Connecting Themes

1. Connecting Themes • The GADOE organizes each subject into a series of standards that are divided into units • The 1st unit is called “Concepts Found in Psychology” and includes 5 Connecting Themes that are found throughout the study of Psychology • Your job is to examine and understand each connecting theme. My job is to make it as interesting as I can.

2. The idea behind the 1st unit is for you to see underlying themes that recur in each of the subsequent units of study (That’s me trying to sound smart.). • The connecting themes serve as a foundation for you to build your house of Psychological knowledge (lame alert).

3. Connecting Themes • Beliefs and Ideals • Culture • Human Environment Interaction • Individuals, Groups, Institutions • Technological Innovations Sounds exciting, right?

4. As I elaborate on each connecting theme, I want you to BRIEFLY respond to the prompts that follow. You will have a chance to elaborate later.

5. In Addition… • After responding to the prompts on each of the following slides, I want you to create a unique question for each connecting theme. • Questions should focus on how each connecting theme relates to you personally. • Or how each has affected your life • Questions should be designed to elicit conversation.

6. I. Beliefs and Ideals: The student will understand that the beliefs and ideals of a society influence the social, political, and economic decisions of that society. • Identify the most fundamental ideals and beliefs of American society. • Identify your fundamental ideals and beliefs. Specifically, how do each of these beliefs and ideals affect your decisions? • Why did you decide to study psychology? • How do the beliefs and ideals of our society directly affect the way we view psychology? *___________________________________

7. II. Individuals, Groups, Institutions: The student will understand that the actions of individuals, groups, and/or institutions affect society through intended and unintended consequences. • When and how have your actions been affected by an individual, group, or institution? (i.e. individual = you, group = family, institution = school) • Which actions have you taken that ended up much different than you intended as a result of interaction with others? *___________________________________

8. III. Innovation: The student will understand that technological innovations have consequences, both intended and unintended, for a society. • How has technology influenced your life? • What are some examples of how technology in your life ended up producing a result you had not expected? *___________________________________

9. IV. Human Environmental Interaction: The student will understand that humans, their society, and the environment affect each other. • How has the environment (your surroundings, nurture, etc.) affected your thoughts and behaviors? • How do humans, their society, and the environment affect each other? *___________________________________

10. V. Culture: The student will understand that the culture of a society is the product of the religion, beliefs, customs, traditions, and government of that society. • How would you define your culture? • What are some of your culture’s traditions and customs? *___________________________________

11. Socratic Seminar

12. Prologue: The Story of Psychology

13. Prologue: The Story of Psychology Psychology’s Roots • Prescientific Psychology • Psychological Science is Born • Psychological Science Develops

14. Prologue: The Story of Psychology Contemporary Psychology • Psychology’s Big Debate • Psychology’s Three Main Levels of Analysis • Psychology’s Subfields

15. Psychology more than a therapist and a couch

16. How is Psychology defined? Psyche + Logos

17. Today, Psychology is defined: The Scientific study of behavior and mental processes.

18. How old is Psychology?

19. Prescientific • Thinking about thinking / using deductive reasoning to understand mental processing • Logic and reasoning • Nature of the soul • Empiricism/inductive reasoning (based on observation) • Dark ages-Renaissance • I think therefore I am • Blank slate • Modern/Scientific • 1879 • Psychoanalysis ? • Behaviorism • Technology and mental processing

20. Psychsim Activity Psychology’s Timeline

23. Checking for Understanding • Who is credited with some of the earliest Psychological insight? • Put these figures in sequential order. • Which 2 Psychological questions did they debate?

24. Early History • The Greeks (Socrates, Plato, Aristotle) are credited with some of the earliest insights into Psychology • They debated the nature of the soul • They debated whether knowledge was innate or learned

25. Prescientific Psychology Socrates (469-399 B.C.) and Plato (428-348 B.C.) http://www.law.umkc.edu http://www.law.umkc.edu Socrates Plato Socrates and his student Plato believed the mind was separate from the body, the mind continued to exist after death, and ideas were innate.

26. “The unexamined life is not worth living.” -Socrates

27. Aristotle Embraces Empiricism • Empiricism • The belief that knowledge comes from experience via the senses • Science should rely on observation and experimentation

28. Prescientific Psychology Aristotle (384-322 B.C.) http://faculty.washington.edu Aristotle suggested that the soul is not separable from the body and that knowledge (ideas) grow from experience.

29. “The roots of education are bitter, but the fruit is sweet.” -Aristotle

30. Differing Perspectives • Socrates and Plato relied on deductive reasoning (based on logic) to reach their conclusions. • Aristotle arrived at different conclusions, partly due to the fact the he relied on inductive reasoning(using observations or examples to arrive at generalizations). • A precursor to modern Science

31. Plato’s Cave Allegory Plato’s theory seeks to explain human behavior and mental processes, but he does so in a decidedly unscientific way.

32. Faulty Logic • Even so, Aristotle missed the mark on many of his conclusions: • mice die if the drink in the summer-time • Eels are generated spontaneously • Humans only have eight ribs • Men have more teeth than women • Mind must be in the heart • Can survive blow to head • Heart wounds most often fatal • Brain’s function= to cool the blood when overly warm

33. Dualism vs. Monism The debate between dualists (Socrates and Plato), who believe that the mind can exist separately from the body, and monists (Aristotle), who believe the mind and body are different aspects of the same thing, continues today. Are you a monist or dualist?

34. P-3 from IRM Reverse the following: 3,6,7,8,10,12,15,17,20,22,24,25, and 27 1=5, 2=4, 3=3, 4=2, 5=1

35. Medieval period void of Psychological insight • Plague and the Church • Renewed interest

36. Renaissance and Enlightenment brought renewed interest

37. Prescientific Psychology Rene Descartes (1596-1650) http://www.spacerad.com http://ocw.mit.edu Descartes, like Plato, believed in soul (mind)-body separation (a Dualist), but wondered how the immaterial mind and physical body communicated.

38. Reflex Theory • He proposed a mechanism for automatic reaction in response to external events • “external motions affect the peripheral ends of the nerve fibrils ,which in turn displace the central ends. As the central ends are displace, the pattern of interfibrillar space is rearranged and the flow of animal spirits is thereby directed into the approptiate nerves”

39. handout

40. “I think…therefore I am.” Descartes believed that the only thing that he could prove was that he existed. All else was conjecture, based on previous assumptions.

41. Prescientific Psychology Francis Bacon (1561-1626) http://www.iep.utm.edu Bacon is one of the founders of modern science, particularly the experimental method.

42. Prescientific Psychology John Locke (1632-1704) biografieonline.it/img/bio/John_Locke.jpg Locke held that the mind was a tabula rasa, or blank sheet, at birth, and experiences wrote on it.

43. http://www.ted.com/talks/steven_pinker_chalks_it_up_to_the_blank_slate.htmlhttp://www.ted.com/talks/steven_pinker_chalks_it_up_to_the_blank_slate.html • Stop on inborn morality (7:45) • W2W- Is morality universal or relative? • Support your opinion with as much detail as possible

44. Prescientific Psychology What is the relation of mind to the body?

45. Prescientific Psychology How are ideas formed?

46. Psychological Science is Born Structuralism Titchner (1867-1927) Wundt (1832-1920) Wundt and Titchener studied the elements (atoms) of the mind by conducting experiments at Leipzig, Germany, in 1879.

47. Let’s have a little learning fun.

48. Famous Faces and Graphinitions

49. History of Psychology Graphic Timeline See handout. Read Prologue. As you do so, gather information into the following graphic organizer. Note: Your textbook does not contain all necessary information.

50. Psychological Science is Born Functionalism James (1842-1910) Mary Calkins Influenced by Darwin, William James established the school of functionalism, which opposed structuralism.