexperienced individuals as they are innocent in
controlling their body at the time the test is made. They are less likely to be relaxed and more nervous,
perhaps believing that the machine has a magical power to read ones lies. Lie detector is, however, a liar
itself if the subject under investigation is skillful and experienced in controlling his body, such as, appearing
relaxed during the test. The lie detector is, under this circumstance, getting no sympathetic changes to
register.
3. Examples of body movements and facial expressions showing positive and negative feelings
 Body movement
- Positive felling splendid and relaxed movements that take much space in talking and walking
- Negative feeling – violent movements and restlessness that forcibly capture others’ attention.
 Facial expressions
- Positive feeling- smiling, and laughing to others when talking.
- Negative feeling- bad face, non smiling and non laughing and failure to took in to others when
talking.
Activity-9
James- Lange and Cannon- Bard theories of emotions are similar in that they both capitalize on the occurrences
of physiological changes in emotional experiences. But, they differ in terms of the following issues.
1. James- Lange theory argues that the physiological changes occur before our subjective awareness of
them. The Cannon- Bard theory, on the other hand, holds that physiological changes are internal and
unknown to the person and hence they may occur together with our subjective feelings but can’t
precede them at all.
James – Lange theory argues, that there are different kinds of physiological arousal for positive and negative
emotions. But, Cannon- Bard theory suggests that the same kind of arousal underlies all kinds of feelings; the
difference being that of meaning giving.

Activity-10
1. a. Life changes
b. Pressure
c. Frustration
d. conflict of motives
2. Efforts to change the situation
Efforts to alter one’s cognition about the situation
Efforts to alter the unpleasant emotional consequences of the stress.
Self-Check
1. The essence of human emotion lies in the fact that it is three things in one. It is a physiological change
taking a cognitive meaning that eventually translates into an action. If it is only a physiological change,
it is likely to be similar so such physiological processes as digestions, respiration or circulation with
little psychological effect, If it is purely mental, emotion becomes similar to knowledge , ability or aptitude
no feeling of love, hate, fear…. If it is purely behavioral, it turns out to resemble the different kinds of
skills we perform practically. So the fact that emotion is three things in one makes us distinct from
biological animals, intelligent computers, and skillful robots that perform perfect operations. What is
lacking in each of these three is an emotion that is characteristically human; that is an integration of body,
mind and behavior. So, emotion is an emotion because all the three dimensions are equally important.
2 Verbal and non-verbal expressions contradict any time a person is insincere.
Part-II Matching
1. D 2. E 3. C 4. B 5. A
 Answers Key - Unit Seven

Personality
Activity-11
1. Hyppocratus body fluids (humors) and their corresponding temperament
Body fluid Temperament for personality type Characteristics

Prominence of blood Sanguine person Warm hearted and pleasant
Excess of phlegm Phlegmatic person Listless, slow, disorganized
Excess of black bile Melancholic person Depressed and sad
Prominence of yellow bile Choleric person Easily augured and quick to react
Activity-12
1. F 2. A 3. B 4. D 5. C

Self-Check Exercise
1. All theories of personality propose that regularities in behavior (exhibited by the same individual) can
best be explained by identifying the stable and persistent traits that underlie behavior. They also
attribute individual differences in observable behavior to differences in underling personality traits.
2. Different theories focus on different individual psychological dimensions. They are different across
themselves on the question of which traits are important and how they develop. Some theories focus
on temperament while other emphasis on drives (motives). Again, some personality theories emphasis
on the thinking process, other give attention to observable behaviors.
3. each theory has it own contribution to the understanding, explanation prediction of human personality.
They look personality in different angles with justification to explain in the way they like. Hence, there
is no correct as well as wrong theory of personality. However, they have their own strengths and
limitation inherent on themselves.
4.
Theory Assumptions, theme and emphasis Supporters Contribution Limitations

Type theories - biology determines personality Sheldon, Hyppocratus The importance of biology Interpretation of
- people are different due differences in Jung in personality personality only in
personality terms of
psychological
types
Trait theories The magnitude of personality types Allport, Cattell, etc Assist in knowing the Interpolation of
determines personality differences across components of personality personality only
people in terms of traits (
characteristics)
Dynamic Unconscious motives determines one’s S. Freud, Adler, Erickson, Discovery of the role of Difficulty to study
theories personality Jung unconscious unconscious
scientifically
Learning Environment is the source of personality, Bandura, Skinner Showed the importance Neglects the
theories it is learned from the environment ,Pavlov, Watson of environment importance of
genes (heredity)
5. A person lacks distinctive personality when he/she:

- Conforms to group norms, expectations and behaviors
- Show situation specific behaviors
6. It simply means that like our name, our personality designates those characteristics that are unique
and relatively permanent.
7. Even if babies exhibit some what similar behaviors, they do not show exact similarity. Even if identical
twins show a lot of similarity in emotional expression, mental activities, and behavioral dispositions, they
have their own unique personalities.
8. Personality gets more unique with age because experience is getting into it.

 Answers Key- Unit Eight

Abnormal Psychology
1. Criteria of psychological disorders
A. Deviation from the norm
Problem: the same behavior can be taken for having different meanings
Solution: consider the context while we judge behaviors
B. Maladaptiveness: a behavior is maladaptive if it interfere as a person’s academic, social and
occupational life.
Problem: some strange behaviors can be taken as abnormal behaviors even if the person is
healthy.
Solution: consider the situation of the person along with the criterion of maladaptiveness
C. Personal distress: the behavior produces anxiety, worry, depression for the individual
Problem: many healthy people’s different disturbances can be considered as maladaptive and
abnormal
Solution: combination of personal distress along with the other two
2. The three major perspectives basically try to explain the etiologies of psychological disorders. But the
biological perspective searches for biological factors, the psychological perspective looks for
psychological factors, and the psychoanalytic perspective looks for early childhood unconscious
emotional conflicts.

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Module for the Course Introduction to Psychology

1.2 Definition of Psychology

1 Prepared by: Workneh Kebede (School of Psychology, AAU)

? What are the goals of psychology?

1.4 The Emergence of Psychology as a Science

Pre- Scientific Psychology

1.4.2. The Early Schools of Psychology

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? How are these schools different from one another?

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Section-2: Theory, Methods and Sub-fields of Psychology

2.1. Theoretical Perspectives of Psychology

c. The Cognitive Perspective

7 Prepared by: Workneh Kebede (School of Psychology, AAU)

d. The Socio-Cultural Perspective

f. The Humanistic Perspective

8 Prepared by: Workneh Kebede (School of Psychology, AAU)

2.2. Research Methods in Psychology

In this sense, psychological research is typically used for the following:

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Research Biases in an Experiment

2.3. Psychology as a Profession: Practice

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2.3.2. Professional Fields of Specialization

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Goal of Scientific Research

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No Sub-fields of specialization Academic specialization Professional specialization

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2.1.1 Sensory Thresholds

How much intense must a sound be for you to detect it?

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Signal Detection Theory

2.1.2 Sensory Adaptation

Sensory Deprivation and Sensory Overload

18 Prepared by: Workneh Kebede (School of Psychology, AAU)

2.2.1 Visual Perception: Constructing the Visual World

How Environment Affects attention?

2.2.2 Gestalt Principles of Grouping

Figure -1 Figure -2 Figure -3 Figure- 4

20 Prepared by: Workneh Kebede (School of Psychology, AAU)

2.2.3 Form Perception

2.2.4 Movement Perception

21 Prepared by: Workneh Kebede (School of Psychology, AAU)

2.2.5 Perceiving Distance

2.2.6 Maintaining Perceptual Constancy

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Perceptual illusion (visual illusion)

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Extrasensory Perception (ESP)

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 Self –Check Exercise Unit Two

PART I- COMPARE AND CONTRAST

 What do you see? _______ What do you see? _____

25 Prepared by: Workneh Kebede (School of Psychology, AAU)

 What do you see? ___ What do you see? _