What is Psychology?

 Psychology is the scientific study of mind

(mental processes) and behavior.
 The word “psychology” comes from the
Greek words “psyche” meaning life.
 And “logos” means explanation.
 What Do Psychologists Do?

 Teach and conduct research in colleges and

universities

 Provide mental health services

 Conduct research or apply its findings in

nonacademic settings
 Why Do You Think?

 Why do you think

these people are
behaving the way
they are?
 What Do Psychologists Do?

 We want to know why things happen, when they

are likely to happen again, and how to
reproduce or change them.

 Such knowledge enables us to predict our own

behavior and that of others.
 Early Psychologists

 The earliest psychologists that we know about are the

Greek philosophers Plato (428–347 BC) and Aristotle
(384–322 BC).

 These philosophers asked many of the same

questions that today’s psychologists ask; for instance,
they questioned the distinction between nature and
nurture and the existence of free will .
History of Psychology:
Platon

 For the debate of existence of free will

 Greek philosopher Plato argued on the
nature side, believing that certain kinds
of knowledge are innate or inborn.
History of Psychology: Aristotle

 Greek naturalist and philosopher who theorized about

learning, memory, motivation, emotion, perception,
and personality.

 Aristotle was more on the nurture side, believing that

each child is born as an “empty slate” (tabula rasa)
and that knowledge is primarily acquired through
learning and experience.
History of Psychology: Descartes

 René Descartes (1596–1650) also considered the

issue of free will, believing that the mind controls
the body through the pineal gland in the brain.
 He also addressed the relationship between mind
(the mental aspects) and body (the physical
aspects).
 History of Psychology

 The fundamental problem that these philosophers

faced was that they had few methods for settling
their claims.
 Most philosophers didn’t conduct any research on
these questions, because they didn’t know how to
do it, and they weren’t sure it was even possible to
objectively study human experience.
 History of Psychology

 But dramatic changes came during the 1800s with

the help of the first two research psychologists
 The German psychologist Wilhelm Wundt
(1832–1920), who developed a psychology
laboratory in Germany, and the American
psychologist William James (1842–1910), who
founded a psychology laboratory at Harvard.
 Birth of Psychology
Wilhelm Wundt:
Father of Psychology

 1879: Leipzig, Germany.

 Intended to make psychology
a reputable science.
 Most of his experiments on
sensation and perception.
 Wilhelm Wundt:
Father of Psychology

Wundt believed that it was possible to analyze



the basic elements of the mind and to classify

our conscious experiences scientifically.

Wundt began the field known as structuralism, a



school of psychology whose goal was to identify

the basic elements or “structures” of
psychological experience.
 Wilhelm Wundt:
Father of Psychology

 His goal was to create a “periodic table” of the

“elements of sensations”
 Structuralists used the method of introspection to
study the elements of consciousness.
 Introspection is about looking inward at one’s own
mental processes and applied by describing exactly
what one experience as he/she works on mental tasks,
such as viewing colors, solving math, or reading a text.
 Can you read this?

This is bcuseae the

huammn mnid deos not
raed ervey lteter by
istlef, but the word as a
wlohe. Amzanig, huh?
 E.B. Titchener

 Wundt’s student.
 Taught at Cornell University. Studied
nature of mental experiences.
 Using introspection, he claimed to have
identified more than 40,000 sensations,
including those relating to vision, hearing,
and taste.
 E.B. Titchener

 Structuralism: Analyze sensations,

images and feelings into their most
basic elements.
 Structuralism marked the beginning of
psychology as a science, because it
demonstrated that mental events could
be quantified.
 E.B. Titchener

 The structuralists also discovered the

limitations of introspection.
 Even highly trained research participants were
often unable to report on their subjective
experiences.
 When the participants were asked to do
simple math problems, they could easily do
them, but they could not easily answer how
they did them.
 William James:
1842-1910
 Claimed that searching for building
blocks was a waste of time because
brain and mind are constantly changing:
focused on function.
 Functionalism. Underlying causes and
practical consequences of certain behaviors
and mental strategies: “Stream of
Consciousness.”
 Expanded psychology to animal behavior.
 William James:
1842-1910
 Just as some animals have developed strong
muscles to allow them to run fast, the human brain,
so functionalists thought, must have adapted to
serve a particular function in human experience.

 The work of the functionalists has developed into the

field of evolutionary psychology, a branch of
psychology that applies the Darwinian theory of
natural selection to human and animal behavior
Psychodynamic Psychology

 Psychodynamic approach to understanding behavior,

which was championed by Sigmund Freud
(1856–1939).
 The approach was developed by Sigmund Freud
(1856-1939) to understand human behavior that
focuses on the role of unconscious thoughts, feelings,
and memories.
 Freud developed his theories about behavior through
extensive analysis of the patients that he treated in
his private clinical practice.
 Psychodynamic Psychology:
Sigmund Freud

 He believed that many of the problems that his

patients experienced like depression were the result
of the effects of painful childhood experiences that
the person could no longer remember.
 The psychodynamic approach believe that it is
possible to help the patient if the unconscious
drives can be remembered.
Present Day Psychology

Behavioristic Theory
Expanded psychology into many
groups that could not be studied by
introspection.
All behavior is observable and
measurable.
Abandoned mentalism for
behaviorism.
 Behaviorism
 Behaviorism is based on the premise that it is not
possible to objectively study the mind, and therefore
psychologists should study behavior itself.

 Behaviorists believe that the human mind is a “black box”

, and there is no point in trying to determine what
happens in the box because we can successfully predict
behavior without knowing what happens inside the mind.
 Behaviorism
 Ivan Pavlov, 1849-1936.
 Russian experimenter who showed
automatic/involuntary behavior in
learned responses to specific
stimuli in the environment.
 Created “Classical Conditioning.
”
 Behaviorism
 John Watson, 1913.
 Psychology can never be as objective as
chemistry or biology. Consciousness is
not that easy.
 “I can take a child and make him into
anything, a beggar, a doctor, a thief.”
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=ilfRRntiKPE
 Behaviorism
 In his research Watson found that systematically
exposing a child to fearful stimuli in the presence of
objects that did not themselves elicit fear could lead
the child to respond with a fearful behavior to the
presence of the stimulus.

 In line with the behaviorist approach, the boy had

learned to associate the white rat with the loud noise,
resulting in crying.
 Behaviorism
 B.F. Skinner, 1950’s.
 Dismissed importance of inherited traits and
instincts about human behavior.
 Believed that all behavior is a result of rewards and
punishments in the past.
 He argued that free will is an illusion and that all
behavior is determined by environmental factors.
 Behaviorism
 He expanded the principles of behaviorism.
 Skinner used the ideas of stimulus and response, along with
the application of rewards or reinforcements, to train pigeons
and other animals.
 All in all, the behaviorists made substantial contributions to
psychology by identifying the principles of learning.
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MOgowRy2WC0
 Behavioristic Theory

Criticisms: Excluded all behavior that

cannot be seen.
All behavior cannot be explained by
rewards and punishments.
Treats people like robots as if they have
no free-will.
 Cognitive Theory

 Cognitive psychology is a field of psychology that studies

mental processes, including perception, thinking, memory,
and judgment.
 According to cognitive psychologists, ignoring the mind
itself will never be sufficient because people interpret the
stimuli that they experience.
 Neuroimaging is the use of various techniques to provide
pictures of the structure and function of the brain.
 Cognitive Theory
 German psychologist Hermann Ebbinghaus studied
the ability of people to remember lists of words under
different conditions.
 Bartlett created short stories that were in some ways
logical but also contained some very unusual and
unexpected events.
 Bartlett discovered that people found it very difficult to
recall the stories exactly because they did not fit the
participants’ expectations about how stories should go.
 Social-Cultural Psychology
 The field of social-cultural psychology is the study of
how the social situations and the cultures in which
people find themselves influence thinking and
behavior.
 An important aspect of social-cultural psychology are
social norms. Norms include customs, traditions,
standards, and rules, as well as the general values of
the group.
 Many of the most important social norms are
determined by the culture in which we live
 Social-Cultural Psychology
 Norms in Western cultures are primarily
oriented toward individualism, which is about
valuing the self and one’s independence from
others.

 Norms in the East Asian culture, are oriented

toward collectivism. In these cultures children
are taught to focus on developing harmonious
social relationships with others.
 Sociocultural Psychology

 Criticisms: Underestimated personal and

overestimated social influences on our
behavior.
 Makes broad generalizations about ethnic
groups and cultures.
 Humanistic Theory:
1950’s-60’s

 Emphasize free-will,
 People not completely ruled by
environment or past experience,
 Able to control one’s own choices
and destinies to achieve full
human potential.
 Humanistic Theory
 Abraham Maslow: Hierarchy of
Needs: People’s struggle is to be
the best they possibly can,
known as self-actualization.
 Carl Rogers:

Believed all people strive for perfection;

some interrupted by a bad
environment.
 Humanistic Theory

 Criticisms: Believes all people are

good and that people have the
ability to heal themselves.
 Too vague, more of a philosophy for
life than a psychology.
 Eclecticism

 Utilizing of diverse theories and schools

of thought.
 Mosaic, no single approach can create
the whole picture.
 Unlikely for psychology to ever have a
unifying paradigm.
 Grand theories replaced by more specific
ones.